Hello everyone,
This will be our last update of the year, so may we take this opportunity to wish you and your teams a happy holiday period. Here at Matrix Booking we will of course be busy over the holidays in terms of continuing to build new and exciting things and of course fixing anything that doesn't look quite right. Our support team will be available as usual during the holidays by raising a support ticket , but as a reminder Monday and Tuesday 27th and 28th December are public holidays in the UK as is January 2nd 2023 so during those three days only priority 1 (entire system down) incidents will be responded to.
As always, below is just a quick summary of the update(s), so if you do have any questions about any of these items then please feel free to reach out to your account manager, and if you are not sure who your account manager is then just contact the general account management mailbox.
WHAT'S IN THIS UPDATE
Access Control System Integration
Access Control Systems typically provide barriers or security gates in your buildings that allow visitors and staff through when they swipe or show a pass or card.
We have now launched a new integration solution that allows you to connect Matrix Booking to your Access Control System. The first system we are integrating with is Brivo . So now, when you create a booking in Matrix Booking we will pass information over to the access control system adding you to the list of staff allowed to enter through the barriers in that building on that day. In addition, the access control system will then also tell Matrix Booking once you have entered and it will automatically check you in on the Matrix Booking Visitor List.
The process runs as follows:
-
A staff member creates a booking in Matrix.
-
Matrix booking tells the access control system to allow that staff member in to that building on that day
-
When this staff member arrives at the location and scans their Brivo access control card at the door, they are allowed to enter.
-
Brivo then tells Matrix Booking to update the visitor list and mark that staff member as Checked in
-
Users who do not have bookings for today, will not be allowed to enter a location (unless they are added to a specific include list).
If your organisation currently uses a Brivo access control system then please reach out to your account manager to discuss adding this feature to your account, or if you use a different access control system and would like to discuss using that then again please reach out to your account manager to find out more and register your interest.
Displaying Group Names
A small but useful improvement has been made on the Directory Integration screen to display the group name that is synced from an active directory into the Matrix web app.
So if your organisation synchronises your active directory with Matrix Booking you have two ways of doing this, you can synchronise your WHOLE directory, or you can simply provide us with a Group name and instead of synchronising everyone in your directory we will only synchronise the people in that group. We have now amended the the display page so that the name of the group that we synchronise with is shown should you need to know it in the future. (If there is no group name there then it means we are synchronising with your whole directory - if you wish to change this then please just raise a support ticket as usual.)
New Sensor Reporting Platform
Since launching Matrix Booking Sensors and Sensor Reporting we have been using a third party system called Tableau for driving the reporting side of things. As our reporting requirements and our customer requirements have evolved we have been working behind the scenes to create an improved solution that will deliver an even better customer experience and at the same time provide enhanced security and scalability.
The new solution is hosted alongside our core booking system in Amazon (AWS Europe) and is referred to as our Business Intelligence solution (or 'BI' for short). This new platform carries over all of the historic data and is able to process reporting in a much more efficient way meaning you can get the data you need at your fingertips, when you need it. Additionally it re-uses the Matrix Booking security / authentication process you already have in place so there is also no need to remember additional log in details.
Customers using the reporting platform for sensors will be automatically migrated over to this new platform over the coming weeks and your account managers will be in touch regarding that process and ensuring it runs smoothly and efficiently. We are planning that all customers will be migrated by the first week in January 2023 at the latest.
Below are a couple of examples of how the reports will visually differ slightly with the previous versions on the LEFT and the new versions on the RIGHT.
Although the reports look very similar, the functionality and responsiveness in the new solution is greatly enhanced but if you have any questions regarding this then of course as always please just reach out to your account manager for more information.
Fixes in this release
-
Cross org locations did not appear in mobile apps filter screen
-
Partial historic repeat bookings from 365 were causing issues
-
Booking Options / Providers intermittently not showing
-
Character Counters did not count spaces correctly
-
When Exporting Internal Directory data, not all columns were exported
-
Attendee number disappeared if clicked on the Successfully Booked screen
-
When Editing the Attendee count before making a booking, clicking book didn't always work first time
-
When creating or editing a booking, the host briefly disappeared from the attendee list until re-loaded
-
Date picker occasionally showing the wrong date
-
When removing Microsoft Teams, the validation wasn't working correctly
-
Switching to reset password made you type your email address again
Meet the team
Recently the Matrix Booking team have been out and about at the following industry events:
NHS PROPERTY 22
Representatives from Matrix Booking were delighted to hold another of our successful Hybrid and hubs panel discussions at NHS Property 22 hosted in London last month.
Starting off the day, Matt Bailey (Director of Sales) ran the event opening session and introduced some recent survey data relating to the rise in hybrid working in the UK. A survey recently published by Embryo has revealed that over 30 % of full-time UK employees are hybrid working. Full details can be found within our blog detailing the outcomes of the survey in addition to a roundup of our panel discussions.
Find out more about NHS Property 22 – Hybrid and Hubs- Matrix Booking
NHS SMART ESTATES
Matrix Booking was delighted to present at the NHS Smart Estates conference 2022 organised by Convenzis . The event took place online and brought together leading professional from the NHS community to hear practical presentations based on the latest NHS estates innovations.
During the conference, Matt Etherington (Head of NHS and Corporate Sales) presented findings from our successful Hybrid and hubs panel discussions to the conference delegates as well as a case study from our recent work with NHS Kent and Medway . You can read our learnings to date in our blog summarising the event.
Find out more about NHS Smart Estates Conference 2022 - Matrix Booking
We will be attending a number of events in the new year including running a series of Hybrid and hubs panels and hope you will be able to join us at one of these:
-
ISE Europe 2023 (Barcelona) - 31st January 2023
-
Government Property 23 (London) – 8th February 2023
-
Facilities Show (London) – 16th – 18th May 2023
For the latest list of events and webinars please see our website .
If you are able to attend any of the above then please do reach out to your account manager .
Supporting Information
Please do ensure all of your administrators have access to our support portal to allow them to raise issues and in addition the following links may also be helpful:
View the our eLearning guide for general users
View our eLearning guide for Location Managers
Link to our support portal to raise issues
Why am I getting this email?
Finally, you are receiving this operational email because you are listed as an Administrator of Matrix Booking – if this is not the case or you no longer wish to receive these updates, then please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. Please remember that this is also the same contact list we use to advise of any system issues or service updates, so unsubscribing from this will unsubscribe you from both types of email.
As always though, if you are updating your workplace processes and rules or if you would like more information about anything in this email or our other products, then do contact us to see how we can provide help or support with those plans and using Matrix Booking in general!
Regards from everyone here at Matrix Booking,
Ian Jones
Director of Operations