Mobile Revolution Puts Calendars In The Clouds

It is hard to believe that just a decade ago, the cell phone was little more than an ardent luxury for the self-important busybody. Today, smartphones are everywhere and have evolved into entirely new breeds of mobile connectivity. Once a small business staple, the personal computer acted as a command center for all things organization. But today, that one-stop-shop method is dead. We need our info on all screens all the time.

This revolution is not small in numbers. In 2011, 41% percent of workers used personal technology to access business applications, up from 31% in 2010, according to a March report released by IDC and Unisys. While the study included personal computers, a Nielsen survey found that consumers who owned a tablet were less likely to use the traditional computer.

That's why traditional business programming like appointment calendars, class scheduling and billing software have all moved online, into the cloud. This method of online appointment scheduling allows your employees access to information from anywhere, making your increasingly mobile business as speedy as your customer base.

These more agile solutions will continue as these mobile devices get more powerful and access to wi-fi becomes more universal. Until then, you can keep your post-it notes on the office monitor. But if the numbers are any indicator, their days are numbered.

New features for the last week

We've been quite busy in the last week with many new features.
Some of the things we've done are not visible, but are important changes in the back engine.
However others are very much visible and include:

• new option to ask for credit card billing address, separated from the customer main address. This is useful for those payment gateways, such as Authorize.net, that can perform validation checks using the billing address of a credit card
• possibility to hide prices until the confirmation page. This is useful when you offer services whose price varies with days of the week/times, so that customers only see the final price without getting confused by sudden changes
• a nice 'spinning wheel' image is now displayed while your booking widget is loading. especially useful for customers on slow connections
• Dutch and Danish translations

The new translations were contributed by volunteers. Thanks for your help!

We have more things to release for next week, stay tuned...