In this release we make several API endpoint optimisations to ensure stability and performance at times of high traffic.
We’ve refreshed the booker’s cancellation from to make it simpler and more focused. We also highlight the Mentor’s cancellation policy to manage expectations about refunds.
We added new settings for each council to improve communications between different stakeholders and the Eequ support team. This allows us to efficiently direct questions to the right person.
Council Dashboard Booking Launch Date
We introduce a new setting to collect and manage launch dates and times for each deliveries. We add constraints to spread launches allowing the Eequ team to monitor and support traffic surges at busy times.
Eequ CRM enhancements
In this month we release more customisations to our bespoke CRM tool, allowing us to understand user types and provide the most appropriate support.
Register improvements
We now prevent the register being taken in advance of the session to ensure accurate attendance data for councils.
Migrations and upgrades
We upgraded our Next.js version to v14 and Migrated react-query from v4 to v5. We upgraded headlessui library to v2.x.
Miscellaneous
Improved Speed and Efficiency: We've made changes behind the scenes to make the app faster. By rewriting how the system asks for information from the database with query builders, we’ve made it more efficient.
Smoother Experience: This change means that the app can handle more users at once and respond faster when you make requests, like loading a page or submitting a form. You'll notice smoother performance, especially during busy times.
To mitigate against admin errors, we’ve made it impossible to mark attendance before the date of the session.
We’ve further customised the booking answers for councils so that they avoid the default Eequ allergies, health, learning notes and personality. This is to enable refined customisation for each council and each individual Mentor.
Mentors love their detailed Schedule page where they can see a live count of bookings that are both approved and waiting for approval. Now they can click these counts and be taken to the precise bookings that make up this number to drill down further if needed.
In this version we handle insights on funding optimisation. This is a new focus for the DfE who seek to understand how the local authorities are taking care to evaluate the performance of their individual providers and if necessary, claw back on funding promised where performance is not as expected.
The DfE metrics provide data on unique children split by eligibility categories as well as the type of provision (SEND or universal) as well as the age of the child. The metrics are also viewed per session and split between provision type and age of child. This refactor was accomplished in several steps starting with a collecting data on both funding and claw backs and then integrating this into the final insights across all categories.
Some data cannot be allocated to one of the prescribed category due to occasional manual bookings with incomplete data. To illustrate these anomalies we now show and explain this separately.
The DfE metrics required an understanding of those sessions that were cancelled but not rebooked. As a session can be booked and cancelled many times, we created an algorithm for determining this accurately. To achieve and test this we built a separate application to simulate scenarios. As this data was required split by primary and secondary we also had to handle scenarios where cancellations happened in one age range but were later rebooked by another.
We handled the scenario where children attended a council funded activity but were later found to be non-eligible. In this scenario it was important to keep the record of the child on the Mentor’s registers and to mark them as non-eligible. At the same time we needed to filter them out of the performance metrics and DfE reports as these places would remain unfunded by the programme. This solution considered both safeguarding and commissioning factors.
Bookers can now click the Mentor’s avatar on any listing to be taken to a filtered result of all the Mentor’s published listings.
We refactored our childcare settings test service to improve performance and reliability.
Unlike our normal expiry of unapproved bookings we now prevent council funded registration records from expiring. This allows council teams unlimited time to investigate eligibility conditions for retrospective bookings and to process them accordingly.
This new features collects the number of sessions a council has funded for each listing in their programme.
The page can also be used as a calculator for council teams. After the delivery, council teams can review the performance information including attendance and take up calculations and provide the number of number of sessions paid for. This can differ from the originally commissioned number depending on overbooking or low demand. This data feeds across the dashboard and is transformed in the DfE report to illustrate the efficiency of the programme overall.
This new feature is utilised for specific date ranges and this release includes the function to remove any hidden inputs that might inadvertently affect the DfE report numbers.
Commissioning data is now complete with an audit trail showing the personnel and time for any changes.
For councils that run contributory programmes we’ve added financial data in their exports.
https://eequ.org/wraparound-childcare-booking-system
The Wraparound Care Programme, funded by the Department for Education (DfE), is a strategic response to the need for more childcare options around the school day. This funding aims to make more spaces available and to extend the hours from 8 am to 6 pm. The programme will signpost parents to schemes such as Tax-Free Childcare and Universal Credit to help parents manage the costs. The programme funding is a much-needed kick-start that aims to grow a sustainable ecosystem of well-balanced supply and demand for childcare, enhancing the overall well-being of children and families.
Despite its many advantages, the Wraparound Care Programme faces challenges in terms of implementation. Schools, providers, and local authorities can work with Eequ as a technology partner to overcome these hurdles and future-proof the programme:
Awareness and Engagement: Eequ uses advanced SEO tools to promote opportunities around the clock. Automated features… such as email confirmations, reminders, and online schedules for each child keep parents organised. Accessibility and Availability: An intuitive booking platform offers parents a seamless experience. It allows easy access to childcare options, real-time availability, waiting lists and secure payment methods, ensuring a hassle-free process. This convenience helps parents balance work and family commitments more effectively.
Ensuring Affordability : A smart booking system collects information seamlessly, reducing admin and collecting accurate data. Eequ ensures providers meet rigorous safeguarding and data protection standards. The speed of the Wraparound Care Programme rollout means that data reporting needs are still unknown but you can be sure of effortless reporting whatever the future requirements.
A 2-step process allows providers to review bookings for children’s needs prior to approval.
Eequ provides integrated payments, childcare voucher schemes and HRMC tax credit processing.
Create and store all your registration questions securely online with easy access to child information via the register.
Bookers see beautiful schedules and have access to all their data, messages and a private portfolio of achievement.
Regardless of how the questions have been posed by different counicls, we now detect attendees who we believe have referenced an allergy in their booking information and show a warning label next to their name on the registers.
We have released various internal tools to help support personnel to identify user’s needs, including any authentication difficulties.
We continue to refactor various endpoints in our quest to optimise performance across all our complex queries.
We have changed the terminology in the booking flow so that bookers understand the two-step process, particularly with council funded eligibility checking.
We have improved the Ui for Registration Records.
When Mentors hide a block this is more clearly denoted with a red icon to help them to troubleshoot why dates are not visible to the public.
We fixed the issue where Mentors did not receive a combined cancellation email when bookers cancelled multiple bookings in a bulk action.
We fixed an issue where answers to a Mentor’s custom questions appeared incorrectly assigned.
Fixed an incorrect error message for double bookings
In this release, we deployed a refactored metrics overview pages for council funded programmes, improving performance and time-outs. We entirely refactored several endpoints to address performance issues with key metrics including the complex visualisations of the distribution of sessions by eligibility category according to different booking statuses.
We deployed a novel solution to vastly increase our query performance with a focus on handling the vast number of queries relating to the age of the attendees for various data sets.
We now show emails for Administrators with access to make it easier for users to identify and audit accounts.
We include the Mentor’s professional name in Council Bookings Export
We have added SEND to the filter on the Search Page allowing users to drilling down further by their local authority.
Disabled IMDS v1 to force move to launch templates in API
We improved the functionality with Council Member assignee on the Consolidated Booking page allowing teams to quickly delegate eligibility checking tasks.
We have significantly enhanced our system's responsiveness by reducing the query timeout time, ensuring quicker data retrieval and improved user experience.
Upgraded our database infrastructure to leverage the increased computational power and memory of the large instances, transitioning from the previous configuration. This upgrade supports higher throughput and more complex data operations, facilitating advanced analytics and data processing capabilities.
Expanded our API deployment to run more instances, to better accommodate increased demand and ensure seamless service availability during peak usage periods.
Implemented Performance Insights within our database systems, providing deeper visibility into database performance metrics. This enhancement enables proactive optimisation and fine-tuning of our data management processes, contributing to our commitment to advanced development in data technologies. These updates underscore our ongoing dedication to technological solutions that drive efficiency and innovation.
The DfE revised the format for their Enhanced Report, adding new data sets. We updated our report to reflect these changes, saving scarce administration resources and providing accurate reports at the council teams’ fingertips.
Improved Ui for council eligibility decisons.
Part refunded/cancelled pending bookings now show accurately ni the Approval Needed filter.
More accessibility improvements for drawers and modals.
Picture carousels on listing pages refactored with new library.
Google onboarding flow improved.
Identity verification enforced for Intercom improving security for support interactions.
Mentor view of learner limits set by council is fixed.
Wrong age child error message is improved.
As part of our ongoing efforts to make our site accessible to users with disabilities, we have reviewed several pages on our site and implemented a range of improvements.
We now handle all special characters in names to make eligibility checking more accurate.
When councils refresh their eligibility list we will filter out duplicates retaining the UPN records as a priority.
To give us more flexibility to handle complex parameters in our emails we started the migration process.
Users will see a clear illustration if their adventures take them offline.
We released several enhancements to the council dashboard. We improved the Listing page filtering to enhance the user experience when performing analysis and switching tasks between assessing performance and adjusting funding.
Councils can now sort by learner’s first name and surname on eligibility list allowing them to spot duplicates more easily.
Councils now see Booker’s contact information in their drawers if provided by the Mentor on Registration Records.
Improved UI for SEND accessibility section
All exports now permit select all or none for quicker workflows.
In this deployment, we provide councils with a precise data set required by the DfE showing the range of listings with key characteristics and provider details.
Councils can now quickly remove listing from display after viewing key data points.
Councils with permission from mentors can include data from private listings to provide an overview in key scenarios such as safeguarding or central catering registers.
Ticket availability page handles failed bookings
Councils can enjoy more functionality to manage their eligibility lists and can sort and filter in order to manage tasks such as identifying children who are no longer eligible.
New filters on the Listing Performance page give councils quick insights when they wish to segment listings by different characteristics.
Mentors with lots of listings to organise can now search quickly on the add listings page.
We are proud to collaborate with Brighton and Hove City Council to roll out a SEND Short Break programme that asks for parental contributions. The contributions increase attendance and make the funding go further within the community. To facilitate this we evolve our functionality to give councils the option between free and paid schemes.
We now enable councils to make complex eligibility decisions. They can handle any number of individual eligibility decisions within a single booking. This reduces friction for parents and the programme as a whole, saving administration time and money.
We provide detailed VAT breakdowns in our exports for Mentors to ensure they can handle their VAT returns when processing paid bookings.
We enhance the flow of updating information when additional verifications are requirement by our payment processing partner, Stripe.
This new page handles many complex scenarios of ticket types and group size to help Mentors visualise their ticket availability. Mentors can now see at a glance the number of places waiting for approval and reserving spaces to better understand their public availability.
In collaboration with SEND parent and carer communities and their councils we launch a new SEND section to our listings whereby Mentors can clearly define the training and facilities that they can cater to.
Mentors can now stipulate a specific adult age range for listings such as 18-24. This is particularly relevant for council funded programmes such as the SEND Short Breaks programme.
In this deployment, we help councils to understand more about their funding and listing performances.
We provide additional filters for councils to help them delve into school participation accurately. We enable councils to filter parents marketing consents by various segments. We also provide councils with greater search capabilities on their Eligibility List interface.
We release a new landing page to highlight our popularity with providers that offer expeditions and award programmes. We also release a page to celebrate our SEND Short Breaks solution for Councils, illustrating the new product and functionality for SEND programmes.
We restructure our methodology for handling ticket availability to give us more flexibility with planned future features.
In this release, we help councils to distribute scare funding in a fair way by allowing them to set limits for the number of bookings that can be made within different delivery periods. These rules change from council to council but reflect the overarching rules of the grant funding. Now councils can set global learner booking limits for any date range. In addition, they can set limits for individual listings. This helps them to manage specific listings which have a high popularity. In this way, they can ensure that all children have the opportunity to attend popular activities.
Listing booking limits can also be controlled by Mentors but the council rules will take precedence.
Further functionality allows councils to exclude certain listings from limits.
Today we release an elegant new ticket set up form to guide Mentors through the various options.
Mentors can now create ticket that are not available to the public and store them in the listing’s ticket bank. This allows them to use custom tickets for Bespoke Invoices and special arrangements.
In this release, we make it possible for Mentors to trigger a booking confirmation email when they create a Registration Record. This introduces the online booking concept to areas of digital poverty and encourages them to create an account for the future.
We also introduce a new indicator label when a booking is declined before an eligibility decision is made. This clarifies that the decline may not be related to the eligibility for all parties and this data feeds through to council data summaries.
We now show the type of SEND provision and age range in the council listing performance page to cater to the changes in reporting requirements from the DfE.
In this deployment, we enable Mentors to select their company type precisely, making the onboarding process and integration with Stripe smoother especially for charities.
We also provide a persistent dashboard notification if refund decisions are blocking payouts.
In this release we iterate on the metric dashboard for the Department for Education council reports, presenting anonymised and statistical data in new ways to provide new insights with the goals of continuously improving the programmes.
FEATURES OF NOTE
New DfE metrics V1
View individual eligibility matches in council booking drawer
Council Reg Records and Invoices will automatically turn "Approved" after eligibility decision
Export Schedule Data includes 'Approval Needed' status
User Messages sent via Sendgrid are formatted with spaces
Registered interest users and Waiting List users become Mentor customers & can get a Bespoke Invoice
"Drop-in" changed to "Session" (ticket) across the site
IMPROVEMENTS
FIXES
Scroll for school name goes to the end
Improvements to Ticket availability calculation
Emergency contact (eg parent's name) shows correctly on register
Removed Archived listings from filter
Mentors now have the ability to part-decline any attendee or session removing the need for parents to rebook for complex scenrios. This significantly reduces the administration for council funded Mentors and Councils who routinely process complex booking requests.
Councils can review associated listings and add to their Organisation quickly via their LISTING TAB
Ticket drawer now shows clearer options for Council Funded (HAF or SEND)/ Private enterprise
Mentors can Part Decline when there is only 1 Attendee but more than 1 session
Peristent yellow notifications when a Mentor needs to add Stripe ID verification information
Ticket Name is available on the register. This will help mentors that need to see at a glance how many paid/free or adult/child or support level for SEND.
New Council setting to enforce essential data fields when Mentors create a new HAF Registration Record. Introduce a new principle for HAF Registration Records and HAF Bespoke Invoices so that they are processed through the normal eligibility checking. These changes will increase the accuracy of the DfE reports and ensure funding is distributed fairly to eligible children.
You can now include hyperlinks in your messages. This feature enriches communication on our platform, allowing you to share links seamlessly within your conversations.
We are pleased to introduce our new Onboarding Flow feature, which is designed to simplify and streamline the process of becoming a mentor. This enhancement guides new mentors through a step-by-step process, enabling them to complete their listing details at their own pace.
Our Onboarding Flow breaks down the setup into manageable chunks, ensuring mentors can provide all the necessary information without feeling overwhelmed. This structured approach simplifies the setup process and helps mentors create comprehensive and appealing listings that stand out to potential bookers.
New mentors will find this guided experience easy to navigate, from crafting their bio to setting their availability.
You can check out the new Onboarding Flow on our Onboarding page.
We now offer Microsoft Authentication in addition to Google and Facebook. Now, you can conveniently sign in using your Microsoft account. Whether it's your personal, work, or school account, our platform seamlessly syncs with Microsoft's secure authentication system. This means less time spent remembering passwords and greater security for you and your staff.
Now you can Schedule when you want to start and stop accepting bookings for any block of dates. This new feature is called ‘Schedule Block Visibility’ and is particularly useful for groups of collaborators that want to ‘go live’ for bookings on a common date. This will be used by council teams who want to ensure all parents have a fair opportunity to apply for places at the same time. This ensures that eligible parents feel fairly treated and have equal opportunity to access popular activities.
We're excited to unveil Mentor Analytics, a dynamic new feature designed to empower our mentors with valuable insights!
This page is divided into four sections: Revenue, Debts, Childcare, and Engagement.
See at a glance how much you've earned from your bookings. This section displays your total earnings, including the amount you've received and the amount you're yet to receive.
The page also distinguishes between Card Payments and Childcare Vouchers, so you can easily track your earnings from each source.
Never miss a payment again. Unpaid bespoke invoices are clearly displayed, along with outstanding refunds.
Gross childcare bookings, confirmed and unconfirmed payments are grouped together for easy reference.
You can even track reconciled and unreconciled payments, so you know exactly where you stand.
Track your bookings and attendance to see how engaged your learners are.
Some bonus stats like Spend per customer & Age distribution are also included.
Discover a new dimension of your mentoring journey by diving into Mentor Analytics today.
We use Intercom, a reputable third party support tool so we can support our community. In this release we integrate securely with Intercom messenger allowing us to authenticate users and respond to their queries.
Bookings and Registration records are intentionally unalterable on Eequ so that they can be used as a definitive record of the agreement between Mentor and Booker. Now you can void a Registration Record if you need to create a new Record with amended information and a clear audit trail.
If you have created a profile in error, you can now archive it.
This release provides councils with the ability to respond accurately to the Department for Education’s request for enhanced reporting when they are selected. Each delivery period, 10 councils are selected at random to provide an extremely detailed breakdown for each child and each venue. The breakdown isolates confirmed attendees from all bookings and provides key information about the attendee such as their school, UPIN, eligibility reasons, age and the number of sessions attended. The breakdown accurately indicates the source of the eligibility rationale eg council source or parent declaration.
This data collation would previously have taken several weeks for councils to compile but this feature provides the data instantly and in the exact format required by the DfE.
Now, you can effortlessly share the reins of your account with trusted individuals, giving them the power to manage your listings, bookings, and more. Whether you're a busy mentor who needs an extra hand or a team leader looking to delegate tasks, this feature offers the flexibility you need.
Switching between accounts is as simple as selecting a profile or using the menu shortcut, keeping you in control at all times. To grant access, just ensure your chosen admin has an Eequ account, and you're all set to share the load.
Rest assured, the power to add more admins remains exclusively yours.
Head over to the Admin Access page to get started.
We have added a Checkout Questions Tab to the Edit Listing section on our platform. This feature allows Mentors to preview the questionnaire step as it will appear in the checkout flow. Toggle between different tickets to see any different questions. This tab makes it easier for Mentors to review their listings before they publish them.
We are thrilled to introduce our latest development: brand new, specialised landing pages for HAF Providers and HAF Councils. These dedicated pages are tailored to showcase the unique offerings and information relevant to each group, enhancing their visibility and accessibility.
With these distinct, user-friendly landing pages, we're bridging the gap between HAF Providers, Councils, and the community, fostering a more connected and informed experience.
To learn more about our HAF solution, you can visit now our HAF Providers and HAF Councils pages.
We are pleased to announce a major redesign of the Attendees Step in our checkout process. The update aims to simplify the process, making it more intuitive and user-friendly for anyone making a booking.
The redesigned step ensures a smoother, more efficient experience, improving your journey from browsing to attending events.
Our platform now offers a new flexibility feature that allows you to delete or archive your listings. This enhancement helps keep your dashboard clean and organised, aligning with your current needs.
You can choose to permanently remove listings or archive them for future reference, adapting your space to suit your evolving journey.
We have diversified the search results on our updated search page. This departure from the previous arrangement based on upcoming dates provides a fresh perspective on your search experience.
The new search page ensures new discoveries and opportunities when searching for your next experience.
We're proud to announce that our platform has achieved Cyber Essentials certification, a significant milestone in our commitment to cybersecurity. This certification is a testament to our dedication to protecting user data and maintaining robust cyber defences. By meeting the rigorous standards set by Cyber Essentials, we ensure that our platform is equipped to protect against a wide range of cyber threats.
The Cyber Essentials certification also reinforces our promise to provide a secure and reliable service to all our users. You can now enjoy even greater peace of mind knowing that your interactions and data on our platform are thoroughly protected.
We're constantly striving to improve our security measures, and this certification is just one step in our ongoing journey towards cyber resilience.
We're happy to announce a new feature on our platform: the ability to sort tickets! This enhancement allows you to organise your tickets by various criteria, ensuring that you can manage and prioritise them more efficiently.
Enjoy a smoother, more personalised ticket handling experience with this latest update!
We've now updated our platform to allow you to publish listings without the need for bank details.
This update streamlines the process, making it quicker and more hassle-free for HAF Mentors to onboard on Eequ.
We are happy to announce the new Council Learners page to the council HAF dashboard. This feature enables Councils to access information about their learners, including their eligibility status and booked sessions.
Additionally, councils can export their learner data to a CSV file, simplifying the management of their learners' information.
We have taken your feedback into account and have made the necessary changes to improve the ease of use, efficiency and overall enjoyment of our platform.
Starting today, mentor can manage their bookings even more efficiently using the advanced ticket settings. This allows setting a custom size limit, providing better flexibility and control during the booking process.
The advanced ticket settings can be found on the Listings page, under the Tickets tab.
As a bonus, we've also added the ability to set a limit per block. This provides even more flexibility, allowing mentors to set a limit for each block of a listing, instead of the entire listing.
We're thrilled to announce the new Discount Codes feature on our booking platform! This addition empowers mentors to create and share unique discount codes, providing bookers with special offers on their sessions.
Mentors can now effortlessly generate and manage custom or random discount codes from their dashboard, setting discount percentages or fixed amounts, defining code validity and usage limits.
Sharing codes is a breeze, as mentors can send them directly to bookers via email or social media, or even embed them in promotional materials or blog posts. Bookers will enjoy a seamless experience, entering the discount code on the booking page, instantly seeing the updated price reflecting the discount, and completing the booking process with the discounted rate.
Head over to the Workflows page to start creating your first discount code!
We have made some improvements to our platform to make it work better for you:
The updates include improvements to the metrics, listings, and providers sections of the dashboard. These changes aim to provide users with more relevant information, better user interface, and an interactive experience. Additionally, the dashboard now allows for exporting HAF Listing data to CSV based on a certain date range.
More detailed information is now available for each listing on the dashboard. It is now possible to export the HAF Listing data to CSV, based on a certain date range.
You can now switch between different views of the providers page, including a by sessions and by hours view. This breakdown is useful for providers to see how many sessions and hours they have delivered.
We have made some improvements to our platform to make it work better for you:
We're excited to announce the release of our new feature, Automatic Discounts! With this update, you can now set up discounts that will be automatically applied to eligible scenarios, saving you time and effort.
Here are some of the key features of Automatic Discounts:
We enhanced the Organization page by incorporating an interactive map, improving the overall user experience. Additionally, new filters were introduced making it easier for customers of large Organisations to navigate and filter for relevant information.
During this update, the age filter for the search page was fixed, and a learners page was added for councils. A warning modal to prevent unintended approval before eligibility checks was introduced, and the design accessibility for error notifications was improved. Bugs causing wrong booking actions to appear for invalid bookings were fixed, and new icons were added to the booking page.
On the 1st of March, numerous enhancements were made, such as improved performance of HAF metrics and the addition of date range filters. Fixes included resolving a collaborator issue and marking incomplete payments as failed. The update also added an adult ticket type for the HAF programme, improved the HAF questionnaire, and optimised the bottom bar placement for mobile devices.
This update enhanced the "Take Register" feature, providing two checkboxes to indicated collected and arrived attendees as an listing setting. A block ticket types was enabled for HAF programme use, and the design of the schedule page was significantly improved for better user experience.
This update includes the ability to name your blocks. It also brings the ability to remove tickets, thereby assigning specific tickets to any given block. Users can now also publish blocks without tickets, which automatically enables the 'Register Interest' feature. Additionally, listings can be published without the need for tickets or dates.
Experience collaborators can now create bespoke invoices and registration records for their experiences. This can make managing bookings and payments easier, and help track and collect activity data.
We’re excited to introduce a range of new features and improvements to our platform that will help you get the most out of it.
Councils can now edit any of the affiliated listing, and mentors can send bulk messages to all parents. We’ve also improved the booking process by collecting more data when a booking is declined and fixing a couple of bugs related to session loading and remaining places.
We've just completed a round of polishing and have released some updates to improve your experience.
This release includes enhancements to the user interface and bug fixes to make sure everything runs smoothly. We hope these changes make your time on our platform even better.
We look forward to seeing you in the new year with more updates.
We are happy to announce the new Childcare Payments feature to the platform. This feature allows Mentors to accept Childcare Payments as a form of payment for their bookings. You can use now both Card Payments and Childcare Payments to pay for your bookings for learning experiences.
To enable this feature for your experiences, head to the Workflows page to set up your Childcare Payment schemes.
Parents can find a step by step guide on How to book with Tax-Free Childcare Payments or Childcare Vouchers and learn how to add your Childcare Scheme and Reference number and confirm your Childcare Payment on Eequ.
To start accepting bookings with childcare payments, set up your childcare payment scheme on the Workflows page today.