We are about 90% finished with the redesign of our public website, and we wanted to freshen things up on the blog as well.  We know things look different, but rest assured, you can still find all the same content and posts we had here before.  Keep watching the blog and we will let you know when we launch the new site!

We’ve added a simple new feature today that gives you the ability to more easily navigate specific dates while booking appointments.  Often times, when your sitting with a client, you will want to book a follow up appointment in “x” weeks.  We’ve added a new feature that will easily let you jump 2, 4, 6, or 8 weeks as well as a “Today” and “Tomorrow” button.  Using these Quickjump links gives you an instant visual confirmation of these dates without having to count weeks on a calendar.

To access this feature, simply click on the “Quickjump” button, found on the main scheduling screen, directly underneath the “Select Date” label (and above the “Recrurring” button).  A pop up will appear that will allow you to select the date you would like to jump to.  Your “Daily View” will be updated, as well as that date selected on the “Select Date” datepicker.  See the image below for more details.

New "Quickjump" feature lets you navigate your schedule in a new way.

In a previous post on this blog, we made mention of a new feature we are going to be adding soon that will add the Service being performed to the confirmation and reminder emails.  We are still working on this feature, but as we found out during development, there is a little more to it that we initially believed.  We reached out to a number of Pencil’em users and found that not everyone wanted the service listed in the email, or only wanted specific services listed, and not others.  Not to worry, we have a plan and are working hard to make the necessary changes to get this feature launched.  We will update this blog again once it’s complete, along with the instructions on how to add the service to your reminder emails.

Lastly, we are working on a redesign of our public website (http://www.pencilem.com).  We are hoping to launch this website this week, so stay tuned for that.  As always, comments are appreciated!

We’ve added a simple but useful feature today to Pencil’em Desktop that will allow you to cancel an appointment from the main scheduling page, so you don’t have to go to the “Edit Appointments” tab.  As you hover your mouse over the appointment details of any appointment on the main scheduling page, you will notice a new “Cancel Appt.” button appears.  To cancel the appointment, click this new “Canel Appt.” button, and then confirm the cancelation by clicking “Yes, Cancel It” on the cancelation prompt.  That’s all there is to it!  See the image below for an example of this new feature.

New inline appointment Cancelation.

NOTE: This feature is not available if you are using Internet Explorer 6.  If you are still using Internet Explorer 6, we suggest you give this article a read, and upgrade to a more modern browser.

Hello Pencil’em Pros!  I wanted to take a moment and let you know about a change that will soon be in place.  We will be adding the service name to the confirmation / reminder emails.  So, along with the Date and Time of your clients next appointment, they will see the service you’ll be performing.  The new emails will look something like this:

New reminder / confirmation email screen shot

We will be implamenting this feature on Wed. Aug. 5th.  We wanted to give you a few days notice in case you need to make any adjustments to your service names. If you have any questions regarding this new feature please leave them in the comments so we can address them publicly, or email support@pencilem.com.

EDIT: We will be delaying the implamentation of this feature by a few days to run a few more tests.  We expect to have this feature in place by mid next week.

So you might be wondering what “BETA” means….BETA in software lingo, means we have rolled out a new feature, but it’s not 100% complete.  The base functions are ready for public consumption, but we plan to work on this feature over the next few weeks.  Go ahead and use the new feature, but know that some things may change before the BETA label is removed.

Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about “Week at a glance”.  The week at a glance feature was created to help you easily visualize holes in your schedule and see a graphical representation of any given week.  You will find the week dates across the top of the graph, with the times of day down the left hand side.  Your appointments appear as blocks of time (based on the service length) within each day’s column.  You will see the name of the client at the start of the appointment time as well.  You can find the new Week at a glance view by clicking the “Week at a glance” tab from the main scheduling screen.

Week at a glance tab

As of right now, each time you click this tab, the calendar will refresh itself, and it will always start on the current day.  You can change which day the week view starts on by clicking in the “Select Start Date” box and selecting a new start date from the popup calendar.  You can also jump forward or backward a week by clicking the “Previous Week” and “Next Week” buttons found on the upper right hand side of the screen (see below):

Changing which day the calendar starts on.

Lastly, to help you see what time an appointment starts simply hover your mouse over the name of the client, and that row will highlight, showing you what time the appointment starts.  Notice the highlighted row turns a light red, and the start time of the appointment is highlighted on the far left hand side of the screen (see below):

Row Highlighting

If you have any questions about this new feature let us know if the comments!  We look forward to hearing your feedback!