Introduction

In this guide, we’ll cover the details of the New Booking App in the Simply Schedule Appointments.

Important Announcement – End of Beta

The New Booking App is officially moving out of beta status. What does that mean?

• All the new users who will install and activate the Simply Schedule Appointments for the basic and premium versions will be directly onboarded on the New Booking App.
• Upon updating to the latest release of Simply Schedule Appointments (x.6.7.14 or beyond for both premium and basic versions), all existing users will be automatically upgraded to the New Booking App.
• Existing users who have made CSS customizations within the Old Booking App will have the option to opt out temporarily from this transition in order for them to have their customizations transitioned over to the New Booking App. We recommend that they complete this step as soon as possible, as they will eventually be moved onto the New Booking App.

To temporarily switch to the Old Booking App, head over to WP-Admin > Appointments > Settings > Developers and turn on the toggle to Use the old booking app. 

What is the New Booking App?

The new booking app is a complete revamp of our front-end app framework. It gives us the flexibility to offer more complex features such as Booking Flows and Resources.

Booking Flows

Enabling the new booking app will add a Booking Flow option in the Appointment Type settings. 

The Booking Flows (Business Edition feature) allows you to customize how the booking form looks for each Appointment Type based on your selection from flow sequences (Expanded, Express, First Available) and view layout options.

Visit our Booking Flow guides to see demos of how each Booking Flow looks with the varying Views.

• Expanded Booking Flow guide
• Express Booking Flow guide
• First Available Booking Flow guide

Resources

Resource Booking is exclusive to the new booking app. Once you opt into the new booking app, you can enable Resource Booking (Business Edition feature). 

With Resource Booking, you can create, edit, view, and manage resources. By assigning the Resources to Appointment Types, you can control the Appointment Types availability based on the resources available.

Resources are created in Groups that can either be identical or unique.

• Identical Resource Groups mean all resources within the group are the same, and it doesn’t matter which specific resource from this group is assigned to the booking.
• Unique Resource Groups mean that each resource within the group is distinctive, and it does matter which specific resource from this group is assigned to the booking.

User Preference for Team Booking

Another great addition to the new booking app is the User preference option for Team assignment. To access this feature, you must first setup Team Booking.

With the User preference, Users can select a Team member of their choice while scheduling appointments.

Performance Improvements

The new Booking App comes with a massive improvement to our caching system. This will help with sites on slower servers and pages containing multiple booking calendars.

One of the most significant benefits is loading times with our Form integrations (Gravity Forms and Formidable Forms). This dramatically reduces the loading times for forms that heavily use conditional logic with multiple SSA Appointment fields.

Leave a Rescheduling Note

The new Booking App contains this new Rescheduling Note feature. The Admin and Team members (with permission) can now leave a note when rescheduling.

Style Updates

The new Booking App also gives the booking calendars a refreshing new look. We’ve updated our components library to include the more modern Material Design 3 design system.

Appointment Type Listing

The Appointment Type listing boasts a lighter and cleaner design. Improved texture gives the listing components a modern feel.

Refined Shapes for Date and Time Selection

We’ve revamped the shapes across our new booking app to make everything sleeker. You’ll find a rounder and neater appearance to the date and time selection buttons.

Enhanced Text Styling

We’ve made some adjustments to the text, focusing on improving clarity and details.

Related Guides

• 

  Developer Settings

• 

  ssa/appointments/customer_information/get_defaults Filter

• 

  ssa/templates/get_template_vars Filter

• 

  ssa/forms/gravity/should_copy_field_to_ssa Filter