Hello everyone,
Welcome to our final product update of the year - one in which we will cover some exciting glimpses in to the future of Matrix Booking as well as some of the important elements around holiday freeze periods and support hours.
As an Administrator or key contact for Matrix Booking, we would highly recommend you take a few moments to read the items below, and also we have included a link to our new regular survey so that we can also provide you with a direct route to tell us how we are doing.
Should you wish to find out more about any of these areas, or if any are not clear, then please contact your Account Manager and they will be happy to run you through these in more detail.
What's in this update?
New accessible booking application
As part of our ongoing commitment to making our software accessible to all, we’ve been hard at work designing and developing a new web application to meet the level AA standard of WCAG 2.2.
This lays the foundations for us to replace the current web application with a solution that is not only more accessible, but also works much better on mobile devices, with a more intuitive, user centred design.
You can use it for core features such as making a booking, editing or cancelling a booking, and viewing upcoming bookings. We’ll be adding more features throughout the year and aim to migrate fully over to this during 2025.
The first part of this new application is now available to be used as an alternative option for some of the main journeys, so if you are interested in getting early access to this application to see how the new booking experience will look for everyone, when this is launched a little later in 2025, please contact your Account Manager or Customer Success Manager .
Directory Synchronisation
For those customers that use Directory Synchronisation to keep their list of users and security groups continually up to date, we've just added a new extra feature. Now, when your 'secret key' expires, you can simply log in and add the new value yourself without the need for any intervention or support tickets. The secret key is a long code that you generate during the onboarding process that allows us to connect to your internal directory so that we can keep your list of users updated (leavers and joiners) and also allows you to use your internal groups for security restriction.
Below is a screenshot showing where you can update your secret key whenever needed.
This is also part of our continual drive to make as much of the product configurable by you, so it becomes even easier to manage and maintain.
If you do not have directory synchronisation and would like to know more, then contact your Account Manager or Customer Success Manager.
How are we doing?
We’d love to hear from you!
Your thoughts and opinions mean the world to us, and they help us make your experience even better. Our (very) quick survey is a chance for you to share what you love and what we can improve. It only takes a few minutes, and your feedback makes a big difference.
As a token of appreciation, you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win a complimentary Administrator Refresher training course for your organisation.
Thanks for helping us grow and improve—we’re so grateful for your support!
Support over the holiday period
We'll be providing full support as usual over the approaching holiday periods. Our support team will be handling all issues raised in the Support Portal on all working days (Monday to Friday) with the exception of UK Bank holidays (listed below).
UK Bank Holidays:
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Wednesday, 25 December 2024
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Thursday, 26 December 2024
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Wednesday, 01 January 2025
In addition, for those customers with Admin as a Service , we can confirm that real time Support Chat will also be fully available during these same periods allowing you an even quicker response.
December product freeze
As the holiday period rapidly approaches, we wanted to let you know that this will be our last planned product update of the year. We will have a product update freeze between Monday 16 December 2024 and Monday 06 January 2025. The only exceptions to this will be any urgent support issues that need addressing or security updates / patches that need to be carried out.
Fixes in this update
Since our last release, we’ve deployed the following fixes and improvements (some are technical and some relate to issues customers may have raised):
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Fixed a bug where cancelling a repeat booking in 365 was not always reflected in Matrix
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Fixed a bug where in certain scenarios it was not possible to remove a Booking Category
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Corrected an issue with the Declarations formatting example
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Added a change to keep Teams integration tokens refreshed if unused
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Made a change to prevent resources from being deleted if they are linked to 365
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Improved floor plan search so it shows availability at any point during the day
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Implemented a change to prevent the accidental removal of a resource if it is part of a combination room setup
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Added a rule to prevent attendees to a meeting that do not have an email address from being passed over to Office 365 if connected (as Office 365 does not allow this - they will of course remain in Matrix Booking where they can be managed)
Meet the team
Our team recently attended the Institute of Government & Public Policy - annual 'Transforming NHS Estates' Conference and Exhibition. Although a bit of a mouthful to say, it was a fantastic event to be able to connect with a number of our central NHS organisations and local NHS Trusts and of course meet some new ones too. More information on this event .
Huge congratulations also go out to one of our local government customers this month - Kent County Council, whose shared workspace use of Matrix Booking won a fantastic award at UK Government Smarter Working Live. More information on this event .
We also attended Anticipate which is one of the largest UK wide Facilities show previously held in Birmingham NEC. This was a great event both for meeting new customers, existing customers and suppliers. A big thank you to all our existing customers that came over to say hello (including HMRC, Transport for London, Babcock, NICE and MWH Treatment).
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Other upcoming events next year:
The Workplace Event : 8-10 April 2025 (NEC, Birmingham)
HEFMA leadership forum : 8-10 May 2025 (Telford)
For more information about these and other events, please visit the events area on our website .
Additional support and Training Hub
As we continually rollout new functions and features, you may find it useful to refresh your knowledge of our product and how it can help your business, especially as everyone’s journey into hybrid working is different.
It might be helpful to make sure you and your fellow Matrix Booking Administrators arrange some refresher training. This can be in dedicated sessions or it could be just using the e-learning modules we have available in our free Training Hub . Some of the e-learning modules may be useful for your wider teams, feel free to link to these from your internal knowledge bases, Sharepoint, or intranet.
If you would like to arrange any refresher training for your teams, contact your Account Manager who will arrange this for you.
Supporting information
Please do ensure all of your administrators have access to our support portal to allow them to raise issues - if you need an administrator added to the support portal please just raise a support ticket with their details.
In addition, the following links may also be helpful:
Link to our Support Portal to raise issues
Link to our Administrator's guide
Why am I getting this email?
You're receiving this operational email because you're either a Matrix Booking Administrator or you’re registered with us as a key contact involved with Matrix Booking. If this isn't the case or you no longer wish to receive these updates, select the update your preferences link at the bottom of this email.
This is also the same contact list we use to advise of any system issues or service updates. If you fully unsubscribe from this, you'll unsubscribe from both types of email.
If you’re updating your workplace processes and rules or if you would like more information about anything in this email or our other products, 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