Made with care for the volunteers who keep Britain's halls running.
Product updates
Everything we have changed, and when
Most of what is on this page started as an email from a village hall. We write these in the same words we send our
halls, so you can see for yourself how often this thing actually moves.
When you add a booking (Bookings, then New booking, on the Cost & deposit step) or open one to edit it, a line under Hire charge for this booking now says what leaving the box blank comes to, and how: for example 2 hours at the room rate, a dearer first hour, or a fixed fee. It follows the room, the times, the hirer and the rate card as you change them. You still only type a figure in the box when you have agreed a different price. If a room has no rate set, the line says so, so a booking does not quietly come to nothing. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for raising it.
New feature
Download a copy of all your records
Your records belong to your hall, and you can now take a copy of all of them whenever you like. Go to Settings, then Export your data, and press Download everything. You get one zip file holding a spreadsheet each for your rooms, hirers, bookings, invoices, invoice lines and payments, plus a READ-ME explaining them. They open in Excel or Google Sheets. It is on every plan, and it still works if your subscription has ended. You need the export reports permission, and your copy holds only the areas you can already see, so the owner gets everything. The plan comparison on the Billing page also now shows correctly that every plan includes API access. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for asking.
New feature
Filter your bookings by chargeable or not
Go to Bookings and press the filter button (the funnel) above the list. Under Chargeable, pick Chargeable to see only the bookings you bill for, or Not chargeable to see free bookings and sessions already covered by a regular hirer's monthly charge. It works alongside the other filters, so you can ask for one month's chargeable bookings in one room. Press Apply at the bottom of the filters to see the result. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
See at a glance what is new since you last looked
Under Contact in the menu, What's New now shows a number when something has changed since you last opened it. Inside, anything new to you is marked New, the changes are grouped by month, and each one says whether it is a new feature, a fix or something in the phone app. Long entries are shortened with Read more, and you can still narrow the list or search it from the bar at the top.
New feature
Put your prices up from a date
Go to Bookings, then Rate Cards, open a rate card and press Change prices from a date. Pick the day the new prices start and type the new price for each room; today's prices are filled in, so leave alone any that are not changing. Bookings on or after that day are charged the new price, and bookings before it keep the old one - even a regular hirer's March bookings that you invoice in April. Invoices already raised never change. The Room Rates list shows what is coming up, and the Price history tab keeps every price the card has had. Changed your mind? Press Cancel next to a change that has not started yet. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Build your own website on your Village Hall Hub diary
If whoever looks after your website wants your bookings, free times, what's on, prices, hirers or invoices on it, they can now use our public API. Go to Settings, then API Keys, press Make a key and tick only what the website needs. The key comes with full instructions for your web person at villagehallhub.co.uk/docs/public-api. A key only works for your own hall and can never do more than you can. You do not need any of this to use Village Hall Hub - it is only for halls with a website of their own they want to connect.
New feature
Heating that follows your diary, with Inspire
If your hall has Inspire Home Automation heating, it can now heat each room for each booking, at the right temperature, with nobody touching a thermostat. First go to Bookings, then Booking Settings, open Heating and name the kinds of activity you host with the temperature each wants - say Seated at 21 degrees and Active at 17. When you take a booking, pick its heating level on the last step, Anything else?; a repeating booking passes it to every date. Then go to Settings, then Heating, press Create my heating link, and copy your Inspire link into Inspire. Their thermostats check it every hour. Cancelled bookings are dropped, so the heating does not come on for an event that is not happening. The Heating page lists every heating system we work with, and more are on the way. More at villagehallhub.co.uk/heating/inspire.
New feature
Thank hirers automatically when they pay
Go to Finance, then Payment Settings, and under Chasing Unpaid Invoices turn on Thank hirers when a payment is recorded. From then on, whenever a payment goes against an invoice - typed in by you, recorded in the app, or paid by card - the hirer gets an email from your hall thanking them for their payment of that amount, saying how they paid and what, if anything, is still to pay. When you record a payment by hand there is a tick box to skip the thank-you for that one, say for a regular group's weekly cash. It is off until you turn it on. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for asking.
New feature
Your bookings in your phone's calendar
Go to Settings, then Calendar Feed, and press Create my calendar link. Copy the link into Google Calendar, your iPhone or Outlook and every booking appears alongside your own appointments, keeping itself up to date. There is a link for the whole hall and one for each room, and provisional bookings are marked as provisional. Anybody with the link can see your bookings, so keep it to your committee - and if a phone is lost or a volunteer leaves, press Make a new link and the old one stops working.
New feature
You can stop these update emails
At the bottom of every "What's new" email there is now a link: Stop the what's new emails. Click it, press Yes, stop them, and we will not send you news about new features again. Emails about your own hall carry on as normal: booking requests, invoices, payments and anything about your account. Changed your mind? The same page has a button to start them again. And if you are waiting for an email from us, such as the link to confirm your address, the page now tells you to check your junk folder and who it comes from.
Fix
Pay us monthly by bank transfer
Go to Subscription, then Billing. Under No card? Pay by bank transfer, the plans now follow the Monthly and Annual switch on the same page: choose Monthly and each plan shows its monthly price, and Send me an invoice asks for an invoice covering one month. Before, the bank transfer offer was yearly only, whichever you had chosen. Each monthly invoice covers a month from the day your payment arrives. Thanks to Linda Cawley at Rampton Village Hall for spotting it.
New feature
App
The app now tells us when it crashes, so we can fix it
If the Village Hall Hub app crashes on your phone, it now sends us a crash report so we can find the fault and fix it, rather than hoping somebody mentions it. A report says what went wrong in the app's code and what sort of phone it was on. It never includes your name, email address, your hall or anything you have typed in, and nothing is sent until the app has actually crashed. It uses Google's Firebase Crashlytics; the details are on our privacy page at villagehallhub.co.uk/privacy. Update Village Hall Hub from the App Store or Google Play to get this.
Most of this came from a village hall asking
If your hall needs something this does not do yet, say so. That is how nearly everything above got built.