July 2024

v24.7.2

• Renamed several concepts: The "Picked up by Customer" order status is now named "Completed", "Work Completed" status is now "Work Finished", and "Ordered by Customer Date" order field is now "Date of Sale". This is made to facilitate some of the following changes.
• Off-the-shelf orders now support order statuses. By default, they begin in the "Completed" status, however you can change it as needed. For example, you may want to put layaways in the "New" status instead. Note: All existing off-the-shelf orders begin in the Completed status as the system has no way to know the true status. You will need to update your off-the-shelf orders as needed for orders that are not yet completed.
• Orders now support quantities. Additionally, both order and inventory quantities can now be fractional.
• Various changes to Reports tool. Reports are now grouped by category, you can now search for reports by name, and there is a new quick date select to make it easier to set common date ranges. The tool also has an updated look and feel.
• You can now override the default appointment reminder email message per-appointment-type, which can be managed in the Email Settings when editing the appointment type.
• You can now override the default SMS reminder and status change messages per-appointment-type, which can be managed in the SMS Settings when editing the appointment type.
• The system now observes quiet hours between 9pm-8am when sending automated emails and appointment email reminders. Previously, these quiet hours only applied to SMS messages. Note that you need to make sure you've set your time zone in the General Settings for this to work correctly.
• If you use the prom registry, you can now include the Venue and Season fields into the receipt. This can be managed in the Receipt Settings.
• Added new advanced setting to the appointment settings, Disable Appointment Slots When Booking Appointments as a Staff Member. This is only recommended if you don't allow customers to book their own appointments. When enabled, staff members will always be able to set the appointment start time instead of selecting from available slots.
• You can now limit customer/prospect custom fields to specific customer types.
• Added an order subtotal smart field, which can be used in areas like the sales agreement.
• The system no longer retains email contents for emails that are older than 6 months.
• Fixed bug where staff members without the Manage Settings permission could not use certain filtering functionality for inventory, customers, etc.

v24.7.1

• You can now add multiple items to an off-the-shelf or rental sale, just as you can for special orders. You can even now combine special orders and off-the-shelf orders in the same sale instead of having to create separate orders.
• When creating a new order for a customer that has favorite items, you will now be able to quickly select from a favorite to add to the order.
• Off-the-shelf sales are no longer automatically paid in full. Instead, each new sale (not just off-the-shelf) has a new step where you can choose to record a payment or not. This makes the order flow much more consistent across all types of sales.
• Special order sales now have a slightly different layout, where the data is grouped into sections. Additionally, you can now see all order dates at the same time. For example, on an Arrived order, you will still be able to see the customer order date instead of just the arrival date.
• You can now track the sales associate for a sale/order instead of just on the customer. This field defaults to the customer sales associate, but you can change it to give sale credit to a different staff member. This is opted in per-item-type in the Inventory Settings by enabling the Sales Associate field for orders of that item type.
• When managing appointments, you will now see visual indicators for slot and schedule availability with new green/red icons to make it easier to see what is available.
• You can now sort your appointment types in the Appointment Settings by dragging and dropping them into the desired order. This will reflect the order in which they are displayed to your customers.
• Fixed bug in the appointment form where selecting an existing slot that is overbooked prevents you from making changes to the appointment.
• Fixed bug where you could not hide the "Customer-Facing Vendor Name" field on printed labels.
• Fixed bug where creating a new sample PO could sometimes display an error if you have multiple items with the same size/color in the PO.
• Note: For all future updates, there is now an automatic check for updates. Whenever a new update is detected, you will have 60 seconds to apply the update or it will automatically be applied. This is to ensure that you are always on the latest version of CloudBridal.

June 2024

v24.6.3

• Added new order statuses for special orders: Work In Progress and In Storage. Note that the In Storage status is hidden by default, but can be enabled in the Order Settings if you need it.
• Appointment schedules now have a new Manage Slots button that allows you to control slot availability per appointment type. For example, you can turn off evening pickups while still allowing for bridal appointments.
• Added ability to send automatic SMS messages when an appointment is pending, confirmed, declined, or cancelled. This is similar to the existing email functionality, but for SMS instead. This is only available if you are using the Twilio integration.
• You can now mark staff schedules as recurring, which allows you to schedule staff for the same time each week. Recurring schedules can also be overridden or removed on a per-week basis.
• Updated the inventory item data import spreadsheet with new columns for Customer-Facing Item Name and Sale Price. The older template still works, but if you would like to use the new columns, you can download the updated template from the Data Import tool.
• Automated emails & SMS messages now allow you to add order smart fields when you are sending messages based on order triggers (e.g. order status change).
• Updated the dashboard financial insights tool to include some additional sales metrics.
• You can now configure dropdown custom fields to allow multiple selections. This is useful if you have a custom field that should allow for multiple options to be selectable.
• Appointment custom fields now include a Help text field, which can be used to provide some additional instructions to your clients when they are booking an appointment.
• You can now mark checkbox custom fields as required for appointment custom fields. This can be used to force your clients to acknowledge something in order to book an appointment.
• The appointment form now has a print button in the header, which allows you to print the appointment details in a clean format.
• The inventory item page now has a print button in the header, which allows you to print the item details in a clean format.
• You can now add breaks to staff member scheduled times, including recurring schedules. This is useful if your staff members have a lunch break or other time off during their shift, and will prevent them from being bookable during their break.
• Adjusted how custom fields are displayed for the scheduler and appointment form.
• Added new inventory item type setting: Order Price Can Be Changed Any Time. Enabling this setting for an item type allows you to change the price of an order at any time regardless of its status. This is useful for sales where the price is not fixed at the time of order creation.
• Fixed bug where phone numbers were not respecting the configured phone number format when being displayed.

v24.6.2

• Added new dashboard module: Financial Insights. This provides various financial metrics related to your sales and payments.
• Added new dashboard module: Outstanding Balances. This summarizes all of your outstanding customer orders, grouped by year.
• Touched up the design of the appointments calendar to use a more soft and pastel color scheme. If you would like to go back to the previous theme, you can use the Appointment Calendar Color Theme setting in the Appointment Settings.
• You can now track the Sale Price of inventory items. The previous field, Retail Price, is still available but is now intended to track the recommended retail price. The new field is intended to track the actual sale price of the item.
• Added new report: Inventory True-Up. This report is useful for reconciling your physical inventory with what is in CloudBridal as it shows all of your inventory items and their quantities.
• Added new report: Purchase Orders Created. This report shows all of the purchase orders that have been created in a given date range.
• Added new option to receipt templates: Display Prices. This is the default option, but unchecking this allows you to completely hide prices in a receipt. This could be useful if you would like to send the details of an order to a vendor or another party that should not see pricing information.
• Added ability to display all available colors of an item when printing a label. Additionally, labels now use a fixed font size to make them more consistent, and they are now aligned to the top-left.
• Fixed issue where the new customer-facing item name field could not be searched for.

v24.6.1

• Added ability to print inventory labels using DYMO label printers. Requires Core or Ultimate plan. This is a beta release and may require some additional changes. See documentation here for more info.
• Added new setting to appointment schedules: Prevent gaps between appointments. When enabled, this setting will ensure that appointments are scheduled back-to-back when booked by your customers. Initially all slots are available, but once the first is booked, customers will only be able to select adjacent slots.
• Added a convenient Preview Potential Slots for This Schedule button to the Save Schedule screen, so you can see exactly how slots will appear to your clients.
• Added support for receiving images in SMS messages. This only applies when using the Twilio integration, and not CloudBridal native SMS.
• Updated the design of the appointment slot selection screen in the appointment scheduler.
• Prom registries are now much easier to use if you frequently make sales for different prom seasons. The prom season is now a dropdown field, so you can select from multiple seasons.
• When a prom registry conflict is detected, the system will also show you which customer has already ordered the item.
• You can now set a Default Payment Deposit % in the payment settings. This is helpful if you have a non-standard default deposit % (e.g. 60%) and would like to save the effort of typing that percentage on new payments.
• Customers who use native CloudBridal SMS messaging in the UK will now see the Twilio migration notice when sending SMS messages.
• Added 2.5x retail multiplier option in the markup calculator.

May 2024

v24.5.2

• Customer types are now fully customizable, allowing you to add your own customer types as needed.
• Added ability to schedule your staff members for future shifts in the Staff Schedule module. This works in conjunction with the clock in/out functionality to track both scheduled and worked hours. Staff schedules are now available in the Core plan, with the clock in/out functionality remaining in the Ultimate plan.
• Appointment schedules can now be linked to staff schedules. Previously, appointment schedules only supported fixed hours which is not as flexible for shops that have more dynamic staff availability. After linking an appointment schedule with a staff schedule, any time you schedule for that staff member can be booked against in the appointment scheduler. You can use both fixed hours and staff schedules at the same time. You can start using this in the Appointment Settings by adding/editing an appointment schedule and setting the Schedule based on field to Staff Schedule.
• Added ability to create stock purchase orders.
• Added new purchase order fields: Additional Fees, Additional Fees Tax, Additional Fees Comments.
• You can now set a Customer-Facing Name for both vendors and inventory items. This label is used in customer-facing areas such as receipts, quotes, the inventory showcase, etc.
• Split the Staff Member report into two separate reports: Staff Member Sales and Staff Member Time. This makes it easier to view sales and time data separately. The sales report also now breaks down sales by customer type instead of only showing bridal orders.
• You can now duplicate and reorder inventory item types in the Inventory Settings.
• The inventory showcase URL now updates as you select filters, making it possible to share specific filtered views with your customers.
• Added new Client Portal Link smart field for Email/SMS templates, allowing you to share the client's portal link in a customizable email or SMS message.
• Fixed issue where automated emails based on '0 Days After First Appointment Date' would potentially send before the appointment occurs.
• Fixed issue where inventory item types with quantity tracking disabled would cause rentals to display an error due to there not being enough quantity of the item.
• Fixed issue where customers could potentially join an appointment slot waitlist even when the waitlist feature is turned off.

v24.5.1

• Added SMS message automation, which works similarly to email automation and allows you to send SMS messages based on triggers such as the order status changing, event date, etc. This feature is available only for the Ultimate plan, and requires a Twilio account to be connected. This can be managed in the Email & SMS Settings.
• Added ability to tag inventory items with user-defined tags.
• It is now possible to edit the Alteration Fees, Additional Work Price, and Additional Fees amounts on off-the-shelf orders and quick orders after they have been created.
• Added Customer Sales Associate column to the Payments Created report. This can be useful to help inform commission calculations for shops that base commissions on incoming payments instead of the total order amount.
• The label Bridal Party now displays as Group when the customer is not in a bridal party (e.g. Prom, Groom, etc).
• For single-staff bridal shops, the sales associate field is now automatically set to that staff member.
• When entering a payment for a customer that only has 1 order, the order will be automatically selected instead of starting as blank.
• Fixed issue where sending e-signature emails to customers would display an error message.
• Fixed issue where appointment type buffer periods would not always apply correctly when booking a new appointment that falls immediately before an existing appointment.
• Fixed issue where bridal party management tab was not always visible on customer profiles.

April 2024

v24.4.1

• Added new report: Inventory Value. This report shows you the total wholesale and retail value of your inventory items as of a specific date. The report is grouped by item type, and it also allows you to filter by item type.
• Added ability to mark a vendor as inactive, which will hide them from selections in various parts of the app. Existing orders and inventory items will not be impacted if you mark a vendor as inactive.
• Added ability to set custom header text for quotes. This can be managed in the Receipt Settings.
• You can now display the customer's sales associate on the order receipt. This can be enabled in the Receipt Settings.
• The appointment scheduler now requires the customer to consent to Email & SMS communication before booking an appointment.
• Fixed issue where the appointment waitlist was not working for paid appointments.
• Fixed several possible display issues that could occur when printing.

March 2024

v24.3.1

• Implemented fully customizable inventory item types. Previously, inventory item types were largely categorized into 'Dress' and 'Non-Dress' items, and the visible fields for each item type would be fixed to one of those two categories. This becomes limiting when an item type you are selling doesn't fit neatly into one of those categories. For example, if you are selling a steaming service, fields like 'Size' and 'Color' are not applicable. With this update, you can now fully customize the visible fields for each item type. Simply go into the Inventory Settings and edit your item types to begin customizing.
• Added new Ultimate plan feature: online image searching for inventory items. Tired of manually uploading images? Now all you need to do is click the Search Online button in the inventory item images section, and then pick one or more images that match. Note that this feature is limited to 100 searches per 30 days.
• Other misc improvements to inventory item types: they can now be deactivated and renamed (which renames the item type for all matching orders/existing inventory).
• Improved ordering interface for detailed orders when on a larger screen size. There is now a side panel, which makes it much easier to add additional items to the order. This works great with the inventory item type changes - for example, you can quickly and easily add things like dress customizations as separate items to the order.
• Added concept of an Order Number to orders. This is a unique identifier for each order that can be displayed on the receipt.
• The following fields can now be marked as visible or hidden on the order receipt: Vendor, Customer Order Date, Store Order Date, Expected Arrival Date, Order Number. This can be managed in the Receipt Settings.
• You can now view only unread messages in the SMS Message Center, making it easier to find messages that have been missed.
• Added ability to customize appointment confirmation email subjects. This can be done in the Appointment Settings > Edit Appointment Type > Email Settings.
• Added ability to deactivate appointment types.
• The Stripe integration settings have been moved from the Payment Settings to the dedicated Stripe Settings.

February 2024

v24.2.2

• New look & feel for CloudBridal. The main changes are around the header, fonts, and form fields, but you will notice various other tweaks throughout the app. Core functionality and navigation largely remain the same.
• Improvements to Inventory Showcase:
  • You can now hide/show the vendor filter, which is useful if you do not want to show available vendors to customers.
  • Added an optional silhouette filter to allow customers to filter by silhouette.
  • Added an optional item type filter to allow customers to filter by item type.
  • No longer requiring header images to be uploaded for customer categories. Instead, the category selection is skipped altogether with the new ability to define a default category.
  • You can now see the customer's selected favorite items directly in the appointment form. Previously, their selections were only visible in their profile.
• You can now configure tax inclusive Alterations, Additional Work, and Additional Fees. This can be managed in the Order Settings. Previously, these amounts were always entered pre-tax.
• The "Total Retail Value Sold" column for the vendor performance report is now tax inclusive.
• When creating custom fields for orders, you can now specify multiple options for the "Limit to Inventory Item Types" field. Previously, you were only able to select a single option.
• Appointment type buffer periods are now respected between different appointment types in the same resource/fitting room. Previously, they were only used to calculate time slots for a single appointment type. For example, if you have a bridal appointment followed by a bridesmaid appointment, the bridal appointment buffer period will be respected when calculating whether the bridesmaid appointment slot is available.
• Fixed issue where an error would occur if you tried to select specific availability slots in the appointment schedule.

v24.2.1

• Added new module: Inventory Showcase, available for the Ultimate plan. This digital showcase allows you to display your inventory to potential customers before their visit to your store. For more details, see the Inventory Showcase documentation.
• Added new paid appointments mode: Charge Manually. This gives you full control over when to charge for paid appointments as opposed to the existing mode which always charged at time of booking. This can be managed by editing your appointment types in the Appointment Settings.
• For all paid appointment modes (Charged at Booking, Charge Manually, and Reserve), you can now set a disclaimer message that will be displayed to the customer before they book a paid appointment. This can be useful to explain details such as your cancellation policy. This can be managed by editing your appointment types in the Appointment Settings.
• Added ability to create orders for items that don't match the customer's type. For example, you can now create bridesmaids order under a bride's profile.
• Added ability to add multiple dresses to the same order instead of requiring separate orders for each dress.
• Improved the reports module to make it easier to view reports that have many columns.
• Updated time picker input field to support clicking to change the time instead of having to type the time.
• The Orders Created report now has a Totals row to make it easier to view the summed amounts without exporting to Excel.
• Various misc tweaks to the user interface and bug fixes to improve usability.
• Fixed issue where real-time notifications for things like incoming SMS messages and E-Signatures were not working.
• Fixed issue where switching between Day/Week view in appointments calendar makes the 'New Appointment' popup menu not function.
• Fixed issue where automated emails based on 'First Appointment Date: No Item Purchased' were being sent to customers marked as a no-show.
• Fixed issue where non-admin staff accounts could not delete orders even if they were given permission to do so.