September Newsletter: Security Updates, New Interface, And a Little Bit More

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That’s it! Summer is officially over, and we all have to get our noses back to the grindstone. The Pumpkin Spice Latte is back on the menu, and we have a lot of new stuff to tell you… Welcome to the September Newsletter

New Releases – The things you have been waiting for

Security Updates

Okay, it sounds a bit dull, but we do take your data security extremely seriously. Enhanced phone validation, increasing password complexity, and updated encryption algorithms have all happened this past month. If that isn’t enough, every member of our staff across all locations has undertaken security awareness training and testing. We know how to keep your data safe! Ours too.

We always aspire to best practices, and we’ve applied policies and procedures, software and hardware controls for security and data protection. However, the human factor should always be kept in mind. That is why we regularly teach all our personnel to recognise and manage security problems that may occur.

Line Messenger integration bot

The Chinese market has the messenger bot they have been awaiting. Line is a messenger app, much like FB Messenger, and they now have an integrated booking bot that makes things as easy as booking through FB or Messenger. After a lot of testing the integrated bot is ready for booking appointments via Line.

The NEW Custom Features Interface

We’ve been working on this all Summer! We’ve been dying to get this new release out because it makes the custom features so much more accessible. 

The new interface is so much easier to search, navigate, and features are easier to enable and configure for your specific business needs. Every custom feature has an individual settings page that allows you to adjust the settings. Notification templates for email and SMS are also right there to be customised. 

We’re delighted with this new interface. Every custom feature has a detailed description, with important information about configuration and its usefulness for your business. 

Payment Integration Updates

We didn’t want you waiting around for the Stripe payment integration updates, so this has been a priority. If you wish to check the upgrades that Stripe has enabled, please check here.

What have we got coming up?

Google Reserve

We wanted to get this up and running for you all this month (sigh). However, we have done all of our testing, and it’s ready to go. We’re just waiting on approval from Google, and then it will be all systems go!

New Notifications

It has been noticed that we weren’t fully functional as far as notifications were concerned. We’re updating the notifications so that you will be able to send messages and reminders about memberships, products, and gift cards. Whereas previously, only notifications about booked appointments could be automated.

Facebook & Instagram Booking

Right now, SimplyBook.me allows the addition of the simplybook booking widget as an iframe into facebook pages. However, now, both Facebook and Instagram have implemented additional functionality that will allow for using their native forms to make appointments. We will be using the native forms via their respective API functions. So it will be handy for user clients, these form will have the same design for all pages, so easy to use.

And That Little Bit Extra

While we got an award back in July, about we would have had to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of telling you, we’ve been told about another one!

As a SaaS company (that’s Software as a Service to anyone not in the industry) we have been recognised as the “Highly Rated Software in Appointment Scheduling for August 2019” by SaaSworthy.  – our profile is here

It’s a nice ego boost. The best part is that these awards seem to be customer opinion- based (as far as we can tell) rather than arbitrary judgement. Yay!

Three other awards also made us rather happy.

We promise, we won’t let it go to our heads, we’ll just keep pushing forward to make sure we stay the leader of the pack.

That’s all for the September Newsletter, folks! 

We’ll see you again soon, with more updates, after these guys have had their day.