Optional Co-Host: Automatically Add Optional Team Members to Meetings

OnceHub is excited to introduce the ability to automatically add Optional Co-hosts to your meetings. This new feature allows you to include team members in a scheduled meeting without their availability or busy time affecting the available time slots for your customers. 

You can now easily add a team member as an optional attendee directly within your Booking Calendar settings. This is perfect for inviting team members whose presence is not mandatory but would be beneficial.

Why it matters 

The Optional Co-Host feature is designed to eliminate manual work and simplify your scheduling process by providing the following benefits:

• Eliminates Manual Work: Hosts no longer have to manually add optional attendees after a booking is made, saving you time and reducing administrative burden.
• Automated Meeting Invites: It provides an efficient, built-in way to ensure relevant team members are added to scheduled meetings without creating scheduling conflicts based on their availability or busy time.
• Clear Roles for Attendees: The feature clearly differentiates between required participants (hosts/co-hosts whose availability is checked) and those who are optional.

Who can access it

Plan: Available on Schedule plan and above.

Team managers can set optional co-hosts on any Booking Calendar owned by a member of their Team.

Admins and Account Owners can set optional co-hosts on any Booking Calendar in the account.

We're excited for you to explore this new enhancement and see how it can improve your hosts' experience! To learn more about Optional Co-Hosts, please take a look at this article.

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Calendar Links: Add to Calendar Links Now Included in Guest Notifications

We've made it even easier for your guests to keep track of their meetings. In some cases, a meeting may not show up on your guest’s calendar right away due to a calendar error or if a calendar invite wasn't sent. 

To help with this, a new set of Add to Calendar links has been added to all default guest notifications. For those who use custom notifications, you have the option to add or remove these links within the individual templates. 

With a single click, your guests can now add a meeting to their:

• Google Calendar
• Outlook Calendar
• Apple Calendar

These links provide a reliable backup, ensuring that the event is always saved and accessible to your guests.

Why it Matters

This feature was created to solve the critical issue of guest missing meetings due to not receiving the calendar invite. When a guest doesn't receive the calendar event, it can lead to frustration and an increase in no-shows for you. By including these links, your guests have a quick and easy way to save the event, leading to fewer missed meetings and a more professional experience.

The Key Benefits:

• Improved Guest Experience: The new links add a layer of reliability and trust, making the scheduling process feel more seamless.
• Saves You Time: By preventing calendar-related issues, you and your team will spend less time troubleshooting and more time on high-value work.

OnceHub API: Pass Custom Field Data via the Book a Time Slot API

We're excited to announce a powerful enhancement to our Developer API, giving you greater flexibility when programmatically scheduling meetings.

The Book a time slot for a Booking Calendar API now supports sending custom field information within the request body, allowing you to capture detailed, context-specific data at the point of booking.

What's Included in the Update?

Previously, the POST /v2/booking-calendars/{id}/schedule endpoint was limited to accepting system-defined guest information; namely the guest's name, email address, and phone number.

With this update, the API is expanded to fully support the collection of Custom Field data. You can now pass any custom key-value pairs that correspond to the fields configured in your Booking Calendar's booking form settings.

This means you can now:

• Capture information like Company Name, Industry, Job Title, or specific product interest directly in your API calls.
• Pass information for tracking like Ticket ID or Meeting Source, ensuring seamless data continuity between your internal systems and OnceHub.
• Automate internal workflows by instantly populating CRM records with rich, pre-qualified data.

How to Use the New Capability

To utilize this feature, simply include your custom key-value pairs within the existing booking_form object in the API request body.

The key for each custom field must exactly match the mapped field name of the corresponding question configured in your OnceHub form settings.

Endpoint Reference: Book a time slot for a Booking Calendar

This enhancement provides developers with the capability to integrate more deeply with OnceHub, enabling smoother data flow and more intelligent meeting coordination.

• Added Integrately, an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), as a new account-level integration.
• Routing Form questions now have customizable button text.