Major Update. Introducing Bookly and Bookly Pro.

Currently, we have two separate plugins: Bookly Lite and Bookly paid version. From the business standpoint, both solutions are designed to enhance your website and bring the process of booking and appointments setting to the new level. Bookly has over 20 000 installations and is widely used across Healthcare, Beauty, Education and Fitness industries, as well as by individual professionals.

From the technical standpoint, our team maintains two different products which slows down the pacing of adding new features and creates more space for bugs.

Bookly team made the strategic decision to refactor current architecture and optimize the development of the free and the full versions of Bookly. Both solutions will be merged into the single Bookly plugin, which will have free and advanced (available with paid Bookly Pro add-on) versions. The new release is planned in mid-October and will bring Bookly v16.0 and Bookly Pro add-on v1.0.

This upgrade will:

• Simplify the switch from Free to Paid version. No need to uninstall Lite version and configure the paid version from scratch.
• Speed up the process of adding new features. After refactoring, we won’t have to maintain two separate products and the new version of the architecture will allow adding new features faster.
• Improve the plugin’s stability. Both versions will be updated simultaneously which will include bug fixes and support for the growing capabilities of Bookly.
• Make changes to the interface of the Free version of Bookly. Now it is clean and doesn’t have any locked features. You can use all features that you see there as appropriate.
• Enhance the performance of the new Bookly free version because now it uses the latest versions of technologies (PHP, MySQL, WordPress) and third-party frameworks which guarantees lack of conflicts, while the technical basis of Bookly Lite is partly outdated.

We also have great news for Bookly Lite users. Upcoming release will introduce the new free version – Bookly v16.0. Bookly Lite rebrands into Bookly with more features available for free.

The new Bookly free version will include:

• ability to send Email notifications about approved, pending and cancelled bookings;
• ability to customize email sender name and email address;
• added ability to send emails as plain text or as HTML;
• ability to show staff member’s photo in a booking form;
• ability to merge duplicate customer contacts;
• ability to filter payments based on their statuses;
• ability to attach .ICS files to notifications;
• ability to make email field not required in booking form.

The update process will be automated and easy. You’ll receive a detailed manual at the time of release, and it will also be available in our documentation. In case you face any errors or require further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us at support@bookly.info.

Even though we test our code thoroughly (automatically and manually) before any update, we cannot guarantee that there won’t occur any issues in your installation due to the work of other plugins. According to the rules of Envato marketplace, you need to have a valid support pack to receive an item support. If you haven’t updated Bookly for a long time, before the upcoming release, we recommend checking your support period for Bookly Pro and extending it if necessary. This will help us to deliver a prompt support for you and a quick fix as soon as possible.