Priority maintenance

We are going to perform some priority maintenance on our infrastructure today in order to pave the way for a couple new features.
We expect only a short downtime and unfortunately this is the kind of downtime we cannot gracefully handle (like with a nice "Come back later" message).

It should be relatively short but unfortunately we cannot precisely know when this is going to happen as it is not entirely dependent on us (it has to do with re-generating security certificates).

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

Customer support 2.0

Just a quick note to let the world know that we've updated our support system to include (at last!) direct email communications both ways. So from now on you can start a support request via any of our contact forms or by using our support email (support at instant-scheduling dot com).

Rules you need to respect (or else):

• for new issues, questions or suggestions send a new email (with whatever subject) or use the contact forms
• for things related to a previous inquiry, just reply to our email (don't use the contact forms and don't change the subject of the email)

Customer support

Because people sometimes wonder why we do not offer phone support as an option, we thought we could post an answer here as opposed to our usual one liner.

The reasons for this choice are not immediately obvious so let's explore a bit:

• email support allows us to provide a complete audit trail of every support interaction (both incoming and outgoing) so we can refer to previous inquiries easily
• quicker turnaround as some questions can be answered in no time using predefined responses (commonly asked questions or common setup issues). This translates to lower costs (that benefit everyone) and quicker responses for you
• since everything is in writing you can easily refer to our instructions and do it at your own pace (or re-read should you later on come across the same issue)
• no need to schedule an appropriate time to call you back or hold you on the phone when we need to research something or perform additional troubleshooting
• sometimes we need to include web links or even, god forbid, raw HTML code. Clearly, doing this over the phone is shall we say, not very convenient
• we can automatically tie into our support system to pull your account information and a summary of your settings.. this is definitely a huge plus

We still have a few things to improve with our support process however, such as allowing you to directly email us and reply to support tickets.

The client passwords dilema

We strongly feel like this should have been done earlier.. but since it's better late than never, we would like to explain the rationale behind removing client passwords and why we believe it's going to make your scheduler harder, better, faster, stronger!

First let's preface this by saying that every client scheduling tool out there and their mothers have client authentication built in. So do we. That's the current state of the art... and we think it's wrong.

Note: we will still be keeping STAFF email/passwords. We also still want to retain a similar level of SECURITY and PRIVACY for your customers.

Our emphasis has always been on EASE of use but there is room for improvement. One thing we do want is for your clients to spend as little time scheduling as possible.. otherwise they're back to calling you for simple booking issues (and nobody wants that, even they don't, which is why they went online in the first place). Here's more details:

The welcome email

We send it out the first time people are added to the system in order to give them their system generated password (if you booked on their behalf) or simply let them know how to review their upcoming appointments all in one place. The thing about this email is some say that:

• it looks spammy
• it is sent separately from the appointment notification
• people are likely to delete it or not pay attention to it

While some of these points could be addressed to some extent we think it's simply best to do away with the beast. Some hate it, some don't mind it but nobody likes it.

If we remove client passwords, we have no need for this email and we can add a link to the client's upcoming appointments in every appointment notification instead.

It slows the scheduling process down

It's one more field to fill out (if you included the email address on your appointment form) and in addition to that we have a split login here / fill out the form there view. Removing the login section will remove an extra step for your clients and have everyone focus on your intake form right from the start. This much less thinking and this much time saved. Some people also don't realize that they can simply ignore it when booking a new appointment, which leads us to...

Login issues

Because people delete the welcome email, change/set the password and forget it, or forget that it's case sensitive.. they sometimes can't login and have to reset the password. Worse, they sometimes just give up and feel the urge to call you.

So every login required section could be a one extra step or even a 4 extra steps affair, and god forbid, could even mean some extra unneeded work for you. They deserve to get to the thing right away without a fuss, and so do you!

Rescheduling/Canceling

Because of the issues mentioned above, rescheduling/canceling from an appointment notification is less straightforward and less enjoyable than it could. We want to change that and allow for one click access. Again, easier for clients, less work for you and possibly fewer no shows as well (people that couldn't cancel/reschedule easily enough and didn't bother to call).

Security considerations

Some of you need to be HIPAA compliant and some don't but still care about security. We do care and removing the need for client passwords does not necessarily mean we're abandoning that focus.

We can't disclose too much about it at this point but we think we have found a way to conciliate everything into one easy to use and secure system.

If you made it all the way to this point, kudos! Your reward is that you can now vote in the poll to help us decide for good what to do next in regard to this issue :)

Cast your vote!

Survey results

First things first: THANK YOU for the great response rate to the survey. We've already collected quite a bit of useful feedback and most of you have taken the time to not only select things but share their thoughts as well.

This was more or less a test as well (as our first survey) and only included a few of our paid customers and only the first administrator user for each. We will be opening up these surveys in the future to gather more feedback quicker.. where will we find the time to read all that? :)

Online survey for new features

We had a bunch of features we were thinking of for the short term but really weren't quite sure which ones people wanted most. And then it hit us.. let's ask them!

So we put together a little survey that we would be most honored if you took the time to complete: click here to take survey.

It shouldn't take more than a minute.. okay maybe two :)

Embedding without the top banner

Here's one little undocumented feature you might find useful when embedding the scheduler within your own website.

First things first, let's see how we would easily do that with an iFrame:

<iframe src="https://instant-scheduling.com/sch.php?kn=123456"></iframe>

So the above is going to help you add the scheduler to your webpage. Now you may want to remove the top banner (with your business name and description) since this is probably redundant on your website. Here's what you need to change to make it happen:

<iframe src="https://instant-scheduling.com/sch.php?kn=123456&nobanner=Y"></iframe>

Note the &nobanner=Y that we added to the link. That's all it takes :)

Improving communications

In an effort to streamline our communications with our customers and resellers, we are pleased to introduce this new blog. You will find:

• status notices
  
• new directions we are considering
  
• new features that are added

Please feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed so you can get updates however you want to get them. This will give you much more control as to what you wish to be notified about and we will be less reluctant to blog about relevant things happening at web-appointments.com and instant-scheduling.com