Latest updates from the Dubsado team

Dubsado News Center

Update

Appointment Reschedule Button Matching Brand Color

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: February 25th, 2020

We've made another update to have everything you send through Dubsado match YOUR branding. We have updated the "Reschedule Appointment" button so now matches your brand color. All other Dubsado buttons appear in that brand color currently. To demonstrate this, we have updated our brand color to a nice shade of fuchsia!

To update this button color, you can head to the the Settings>>Branding and choose your color in the "Color (form/link buttons)" section. Do note that this will change ALL of your Dubsado buttons to this color!

Once it is updated, the "Reschedule Appointment" button that appears in your Appointment Confirmation emails will match that color. This change will also take affect anywhere you use the "Appointment Reschedule Button" smart field!


Update

Turning hyperlinks into Dubsado buttons

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: February 24th, 2020

When adding a link to an email, you now have the option to add it as a general hyperlink or turn it into a button similar to the button that appears on an email when you send a form or invoice in an email. Like those buttons, the color of new hyperlink-button will match the Brand Color you have set up in your Brand Settings.

There are two ways to add in the button to your emails. When drafting a new email, whether it is within a project or when making a canned email template, you will see that the existing "Add link" option has been updated to "Insert Link or Button. The option itself can be found under the Formatting Options in the email composer

Option 1: The first way to add the new button is click Formatting Options>>Insert Link or Button and then enter your URL and the Button Text you wish to show.

Option 2: If you already have text hyperlinked text in an email, you can easily change that to a button by clicking on that link selecting Style and then Button. You can transform the link this way if you want to quickly update all of the links in your email!

Any questions, feel free to shoot us a chat or email, hello@dubsado.com.


Update

Updated Brand Settings UI

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: February 12th, 2020

This is a smaller update that is preparing for a new feature coming out soon! User and Brand Settings are combined onto a singular Settings page accessed via the Gear icon at the top of any Dubsado page.

On this new page, the User Settings (Login, Billing, and Affiliate) will appear below the existing Brand settings. The two settings types will be referred to as "Account Settings" and "Brand Settings".

No functionality is changing here, YET. Just making way for a feature we have upcoming up here very soon! :) Cannot wait to share more!

Update

Custom Mapped Fields in Zapier Zaps

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: January 5th, 2020

We added to our Zapier integration last month, with those additions, subsequently, we had to remove the Custom Mapped Field info from Dubsado in your Zaps. I am excited to tell you today that we added Custom Mapped Fields back as an option in your Zaps.

Now you will see options for Custom Mapped Project Fields and Custom Mapped Client Fields.

----

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an online automation tool that connects your favorite apps, such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, and over 1,500 more. You can connect two or more apps to automate repetitive tasks without coding or relying on developers to build the integration.

With Zapier, users can create automated workflows, called Zaps, to connect Dubsado with other apps that support Zapier. Zaps have two main components, triggers and actions. A trigger is a specific event in an app that starts the Zap. Once you set up a Zap, Zapier will monitor the trigger app for that event and bring in custom data when it occurs. For example, with Dubsado's New Lead trigger, when a new project with a lead status is created in Dubsado, the Zap will start and pull in the client's name, email, and other information that you mapped when setting up the Zap.

The second part of the Zap is the action. An action is an event that takes place in another app once the Zap is triggered. The action can use the data pulled in by the Trigger. Let's say you set up a Zap with Dubsado's New Lead trigger and add Trello's Create Card action. You'll be able to add the client's contact details from Dubsado to the new Trello card... automatically!

View the help article on connecting to Zapier.

Update

Added Zapier Actions and Triggers

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: November 26th, 2019

We are excited to introduce three additional triggers and one action that can be used as part of a Zap.
If you know about all Zapier can do, you can scroll down to the highlighted portion of this release to see our newly added items.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an online automation tool that connects your favorite apps, such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, and over 1,500 more. You can connect two or more apps to automate repetitive tasks without coding or relying on developers to build the integration.

With Zapier, users can create automated workflows, called Zaps, to connect Dubsado with other apps that support Zapier. Zaps have two main components, triggers and actions. A trigger is a specific event in an app that starts the Zap. Once you set up a Zap, Zapier will monitor the trigger app for that event and bring in custom data when it occurs. For example, with Dubsado's New Lead trigger, when a new project with a lead status is created in Dubsado, the Zap will start and pull in the client's name, email, and other information that you mapped when setting up the Zap.

The second part of the Zap is the action. An action is an event that takes place in another app once the Zap is triggered. The action can use the data pulled in by the Trigger. Let's say you set up a Zap with Dubsado's New Lead trigger and add Trello's Create Card action. You'll be able to add the client's contact details from Dubsado to the new Trello card... automatically!

Below is a list of our Current Triggers and how they work:

Current Zaps

New Lead

This trigger will watch for a new project with a lead status to be created in Dubsado. This project can be created manually from the projects page or automatically when a client fills out a lead capture form or public proposal that is set to create a project that has a lead status.

Here is a list of all the information that will be available to map in your Zap with the New Lead trigger:

  • Created at Date
  • Created Date pretty
  • Project Title
  • Project Start
  • Project Start pretty
  • Project End
  • Project End pretty
  • Project Status Name
  • Client First
  • Client Last
  • Client Name
  • Client Email
  • Client Phone

**The "pretty" version of each date is a formatted version of the date. It will read like this, "Wednesday, November 20 2019 5:00 PM" as opposed to "2019-11-20 17:56:40.566Z"

Here are some ideas for using the New Lead trigger:

New Payment Received

The New Payment Received Trigger will fire off actions when a payment is made to a Dubsado invoice using any of the three payment processors. Manually applied payments will not fire this trigger at this time. The following information can be used by the trigger:

  • Invoice Name
  • Invoice #
  • Invoice Date
  • Invoice Date pretty**
  • Invoice Total
  • Invoice Subtotal
  • Total Discount
  • Tax Amount
  • Tax Name
  • Amount Paid
  • Payment method
  • Date Paid
  • Date Paid pretty**
  • Client First
  • Client Last
  • Client Name
  • Client email
  • Client Phone

    **The "pretty" version of each date is a formatted version of the date. It will read like this, "Wednesday, November 20 2019 5:00 PM" as opposed to "2019-11-20 17:56:40.566Z"

TIP: The Amount Paid property will always come over as cents, so a payment of $350.67 will show up in Zapier as 35067. You may need to add an action with the Formatter by Zapier to convert this amount back to dollars.

Here are some ideas for using the New Payment Received trigger:


New Zaps

And today we released three additional triggers and one action that can be used as part of a Zap.

New Job

This new Trigger functions exactly like the New Lead Trigger listed above. The only difference is that Zaps with this trigger will fire when a project with a JOB STATUS is created. Like the New Lead Trigger, the following information can be mapped as part of the Zap:

  • Created at Date
  • Created Date pretty**
  • Project Title
  • Project Start
  • Project Start pretty**
  • Project End
  • Project End pretty**
  • Project Status Name
  • Client First
  • Client Last
  • Client Name
  • Client Email
  • Client Phone

    **The "pretty" version of each date is a formatted version of the date. It will read like this, "Wednesday, November 20 2019 5:00 PM" as opposed to "2019-11-20 17:56:40.566Z

Here are some ideas for using the New Job trigger:

Contract Signed

This trigger will fire when any contract or sub agreement is signed by a client in Dubsado. To better control when this Zap runs, you may need to add a filter to your Zap.

Here is a list of all the information that will be available to map in your Zap with the Contract Signed trigger:

  • Contract Name
  • Date Signed
  • Date Signed pretty**
  • Project Title
  • Project Start
  • Project Start pretty**
  • Project End
  • Project End pretty**
  • Client First
  • Client Last
  • Client Name
  • Client Email
  • Client Phone

    **The "pretty" version of each date is a formatted version of the date. It will read like this, "Wednesday, November 20 2019 5:00 PM" as opposed to "2019-11-20 17:56:40.566Z"

Updated Project Status

This trigger will watch for the status of a project to change. This trigger does NOT fire when a new project is created and a project status is assigned at the same time (check out the New Lead or New Job triggers above).

This trigger WILL fire any time...

  • A project status is manually changed from within an individual project
  • The status of one or more projects is changed on the Projects page (individually or through the use of bulk actions)
  • A workflow changes the status of a project

Similar to the Contract Signed trigger, you may require a filter in your Zap to limit when the Zap runs.

Here is a list of all the information that will be available to map in your Zap with the Updated Project Status trigger:

  • Current Project Status (the new Project Status)
  • Previous Project Status (the old Project Status)
  • Project Title
  • Project Start
  • Project Start pretty**
  • Project End
  • Project End pretty**
  • Client First
  • Client Last
  • Client Name
  • Client Email
  • Client Phone

    **The "pretty" version of each date is a formatted version of the date. It will read like this, "Wednesday, November 20 2019 5:00 PM" as opposed to "2019-11-20 17:56:40.566Z"

Create Project Action

This action will create a new project in Dubsado based on a trigger from another app!

When creating the Zap you will have the option to map information from other programs into the following Dubsado Fields:

  • Client First Name*
  • Client Last Name*
  • Client Email*
  • Client Phone Number
  • Project Title*
  • Project Start
  • Project End

*Required fields

You will also have the option to automatically assign the following to all projects created from this action:

  • Project Status
  • Project Source
  • Workflow

Any project created from this Zap will be assigned the same Project Status, Project Source, and Workflow. You can create multiple Zaps or use filters and paths to further control what gets assigned.

Here are some ideas for using the Create Project action:

What's Next?

Update

Activity Tracker Update

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: October 28th, 2019

We released our first phase of our Activity Tracker back in June 2019 and today we are launching more items being tracked by it. The goal with activity tracker is to give you more insight to the "history" on your account. With this feature, you will be able to see what a user or workflow does on a project. Especially when working with teams, it gives you a better insight into your account and what actions where taken on a project.

Example:

This will make it so any activity within a project is tracked and logged within that project. In addition to the ones we have now the following actions will be tracked.

Invoices:
Updating an invoice (invoice name, date, etc)
Adding notes to an invoice
Adding line items
Deleting lints Items
Updating line items
Creating an invoice
Senting Invoice
Adding a QB tax to an invoice
Applied payment schedule

Workflow:
Applied a workflow
Updating workflow (change the order of actions)
Forcing a workflow action
Removing a workflow action
Approving workflow action
Archived a workflow
Paused workflow
Unpaused workflow

Appointment schedulers:
Create/added scheduler
Remove scheduler
Update scheduler

Where to find Activity Tracker

Head to any project. Click notes and then activity log:


This is not retroactive. It will start tracking items from now on. It only tracks actions taken within a project.

Any questions, feel free to send us a chat or email (hello@dubsado.com)

Bugfix

  • We also fixed a bug with the calendar sync not refreshing when updating a project's date / time. Now any updates will automatically sync over to your connected calendars.
  • Fixed the bug where some user's email drafts were not being removed when clicking the trash icon. Now, when clicking the trash icon, they are removed.
  • Fixed the bug where adding packages to a workflow "create invoice" action were not allowing you to save the workflow action. Now, with the fix, the workflow action can be saved and proceed as it should.


Bug Fix

Public Forms Requiring Important Info

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: October 23rd, 2019

Hey everyone!

We made a very important update to our public forms that now requires them to have first name, last name and email fields on that form.

The reason for this update was due to clients submitting your public forms and it brought in a project without a client. This caused lots of errors when trying to assign a client to the project later.

Now lead capture forms and public proposals require a first name, last name and email address (set as required and mapped) on the form to be completed. If any of your public forms are missing that information, be sure to update your template accordingly so clients can fill out your forms.

NOTE: Proposals have always been this way. This update is only changing lead captures. We have just combined now that all public forms will need this info.

Recurring Invoice Auto-Pay Fail Notification

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: September 15th, 2019

No more missing any failed payments on recurring invoices! With this update, when a client's invoice auto payment fails, you will get a dashboard notification and email of the failed invoice

Additionally, when payment is failed your client will get an email with a link to the invoice that lets them manually pay and update their credit card information.

You can edit what this automatic email will say to your clients under Templates >> Canned Emails >> Failed Recurring Invoice Payment.

Any questions, feel free to email or chat us. We are always happy to help!

New feature

Scheduler Groups

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: August 19th, 2019

Scheduler Groups are a group of Appointment Schedulers that can be sent to your client all at once. This new feature functions like a landing page for your schedulers. You are in control with how you group them!

How to set up your scheduler groups

These groups can be made via a navigation tab on the Templates>>Schedulers page.

When making a group, you will have the ability to select any of your existing Appointment Scheduler Templates and add them to the group. After the Schedulers are selected, you can add an email that will contain a link to that scheduler page. This email is for this specific group and will not affect the schedulers that are added if you'd like to use a different email to send individually. A smart field, schedulerGroup | schedulerGroupLink for scheduler groups has been added so that a template can be created.

Once you click CREATE on your scheduler group, it will be added to that group page. That group preview will consist of a dropdown of the included schedulers, a settings button to edit, copy, or delete the group, and the Share button that will allow users a copy the direct link or get the iframe code to embed that scheduler group.

You can also create scheduler groups on the "Appointment Scheduler" tab. Use bulk actions to select a group of schedulers to quickly add them to a group.

Sending out your scheduler group

Like individual Appointment Schedulers, Scheduler Groups can be sent out through a project manually, via a workflow, or using the public link/embedded page for templates. When sent through a project, a new copy of that group and all of the included schedulers will be added to that project rather than using the template. Groups can be added to the project via the Schedule Appointment drop down. A new section on the Pending Appointment page of a project has been added to distinguish individual schedulers and scheduler groups sent in that project. The added schedulers will also appear in card view on this page. When you click on the dropdown of attached schedulers within this card, you will have the option to edit any of the individual schedulers added to that group. To edit the group as a whole, you can press the Gear Icon at the bottom right of the card. These cards have sent flags to show when the appointment has been viewed, sent, etc. When a client books an appointment using the group, the Appointment under the confirmed tab will be from that individual scheduler not the group.

Additionally, Scheduler Groups that have been added to a project can be sent using the Add a link button on the email composer within a project. They have a blue flag with the Sched. Group tag to distinguish it from the other documents on the project. More about adding multiple form/document links to an email here.

In Workflows, the Send Appointment Scheduler option has been updated to allow groups to be sent as well. To send a group, select the Send Appointment Scheduler action and the new segmented dropdown will list the individual appointment schedulers as well as the scheduler group templates. Selecting a group will automatically load in the Send Scheduler Group canned email template, but you can select another canned email in its place.

A new workflow trigger action has been added to have actions fire off when an appointment is made off of a scheduler in that group. This will fire that action when ANY of the schedulers in the group are used (as opposed to individual actions looking for a certain scheduler to be used). If any actions are watching for an appointment and that appointment is cancelled. The workflow will pause and show an error out informing the user of that the appointment was cancelled.

Your client's end

For clients, making an appointment via a Scheduler Group is largely the same as making an appointment with an individual scheduler. The only difference is that the client will be taken to a landing page that has cards of all the attached Appointment schedulers. These cards will display the name of the Scheduler, the length of the appointment, and the event location. Clicking on a card will take you to that scheduler which can be filled out normally. When a scheduler is accessed via the Scheduler Group page, a "Back" button will appear in the top left corner to take you back to the Group page.

Once an appointment is made, all of the details stored on that scheduler (Confirmation messages, reminder emails, etc.) will be that of the individual appointment scheduler, not the group.

In the client portal, Scheduler Groups will appear under the "Appointment Scheduler" section within the projects tab. They have a different icon to distinguish the Group from individual schedulers sent in the project.

New feature

Bulk Actions, Sorting, and Walkthroughs

Becca avatar
Shared by Becca • October 14, 2022

Originally posted: July 29th, 2019

New Features in this release

  • Bulk Actions
  • Default Sorting for the Projects page
  • Walkthrough Tours

Bulk actions

This update makes it so certain actions can be performed to multiple items at once. The following actions can be now performed in Bulk:

  • ProjectsArchive ProjectUnarchive ProjectDelete Project (You cannot remove a project with a contract on it. You must remove the contract first.)Change Project Status
  • InboxDelete/Archive Emails
  • Canned Email TemplatesDelete
  • SchedulersDelete

On each of the pages where we have added bulk actions, you will now see a new toggle to the left of each item on the corresponding list and a checkbox at the top of the list.

Checking off the box next to any individual item will mark it as selected. Alternatively you can mark the checkbox above the list to have ALL items on that list marked as selected. Once you have all of the desired items selected you can click on the dropdown arrow in the box above (with the check all select box) to bring up a list of the actions you can perform.

Once you select an action, a confirmation message will pop-up to make sure you want to perform that action. After the action goes through, you will see a completion message appear informing the user that said action has been completed. This message will have a count of how many items that action was performed on. If there are any items where the action cannot be performed (if you try to delete projects with contracts, etc.) you will see a count of how many items that were not affected on this same message.

Sorting for Projects

This feature will allow users to choose how their projects are organized by default on their projects page. Head to Projects>>Customize page to see those customizations under the Columns area.


Ways they can be organized:

  • Title (Alphabetically A-Z)
  • Created Date (New→Old, Old→New)
  • Project Date (New→Old, Old→New)
  • Project Status (if in the all column of either jobs or leads)

Walkthrough Tours

We now have an extra tool to quickly learn how to use Dubsado on some basic functions. There are six tours new users can go through that each focus on a key area of Dubsado that they are interested.

The subjects of these tours are:

  • How to Send a Contract
  • How to Send an Email
  • How to Send a Form
  • Brand Settings
  • Understanding Projects
  • How to Send an Invoice

There is also a general walkthrough that will show the general layout of the platform.

These will allow you to click on various parts of the app to take you to the correct pages and buttons to click to perform the desired task. Each step on the tour will have a "skip" button to allow you to exit the tour at any time (tour progress will not be saved).
You can access the tour from anytime through the Help Button in the top right corner.

Hope you all enjoy these updates. Any questions, please email (hello@dubsado.com) or chat us. We are always happy to help!