Latest updates from the Dubsado team
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.
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!
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.
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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!
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.
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:
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:
**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:
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:
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:
And today we released three additional triggers and one action that can be used as part of a Zap.
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:
Here are some ideas for using the New Job trigger:
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:
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...
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:
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:
*Required fields
You will also have the option to automatically assign the following to all projects created from this action:
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:
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
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
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
Originally posted: July 29th, 2019
New Features in this release
This update makes it so certain actions can be performed to multiple items at once. The following actions can be now performed in Bulk:
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.
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:
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:
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!
Originally posted: June 26th, 2019
Everybody loves a discount! We are very excited for this release of discounts and coupon codes to your Dubsado invoices!
With this release we have added:
- Percentage based discounts that can be applied manually or via coupon code.
- Coupon codes for packages (invoices), schedulers, and proposal templates for a fixed or percentage amount off.
This release is PACKED full of tips and how-tos for this new feature. Be sure to read through its entirety and click the links to find out more information as you go along.
Before you can apply a discount to apply to a package (invoice), proposal or scheduler, you'll need to create a template. Here's how:
Here's a breakdown of the settings:
Discount name: what the discount is called, visible to clients as the line item name for fixed discounts (not percentage, i.e. $100 off).
Discount type: how the discount is calculated, fixed or percentage.
Value: the amount of the discount.
Discount code (optional): a case-sensitive code that your client can enter on a proposal or scheduler invoice to apply the discount.
Category (optional): an income category for this discount in the chart of accounts.
Max. number of uses (optional): the maximum number of times a discount can be applied through the use of a discount code.
Expiration date (optional): a fixed date and time to expire use of the discount code for this discount.
Let's take a closer look at the options for setting up your discount.
A fixed discount will subtract a specific dollar amount from the invoice total, no matter what the total is. It will be added as a negative line item to the invoice. The item name for the discount will be the Discount Name you entered while creating the template. So a fixed discount for $100.00 will show on your client's invoice like this:
A percentage discount will reduce all of the line items on the invoice by the chosen percentage. So a percentage discount for 50% will show on your client's invoice like this
After the percentage discount has been applied to the invoice, you will have the option to remove the discount from individual line items. Learn more about applying discounts to invoices here.
If you provide your client with a discount code, they can enter it on their invoice after completing a proposal or scheduler with a required deposit. This is a great tool for running promotions and rewarding loyal customers!
Simply enter the code you would like to use in the Discount Code field while creating your discount template. Please note that the code is case-sensitive!
Once enabled on your proposal template or scheduler template, your client will see a field on the invoice where they can enter their discount code:
Discount codes are not compatible with invoices you have created manually. Learn more about enabling a discount code on a proposal or enabling a discount code on your scheduler with required deposit!
Assign an income category to your discount here. The category will be visible under Reporting >> Chart of Accounts.
Discounts will be logged as negative income, per standard accounting practices. By creating a separate category for each discount, you'll be able to see how much income you've discounted per code under Reporting >> Chart of Accounts.
The following settings will automatically deactivate the discount code for your clients to use. However, discounts can be applied manually to an invoice by you at any time, even if they are expired or maxed out based on these settings.
This setting will allow you to limit application of the discount code to a fixed number of uses. For example, if you enter the number "10" here, the discount code for this discount will only work 10 times. The 11th time the code is used, the client will receive an error message and the discount will not be applied.
TIP: As soon as a client applies this discount code to an invoice, that will be logged as a use of the code, even if they do not ultimately pay. To recover uses of a discount code, you can increase the max number you set in the discount template or manually remove the applied discount from an unpaid invoice.
Setting an expiration date will deactivate the discount code at the specified date and time in your time zone. If a client attempts to use the discount code after the expiration date, they will receive an error message and the discount will not be applied.
- Manually adding a negative line item to an invoice will no longer reflect in the subtotal. So any open invoices that have negative line items should be removed and replaced with a proper discount. This also affects the previous workaround for balancing invoices with refunds. Bottom line: do not add negative line items to your invoices. Use a proper refund or discount feature instead since it is available. Any past paid invoices are fine. Just for future use, do not use negative line items to reflect discounts or refunds. Use the proper discount and refund features now!
- If you are using smart fields in your contracts, forms or emails, and would like for them to also reflect discounts, be sure to readd the smart field to the document due to this update.
Deleting a discount template will not affect any invoices to which the discount has already been applied. Once a discount template is deleted, its discount code (if set) will no longer be valid and you will not be able to manually apply the discount to an invoice.
No, only one type of discount code can be applied to an invoice at a time.