Migration from Cloud

The existing version of Reserve was built as part of a global “divergent Cloud” platform that tied all of our solutions together in to a single interface. The breadth of functionality required by our clients, as well as the amount of products, meant that the interface was less intuitive than we expected.

As you’re probably already aware we’ve been working on the new version of Reserve for over a year now, and we’re happy to announce that the new version is currently rolling out to all of you. It’s a long process to work through, but we’re very excited to have you on the new platform.

What’s New

Everything, actually. But here’s some highlights.

Booking Types

Host events, book group sessions, tables, overnight bookings, and so much more. We cover every type of event that we could think of.

All types still 3p/booking.

Gift Cards

Gift Cards get better with a Balance. Allow customers to reschedule or amend bookings across multiple locations with different pricing, and issue credits without affecting your bottom line.

More Reporting

Reporting wasn’t great in the old version, and sometimes we even had to send you them manually. No more of that 💩, you have full reporting ability right from within your dashboard.

Repeat Bookings

Allow customers to book multiple sessions with you in one go, helping to increase recurring revenue. Customers can book up to 30 sessions with a single click.

And so much more

When we say the new version of Reserve - we mean it. The Reserve you’re about to get access to is built from the ground up with everything we’ve learned, everything that you’ve requested from us, and every piece of customer feedback considered.

Here’s a few more highlights:

Better Communication Management

We’ve heard you - editing a giant chunk of code in a text field with no feedback isn’t great. We’ve introduced a more comprehensive editor that allows you to insert variables from a list, validate your templates before saving them, and overall make them easier to maintain.
Improved Customer Experience

We only supported Passkey and OTP sign in previously, something we stand by to improve security. However, we also now support Google and Apple sign in, making it easier for your customers to sign in and manage their bookings.

We’ve also added 3 styles of being able to book: The calendar view you’re used to, time view, and a restaurant-style flow.
Maintenance Sessions

For our customers with dynamic maintenance requirements, we’ve added a new way to schedule them without having to adjust your Opening Times. You can optionally allow your staff to manage their own roster and adjust their slots as required and where available.

We can’t fit everything in here, so if there’s something specific you’d like to know about, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Major Differences

As you start to use the new version of Reserve, you’ll notice that quite a few things are different.

Your Dashboard

You’ll now see more important metrics on your dashboard, such as revenue, booking charts, and more. You’ll no longer see new sign ups / People counts, Sent/Scheduled SMS/Emails, or Transact pending payments etc.

This helps you to actually use the dashboard like a dashboard, where you have a quick glance of what’s happening in your business.

The old version of Reserve was built around events. Things happened in different systems and events kept everything together. Likewise, entities were shared which led to a lot of cross system communication and things having to be shared.

You’ll have seen it if you ever looked at a Booking, a Timeline at the top with links to and icons of different systems, and a list of Related entities at the bottom with some crazy IDs next to them.

Well, no more.

We know that you only care about the things that matter to you, so we’ve simplified the booking interface down a lot to give you the information and control that you need.

You’ll no longer see a Related Entity for your customer, you’ll just… see the customer. You’ll no longer see a Timeline entry for “SMS ‘Booking Confirmed’ Sent” or “Email ‘Booking Confirmed’ Sent”, you’ll just… know that they were sent.

This is an area we’ve worked hard on improving as it’s the most commonly used screen. Your feedback is highly encouraged!

People (Core), Identity, Connect, Collect, Transact

In the old version, you were using and had access to 5 different products, Reserve + the ones above.

You will now only use Reserve. Under the hood these other platforms (or replacements) are still in play, however they’re no longer visible to you.

This has the following implications:

Dashboard changes

As above, you’ll no longer see the different products reporting their respective usage information. Just the things you need.
People menu removed

You’ll now see all of your customers under the… Customers menu.
Full Customer Control

Previously, because “People” were used across all of our products, you couldn’t readily edit customer details.

Now, you can. This opens up the same level of control that we have always had, allowing you to resolve customer enquiries with ease. This includes the ability to self manage customer Tags, Email / Phone changes, and data removal.

You will also be able to see Bookings for a Customer in a much clearer way, rather than just being able to view the latest transactions per product.
Connect menu removed

If you use the communications history to see how much you’ll be billed, you can view your Billing account in Settings -> Subscription.

If you use communications history to see message contents, you can do this from the respective bookings.

In time, we’ll be adding a Report for communications that will allow you to export data per month.
Connect / Communications History

To help protect your data and that of your customers, we only store communications history for the last 3 months.
Manual SMS Sends

You can only send SMS to customers that have bookings with you, not for promotional messaging, via Reserve.

If you need to send ad hoc communications to all of your customers, you can sign up to Connect or PureSMS separately.
OTP Communications no longer stored

Whilst OTPs are still sent for some sign ins, you can no longer view those messages. This is to protect customer account integrity. Sign ins are no longer limited to the device that requested them, so showing you the OTPs that were sent is a security risk in the new version of Reserve.
Transact Menu Removed

This only served as a reference for payments previously anyway, and you can now download the same information as a CSV from the Reports tab.

Data Availability

We will only be migrating booking data and active customers from June 2024 until the point of migration. All other historic data will not be available in the new version of Reserve.

All of your configuration data (including Locations, Spaces, Pricing, Communications etc) will be migrated over.

New Booking Types

Reserve only ever supported “Slot” bookings - that’s what we call 1 booking in 1 time slot as you’ve configured it.

With the new version, you get immediate access to multiple booking types that allow you to, well, book anything.

Here’s our booking modes:

Slot

This is what you’re used to - 1 booking in 1 time slot.

You can now however enable an option to allow multiple customers to book in a single time slot. We call this “Multi-Slot”, but that’s the only difference so it’s not it’s own mode.
Events

Events are things that happen in a fixed time range and you sell tickets for.

You can set up an Event and start selling tickets in seconds. Soon, we’ll be having customisable Event pages so that you can share fully branded links with your customers.
Allocation

Allocations are like Slots except you can have multiple “Resources” (ie. things that are bookable) set up.

Think a table at a restaurant, or a room at a hotel. If you have 5 tables available for 1 time slot, this would allow 5 allocation bookings to be made.

You can also configure Slot and Allocation bookings to run over the course of multiple dates, which enables overnight bookings for hotel rooms or AirBnb’s.

Rollout Schedule

The majority of systems are now in place and in use by the version of Reserve that is live, however, the full migration of existing data and the transfer to the new version of the platform is still in progress.

Downtime notice will be sent to all customers at some point in April, with at least 1 week’s notice so that you are able to prepare and notify your own customers of the unavailability. Both the administrative system and customer platforms will be unavailable during the planned downtime.

Product Support Changes

All support requests are currently emailed in, however as part of the new versions of our platforms (everything you see on this website!) we are rolling out a web based platform to more effectively track issues and feedback.

You’ll be able to sign in with your divergent Cloud account (the same thing that you currently sign in with) and view all support requests you’ve made as well as raise new ones and update them.