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.
The Columns button on Projects listed every column but would only let you turn two of them off - the rest appeared ticked and greyed out, so the panel looked like it was offering a choice and then would not take one. Every figure on the screen is now yours to show or hide. The project's own name stays put, because a column of money with nothing saying which project it belongs to cannot be read. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for reporting it.
Fix
Safety check certificates can now actually be opened
Uploading a certificate or report against a completed safety check and then clicking to view it gave a 404, every time, for every hall - the link assumed the certificate lived somewhere it never had. It opens correctly now. Thanks to Alison Dickens at Rampton Village Hall for reporting it.
Fix
Opening a document no longer downloads a copy as well
Opening a document on a computer showed it in the browser, as it should, but also silently saved a copy to the downloads folder every time - annoying if you just wanted to look. Viewing a document now only views it. Thanks to Alison Dickens at Rampton Village Hall for reporting it.
Fix
Enquiry emails now include the email address
A new booking enquiry emailed you the phone number and the address, but not the one detail you actually need to reply: the hirer's email address. Replying meant going to find the hirer first. It is on the email now, alongside the rest. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for reporting it.
Fix
Generating an invoice from the bookings list can now hold the date too
Opening a booking first and generating its invoice from there let you take a holding amount to secure the date, with the balance due closer to the day. Doing the same thing from the three dots on the bookings list skipped straight to raising the whole invoice, due on the day of the booking, with no way to add a holding amount at all - an older copy of the button that had never been brought up to date. Both now offer the same amount-to-hold-the-date and balance-due-by fields. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for reporting it.
Fix
A recurring booking on certain days no longer gets stuck when you turn repeating off
Set a booking to repeat on certain days each week, tick some days, then decide it should not repeat after all and turn "This booking repeats" back off - and the day picker stayed on screen, still asking which days, for a booking that no longer repeated at all. There was no way past it. It now disappears the moment you turn repeating off, the same as every other repeat setting. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for reporting it.
Fix
Email address joins What You Must Be Told
A hall had an enquiry arrive with no email address on it at all, and no way to get back in touch with whoever sent it. Email address has always been required on an enquiry, and still is for every hall by default - this just means it now sits in the same "What You Must Be Told" list under Booking Settings as phone number, organisation, address and postcode, so you can see it is required and, if you ever genuinely want it optional, untick it yourself. Nothing changes unless you go and change it.
Fix
Long event names no longer run across your calendar
On the calendar view of your public What's On page, an event with a long name stretched its day wider than the rest, ran across the day next to it, and knocked all seven columns out of line with the Mon-Sun headings above them. Names are now cut short with a full stop or three and every day stays the same width, however long somebody names their class. Nothing to do at your end. Thanks to Binfield Memorial Hall for spotting it.
Fix
Documents opened in the app arrived empty
Opening one of your documents from the phone app gave you a file with nothing in it. The document was safe and always had been, and downloading it from the website worked perfectly well - it was only the app that could not read it back, and it failed in a way that could not report itself, so you got an empty file rather than an error. Fixed, with nothing for you to do and nothing lost.
Fix
Credit notes now show on the invoice
If you credited an invoice, the system knew the hirer owed less but the PDF you sent them did not say so, and still asked for the full amount. A credit now appears as its own line with its credit note number, and the balance underneath is what is actually left to pay. An invoice cleared entirely by a credit says Nothing to Pay rather than showing a total the hirer does not owe.
This is also the answer to carrying an overpayment forward. If somebody pays you £24 too much, raise a credit note for £24 against their next invoice: it comes off the amount due and the hirer can see exactly why.
Fix
Long booking names no longer push Sunday off the calendar
On the booking calendar, one long event name would stretch its day wider than the rest, knock the columns out of line and shove Sunday off the right-hand edge where there was no way to scroll to it. The seven days are now always the same width whatever anything is called, and a name too long for its box is cut short with the full version on the tooltip and on the booking itself. Thanks to Binfield Memorial Hall for reporting it.
Fix
The button that folds the menu away is easier to spot
You can fold the left hand menu down to icons to give a wide table more room, and open it again afterwards. The button that does it was a bare arrow with no outline at the very top left, next to Village Hall Hub, and more than one person has folded the menu away and then been unable to find how to get the words back. It now looks like a button. It is in the same place and does the same thing. Thanks to Binfield Memorial Hall for saying so.
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.