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Your July 2024 update includes support for defining default start/end times for each of your Courses, a new Smart Grid to access all of your Placeholders, and several exciting Checkout improvements!

July 2024 Release:

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Further links:

🤗 If you would like any support with this new feature please get in touch with our Customer Support Team

(lightbulb) If you have any ideas of how we can improve the product further, please log these on our Product Portal

🔄 Finally, if you would like to be a part of our product development process, you can join our Product Loop Club! Read more about our Loop Club

Core Platform Updates

🙋‍♀️ Access your Customer Hub

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This update allows you to access your Customer Hub from the top of your platform, making it easy for you to access our upcoming events listing, on-demand educational content, and information on the additional services that are available to you!

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titleAccess your Customer Hub

You can now access the accessplanit Customer Hub straight from your platform!

To access this, click on the ‘Help’ option along the top of your platform and select the new ‘Customer Hub’ option.

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This will direct you to the accessplanit Customer Hub where you can access information and resources including:

  • accessplanit's free and paid for upcoming events

  • On-demand recordings from past events

  • Information on additional services that are available to you and your team

  • Information on how you can gain rewards or money off your contract through our advocacy program and our referral scheme

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🕐 Default Start & End Times

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This update introduces Default Start & End Times on Courses to streamline your Course setup process!

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titleDefault Start & End Times

Each of your Classroom and Webinar Course Templates now have two extra options available where you can set their Default Start Time and the Default End Time!

You will find these two new options when you ‘Edit' a Course Template, scroll down to the 'Course Timings’ section, and from here you can select or type the start and end time to be used when this Course Template is scheduled.

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Neither of these options are mandatory, but when you do provide a default start or end time for a Course Template, this will override your global start/end time settings when you schedule this Course. This means that, for example, you can set your global start and end times as 9am to 5pm, and then use this option for any Courses that don’t follow that timeframe!

Please watch the below video to see default start & end times in action!

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👓 View & manage your Placeholders from one place

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This update lets you view and manage your Placeholders from one dedicated DataGrid, providing you with a more organised and efficient way to handle your Placeholders!

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titleView & manage your Placeholders from one place

Your platform now has a dedicated Placeholders Smart Grid to view and manage your Placeholders all from one place!

You can access this Smart Grid via the ‘Smart Grids’ option in your main navigation menu

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This will open the Placeholders DataGrid which contains every Placeholder across all of your Courses!

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From this page you can then:

  1. Search through all your Placeholders

  2. Use filters to view all Placeholders that have not yet been invoiced

  3. Use filters to view all Placeholders on future Courses

  4. Use filters to view all Placeholders that have unused places on them

  5. Use filters to view all cancelled or transferred Placeholders

  6. Generate Invoices for multiple Placeholders at once

  7. Email all Booking users for Placeholders that have unused places

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Please watch the below video to see the Placeholders DataGrid in action!

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📧 Automatically email your Placeholder key contacts with Course updates

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This update enables you to automatically email your Placeholder key contacts with Course updates such as Venue changes, keeping everyone informed and up-to-date with minimal effort!

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titleAutomatically email your Placeholder key contacts with Course updates

In this update, there have been several improvements to Placeholder Emails Templates and Workflows to give you more options and flexibility in automated emails to your team and customers.

New Workflow Trigger options

You can now generate Workflow emails to your Placeholder key contacts to alert them if the date of your Course changes or the Venue of the Course changes, keeping your Placeholder key contacts up to speed with their Course information.

You can also filter your Workflows to no longer send when the Placeholder is booked onto a Session. This is very helpful if you only wish to communicate with your Placeholder key contacts about the parent/Sessional Course.

To set up a Workflow that alerts Placeholder key contacts that a venue has changed, you will use the Workflow Setting: “Venue ID” - “Has Changed”.

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To set up a Workflow that alerts Placeholder key contacts that a course date has changed, you will use the Workflow Setting: “Course Start Date” - “Has Changed”.

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To set up a Workflow to not send for Sessions, you will use the Workflow Setting: “Parent Placeholder ID” - “Is Empty”.

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New Email Content options

A lot more information is now available to you to include within the body of your Placeholder emails!

Whether you are emailing your Placeholder key contacts manually via the DataGrid, or automatically through Workflows, you can now include the following information within the content of your emails:

Include in your email

Merge field

Course Status

@@CourseDateStatus

Exclusive Account Name

@@ExclusiveCompanyNames

Exclusive Account ID

@@ExclusiveCompanyIDs

Exclusive Account Group Name

@@ExclusiveCompanyGroupNames

Exclusive Account Group ID

@@ExclusiveCompanyGroupIDs

Booking User ID

@@BookingUserID

Booking User Name

@@BookingUserName

Course Override Alias

@@OverrideAlias

Invoice Status

@@InvoiceStatus

Trainer Names

@@TrainerNames

Course Template or Alias Name

@@CourseOrAliasName

Parent Placeholder ID

@@ParentPlaceholderID


🎨 User Experience: Workflows

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This update contains several User Experience improvements to building and testing Workflows, making it easier to automate your communications and tasks.

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titleUser Experience: Workflows

There are several small, quality of life, improvements that have been made within the Workflows area of your platform, to make building and managing your Workflows a bit easier!

  1. Preview and Test
    There is a button available within your Workflow Email Actions where you can check the content of your email using a real example from your platform, and then generate an email to be sent to your inbox so that you can see how this email looks when it will be sent to your customers and/or your team. This is very valuable, particularly when creating a brand-new Workflow.
    Previously this button was labelled ‘Preview’, it has now been updated to ‘Preview and Test’ to make it clear that you can complete accurate testing using this option!

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  2. Renamed Workflows & Workflow Actions
    The pages where you view, manage, and create your Workflows have been renamed from ‘Workflow Templates’ to ‘Workflows'. Additionally, ‘Workflow Template Actions’ has now been renamed to 'Workflow Actions’. This is to simplify the way that we talk about Workflows.

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  3. Renamed Action Types
    We have renamed the Action Types that are available for consistency and simplicity

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  4. Mandatory Workflow Action Name
    The name option on your Workflow Actions is now mandatory. This is to encourage base practice for recording a useful description against each of your Workflow Actions, so that you and your team can quickly identify what each action is for!

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❌ Cancel Product & Service Purchases alongside your cancelled Delegates

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This update allows you to cancel Product & Service Purchases alongside cancelled Delegates, this means reduced admin and lower chances of cancellation steps being missed.

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titleCancel Product & Service Purchases alongside cancelled Delegates

When you are cancelling Delegates, you will now be able to cancel any Product & Service purchases that are mapped to the Delegate at the same time!

This will then process any refunds and additional credit notes all within the same process, so you no longer need to find the associated Purchases, and cancel / refund them separately.

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You’ll find this new option ‘Cancel Purchases’ within the Cancellation Wizard, use this option to choose which purchases to cancel alongside the Delegate before you click ‘Cancel Delegate’.

Please Note

If the Delegate & Purchase have been Invoiced, a Credit Note will be automatically generated for the Delegate, and a second Credit Note will automatically be generated for each cancelled Purchase.

When cancelling multiple Delegates, there is an additional option available within this cancellation wizard where you can select if all Purchases for these Delegates should be cancelled, or not!

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♿ Accessibility: Learner Portal

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This update contains two improvements to the accessibility of your Learner Portal, helping us move closer to full WCAG 2.1 compliance!

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titleAccessibility: Learner Portal

There are two accessibility improvements in this update for the Learner Portal!

Hidden Icon

A hidden icon has been removed, this icon did not serve any purpose on the page and was not visible to the eye. However it was accessible to screen reader users and could cause confusion, The icon has now been removed to avoid this issue.

Shopping Basket Title

When the Shopping Basket was launched from the Learner Portal it previously did not have a title, this meant that users of screen readers did not receive confirmation of the content of the page. This has now been titled ‘shopping basket’.


Checkout Updates

❔Checkout: Capture optional information about your Delegates

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This update allows you to capture optional information about your Delegates during Checkout, giving you more flexibility and insights into your attendees!

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titleCheckout: Capture optional information about your Delegates

The ‘Create Delegate' form in the Checkout basket is used by Managers and Administrators to create new users and allocate them as the Delegate for a Course, without having to leave the basket.

It's crucial to balance the amount of information requested in this form to avoid overwhelming your users, while also making sure you collect the necessary details.

Previously, you could only request mandatory information in this form, however following this update you can now include optional information!

To make changes to your Create Delegate form, a Super Administrator can access the Checkout Options page from Administration, and scroll to the 'Create Delegate Information' section

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Use the ‘Mandatory’ checkbox to define if the information is required or optional in your Create Delegate Form!

You can also rename the Account Name option on the form, if (for example) ‘Company Name’, ‘Organisation’, or ‘Charity Name’ make more sense to your customers.

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🗺️ Checkout: Capture Nationality information about your Delegates

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This update enables you to capture Nationality information about your Delegates in Checkout, helping you gather valuable demographic data!

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titleCheckout: Capture Nationality information about your Delegates

Understanding your Delegates nationality can be really valuable when planning for and delivering your training Courses. Not only does this support you and your trainers with tailoring content to be relevant and engaging to everyone, but it also ensures that your materials and delivery are culturally sensitive and inclusive.

Nationality is now available to include in both your main Checkout Registration Form, and the smaller Create Delegate form, to capture this information up front about your new customers!

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You can then access this information from your User & Delegate DataGrids within your accessplanit platform, and filter your Workflows based on Nationality!

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Post-Course, your data on nationality can provide great insight into the locations of your customer base, which helps with market analysis, future marketing, and planning potential expansion plans!


🚫 Checkout: Add age restrictions to Course bookings

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This update introduces the ability to add age restrictions to Courses and prevent bookings outside of these age restrictions in your Checkout basket, for compliance with age-related regulations and policies on your Courses.

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titleCheckout: Add age restrictions to Course bookings

The Checkout Basket now has support for age-restricted Courses!

Courses may be age-restricted for a number of reasons, such as;

  • Your Courses may need to comply with legal/regulatory requirements

  • Your Courses may not be appropriate for certain ages due to safety and suitability

  • You may wish to create a more targeted learning environment

Tip

To implement age-restricted Courses for one of your Course Templates, please get a in touch with a member of the accessplanit team and they will enable this new feature for you.

Once it is enabled, edit the Course Template and scroll to the 'Course Availability' section, where you can set either the ‘minimum delegate age’, the ‘maximum delegate age’ or both!

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When that Course is then added to a Checkout basket, it won’t be possible to book people who are outside of the age requirements.

As you can see below, it will say “This user does not meet the age requirements for this course”.

Please bear in mind that this applies to people who don’t have a date of birth at all.

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This functionality is free but needs to be enabled, so if you are interested in using this, please get in touch with a member of the accessplanit team to get it turned on in your platform.


💵 Checkout: Set Delegates who haven’t paid to ‘Provisional’

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This update allows you to set Delegates who haven’t paid to ‘Provisional’ during Checkout, making it easier to manage and track unpaid bookings.

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titleCheckout: Set Delegates who haven’t paid to ‘Provisional’

Bookings made through Checkout can now assign Delegates as provisional on their Course if their Invoice has not been paid!

This means that if a customer chooses to be invoiced instead of paying upfront during the Checkout process, the Delegates will be marked as ‘provisional’ until their Invoice is settled.

Once their Invoice is paid, the Delegates will automatically be updated to ‘Booked’!

Please note

This feature only applies to Delegates associated with an Invoice, Delegates that do not yet have an Invoice generated for their place on the Course will be given the status of ‘Booked’.

This functionality is free but does need to be enabled, so if you are interested in using this, please get in touch with a member of the accessplanit team to get it turned on in your platform.


🚫 Checkout: Prevent specific Users from making bookings

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This update lets you prevent specific Users from making bookings in Checkout, enhancing your control over who can register for your Courses.

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titleCheckout: Prevent specific Users from making bookings

The Checkout basket now works alongside the ‘Restrict Booking’ option.

‘Restrict Booking’ is an option available for you to set on your Users.

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If a User is identified as a bad payer, or there is another reason to restrict their booking privileges, you can restrict their access to make bookings by checking the ‘Restrict Booking’ option at the bottom of their User details page.

When the restriction is applied, the User will be unable to make bookings through your Checkout basket, and as Administrators you will also be prevented from accidentally selecting them as the Booking User.

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💾 Checkout: Save billing address in Checkout

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This update enables your customers to save their billing address in Checkout, streamlining their payment process on future bookings!

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titleCheckout: Save billing address in Checkout

There is a new option available in the payment step of Checkout, this allows your admin team and your customers to save their billing addresses for future bookings.

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The new checkbox ‘Save billing address for future use’ will appear whenever someone enters an address into the step, and if it is ticked, the provided address will be saved as the Billing Address for the Account/User paying for this bookings. This means that it will be available to them next time, so they do not need to type it in again.


🤝 Checkout: Apply restrictions to Discounts

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This update allows you to apply date and usage restrictions to your Discounts during Checkout bookings, providing you with more options and flexibility with your customer discounts.

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titleCheckout: Apply restrictions to Discounts

The Checkout Basket now supports validation dates and usage limits for Discounts!

Applying validation dates and usage limits to Discounts means that you can:

  • Ensure your discounts comply with promotional regulations and policies

  • Prevent misuse (or overuse!) of discounts by setting clear timeframes and limitations

  • Create urgency for bookings within the specified discount period

  • Help manage your budget and forecast revenue by controlling the duration of your discount campaigns

  • Target specific marketing campaigns by aligning your discounts with particular events

You can control these settings via the ‘Usage Limits’ & ‘Validation’ sections when editing your Discounts:

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♿ Accessibility: Checkout

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This update contains several improvements to the accessibility of the Checkout basket, helping us move closer to full WCAG 2.1 compliance and making the process more inclusive for all users!

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titleAccessibility: Checkout

There have been several changes made within the Checkout basket in this update to better support all Users making Course bookings!

We have added in a new line which explains that asterisks mean the information on the registration form or the payment step is required.

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On the Checked Out page, we have updated the way that address details are displayed to better suit the way that screen-readers read a page. We have also recorded the thumbs-up image as decorative, so screen reader software knows it can skip past it.

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Finally, each page of Checkout has its own name now so they can be identified, you’ll see the page names within your browser tabs.

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Connectivity

🌍 API v1 Feeds: Advertise your Courses on your website

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This update enables you to advertise your Courses on your website using API v1 Feeds, making it easier to promote your offerings and attract more attendees.

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titleAPI v1 Feeds: Advertise your Courses on your website

There have been many additions to the v1 API feeds to better support website integrations!

Course Template additions

The following fields are now available within the Course Template endpoint to include in your integration:

  • External ID

  • Course Template Image link

  • Course Template Aims

  • Course Template Objectives

  • Course Template Summary

  • Advertised

  • Net Cost

  • Tax

  • Charge per delegate

  • Duration & Type

  • Category Names

  • Publish Date

  • Course Template Colour

The following fields can now be used as filters using the Course Template endpoint:

  • Course Template Label

  • Course Template Type

  • Course Template Categories

Course (date) additions

The following fields are now available within the Course Date endpoint to include in your integration:

  • Booking Link

  • Enquiry Link

  • Currency (symbol)

  • Currency Code

  • Does the Course have exclusivity

  • Date updated

  • Course Template ID

  • Delivery Method ID & Label

  • Joining Instructions Text

  • Additional Information Text

  • External ID

  • Maximum places

  • Tax Exempt

  • Course Template ID

  • Course Administrator

  • Company Name

The following fields can now be used as filters using the Course Dates endpoint:

  • Course Type

  • Category

Venue additions

The following fields are now available within the Venues endpoint to include in your integration:

  • Venue Main Contact

  • Longitude

  • Latitude


🧾 API v1 Feeds: Access additional information about your invoiced items

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This update allows you to access additional information about your invoiced items through API v1 Feeds, providing more detailed and comprehensive data for your financial tracking.

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titleAPI v1 Feeds: Access additional information about your invoiced items

There is one additional piece of information now available within the v1 Invoice Items API endpoint, this is a link to the associated object that is being Invoiced.

For example, if the Invoice Item is for a Course, there will be a link to the Course. If the Invoice Item is for a Delegate, there will be a link to the Delegate!

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This is very valuable for integrations where you may need to access additional information about the Delegates, or the Course, including Custom Fields stored against them.