The LibCal 2.18 release is coming to you this week and will be rolled out to all regions by the end of the day Tuesday November 13th.
This is a mini release of sorts but still includes lots of great features including a next available button for space/equipment bookings, the addition of the image manager for featured event image selection and more!
Calendars/Events:
- Email can be set to optional for event registrations – You’ve asked for it, and we delivered. 🙂 Email address can now be set so that it is not required on an event registration form. Phone number and library barcode have been added as additional event registration information – but can also be set as either optional or required fields, or you can disable them altogether. In addition, you’ll be able to customize the field descriptors and add custom help text for each. From the orange command bar, select Calendars > Registrations Forms Tab to edit or create a new form to view this feature.
- Image Manager Integration – We’ve added the ability to launch the Image Manager to select featured event images when creating or modifying an events details. You can check out this new option by clicking on Calendars from the main menu navigation bar and choosing your desired event calendar. Once you are inside the calendar, simply add or modify an event and then press the new ‘Launch Image Manager’ button to choose an event image.
- Event Location Display On Admin Calendar Day/Week View – We’ve added the event location to the display of the day view of the admin event calendar. The location of the event will appear after the event title in italic font with the word at preceding the location. To view this new display, head to Calendars > Edit Calendar and then select the Day/Week view options.
- Category & Audience Fields Required – We’ve added a setting on the system-wide audience and category fields to make these required when creating a new event. Admins can locate the setting to make these fields required by going to Admin > Calendars and then accessing the Audiences tab and Categories tab.
Spaces/Equipment:
- Next Available Button for Space/Equipment Bookings – We’ve added a new button that will easily allow the next available space or equipment booking to be found! When this button is pressed, the availability grid will jump to the next available time slot. This will rea
lly help where equipment items are in high demand or long lead times are set up before allowing bookings. To use this new feature, head to the public Space or Equipment booking page and select the “Next Available” button. - Copying Booking Form Info – We’ve added a way to copy all relevant booking form information from an existing booking to create a brand new booking. To use this feature, from the orange command bar select Spaces > Click on a past space booking > click on the new ‘copy’ button. After clicking this button, you’ll be prompted to create a new booking and all the booking form details from the source booking will be copied over.
- Confirmed Bookings Date Picker – We’ve added a date picker to the Confirmed Bookings page that displays on the public page. Use the date picker by selecting the new ‘Custom Date option in the ‘When’ drop down selection. The public page for confirmed bookings can be accessed by clicking the ‘View Confirmed Bookings’ link public space booking grid page (note this only appears for spaces where “Public Nickname” has been enabled).
- Reminder Email for Space Bookings – We’ve added an optional opt-in email reminder for space bookings. If you enable these emails, they will send based on a duration (available by the number of hours before) selected before the space booking occurs. If multiple bookings occur on the same day, they will all be sent in one reminder email. To enable these emails, admins can head to Admin > Equipment & Spaces > Edit Location > General > Reminder Email & choose the amount of time prior to the booking start time when the email should be sent.
Bug Fixes:
- Exchange Sync Issues – We’ve resolved an issue with exchange where double bookings were being created in the Appointments module. These double bookings were showing in the Appointments>Availability grid. The issue has been corrected and should no longer happen!
- 12 am Time Slot Booking Error – We’ve fixed an error that occurred when a booking was attempted to be made that started at 12 am.
Will the Next Available functionality for spaces be added to the API?
Hi Mike, we are planning to add this to the API in our late December release. Since there is only a limited set of test data on our testing servers we wanted to release the UI function first to make sure it’s working well in the production with all sorts of possible scenarios, and then we’re planning to release it as standard API feature. We’re always looking for ideas for more functionality and features to add to the APIs so if you have any more API requests please do let us know – we’ll make them happen quickly. Thanks so much.
Thank you for adding the Next Available button!!! This is a tremendous help for our spaces and equipment that require a week or more of lead time.