DutyDesk
Changelog

What changed in DutyDesk

Everything new in DutyDesk Concierge and DutyDesk Planner, newest first. Each line is something you can see or use.

The cloud updates itself, so each change is listed by the day it went live. There is nothing for you to do.

  1. Concierge in the cloud

    A campaign to a list from a file

    • Campaigns to a list from a file: on a WhatsApp campaign that is still a draft, “Import a list” takes a spreadsheet saved as CSV with a column of phone numbers. Before anything is saved, you see how many people the campaign will reach and who is left out, such as people who asked not to be messaged or said no in the file. Everyone on the list becomes a contact with one tag, the other columns, like the city, go on their card for the message to use, and the campaign goes to that tag. From Starter.
  2. Concierge in the cloud

    Forms in your customers’ languages

    • A form can now ask its questions in more than one language. Add a language, write the words yourself or press “Translate with AI”, and each customer is sent the form in their chat’s language, with a switch on the page for the others. Answers are kept in the form’s main language, so the list and the CSV read the same whichever language was filled in.
  3. Concierge in the cloud

    Forms that ask more, remind, and open from a QR code

    • Forms ask more: an email, a phone number, an ID number, a dropdown, a photo, and headings between the parts. A question can wait for an answer above it (“Show only when…”), and the answers your team should see first are marked (“Point these answers out to the team”).
    • What a customer writes on a form can go on their contact card: a name, an email, a phone number or a birthday (“Keep on the contact’s card as”). The card shows the birthday too.
    • An open link for each form, with a QR code to download, for the counter or your bio. Whoever opens it gives their name and phone number, and what they send goes on that person’s card. Turn it on under “Open link” on the form. From Starter.
    • A reminder the day before the appointment when a form is still not filled in. On the Calendar, an appointment shows its forms and how far each got, and you can send one from there.
    • The owner and admins are told when a form comes in, and anyone can change that in My notifications (“Forms filled in”). Filled-in forms can be searched by name, date and source, narrowed to “Pointed out only”, and deleted one at a time. The CSV is in the form’s language.
    • Every plan, the trial included, can now build and preview forms; sending them is from Starter. Each form has its own page language and thank-you words. The page takes your business page’s colour, and its logo once that page is published, and customers can print or save a copy of what they sent.
  4. Concierge in the cloud

    Receipts in iCount, Invoice4U or Keep

    • Receipts in iCount, Invoice4U or Keep, as well as Morning: in Settings → Accounting, choose where you keep your books and paste the key it gives you. A paid appointment gets its receipt or tax invoice-receipt there, as before. From Grow.
  5. Concierge in the cloud

    Starter packs in Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic

    • Starter packs now come in Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic too: a workspace whose bot writes one of them gets its ready fixed replies in that language, on the Israeli week when the business is in Israel. You see every reply and can change it before it’s added.
    • The steps for linking WhatsApp from the phone now name its menus the way WhatsApp itself does, in Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian.
    • A workspace you open from the dashboard writes to customers in the language you use DutyDesk in, as one opened from this site does.
    • The Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic of this week’s screens and emails, and of closed dates, read again and smoothed.
  6. Concierge in the cloud

    An easier start from a phone, and paid plans with time to renew

    • A workspace opened from this site is set to the language you signed up in, and named after your business. In Hebrew, its ready fixed replies are in Hebrew, on a week that starts on Sunday.
    • Link WhatsApp from the phone itself: the dashboard shows a code to type in WhatsApp, a button to copy it, and the minutes left. If linking fails, it says why in your language.
    • When the paid period of a plan arranged with our team ends, the bot keeps answering for three more days, so a late renewal doesn’t silence it. You can ask for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months at once, and the emails before the end say what the bot did in the past month.
    • People who reach you through a chat link are counted even when their message arrives late.
  7. Concierge in the cloud

    Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic that read naturally

    • Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic, read again from end to end: in the dashboard, the bot’s own messages, the weekly report and this site, hundreds of phrases now read naturally, one thing has one name everywhere, and counts take the right form («2 ответа», «21 ответ»). The bot also understands more Arabic answers to a reminder, such as «تمام».
  8. Concierge in the cloud

    A simpler dashboard: a shorter sidebar, plain words and a guided start

    • A shorter sidebar in three parts: your day (Home, Conversations, Contacts, Calendar), the bot, and bringing customers. Screens that belong together are now tabs of one page: Replies holds fixed replies, menus, AI and a try-out, Campaigns holds win-back, the Calendar holds shifts, and the Business page holds chat links. Old links still open the right place.
    • Business details is a page of its own: the name, time zone, opening hours and closed dates. Settings is split into short pages, and your own language, theme, sign-in and notifications are under your name, in My account. Setting up services, Google Calendar, stages and tags opens beside the page you are on.
    • The dashboard uses this site’s words: rules are now fixed replies, and flows are menus. Long hints show one line, with Read more for the rest, and how sure the AI must be before it sends is Careful, Balanced or Bold instead of a number.
    • A new workspace opens on its setup: four steps, from connecting a channel to messaging the bot from your phone with a QR code. Choosing your kind of business adds ready fixed replies in one go. An empty screen shows one card that says what to do first.
    • On a phone, a bar along the bottom: Home, Conversations, Calendar, Contacts and More, with the rest of the sidebar under More. Buttons are big enough for a finger.
    • The dashboard follows your phone or computer’s light or dark setting until you pick a theme. A theme you already picked stays.
    • Features your plan doesn’t include stay in the sidebar, marked with the plan they come with. Their page says what they do and lets you ask for that plan.
    • Hebrew and Arabic mixed with English read the right way round: messages, names, @handles and phone numbers. In Hebrew and Arabic, the opening hours start on Sunday.
  9. Concierge in the cloud

    Reminders customers answer, a diary per person, payments and a team inbox

    Appointments

    • Reminders customers can answer: a reminder ends with 1 to confirm, 2 to change the time and 3 to cancel, and changing or cancelling opens your own steps for that appointment. The Calendar shows what each customer answered. It is on from now on, and you can turn it off in Settings → Appointment messages. From Starter.
    • Mark a visit as came or didn’t come on the Calendar. Someone who didn’t come isn’t asked for a review, and the contact card counts each customer’s visits. On every plan.
    • Weekly repeat bookings: the same time every week, up to 52 weeks, booked in one go. Cancelling one visit can cancel the ones after it too, and if you tell the customer, one message says so. From Starter.
    • A diary per member of staff: say who performs each service, and the bot asks the customer who with and books only inside that person’s shifts on the roster. The Calendar shows who each appointment is with. From Grow.
    • Waitlist: when no time suits a customer, they can join the waitlist from the booking menu. When a time comes free, the bot offers it to the first person waiting, and if it doesn’t suit them, to the next. See who is waiting on the Calendar’s Waitlist tab. From Grow.
    • Session cards: give a customer a card of a few sessions on their contact card, and each visit you mark as came uses one. From Grow.
    • Close on holidays: in Settings → Opening hours → Closed dates, tick the coming year’s holidays you close on, and they join your closed dates. On every plan.

    Conversations

    • Team inbox: give each conversation to one person on the team and find yours under Mine, leave notes in a conversation that the customer never sees, and put in the replies you send often in two clicks. Someone given a conversation hears by email and on Telegram. From Grow.
    • A rule can answer everyone who came through a chat link. Chat links lists DutyDesk Planner’s links by promotion as well as by group, and shows posts marked sold.
    • Telegram channels: Connections lists the channels your bot can post to, and what to change in Telegram when it can’t. The next DutyDesk Planner posts to them, and its next and latest posts show there, with a cancel for one still waiting. On every plan.

    Your account

    • Payment link: add your Bit, PayBox or payment page link in Settings, and it can go into reminders and the bot’s answers. Mark an appointment Deposit asked or Paid on the Calendar. On every plan.
    • Receipts in Morning: connect your Morning account in Settings → Accounting, and a paid appointment gets a receipt or a tax invoice-receipt there, with its link sent to the customer in the chat if you want. Needs Morning’s Best plan or higher. From Grow.
    • Weekly report: on Sunday morning, the people who run the workspace get last week in numbers, by email and on Telegram: chats answered, bookings, ratings, visits marked didn’t come, who the chat links brought, and at most two things to fix. Turn it off in My notifications.

    AI replies

    • The next DutyDesk Planner can write or translate a post with your workspace’s AI, from your services, prices, hours and closed dates, and put the bot’s free times in it. Each post counts as an AI reply, or as an AI preview on Basic and the free trial.
  10. Concierge in the cloud

    Booking times, cancelling and alerts

    • Booking times: on the day the clocks change, times are no longer shown twice or skipped. Opening hours that run past midnight now count for the night they started, and a time a customer picks is checked again before it is booked, so a time that has passed or was just taken is offered again instead.
    • When a customer writes that they want to cancel or move a visit, the bot opens your cancelling or moving step, or passes the conversation to your team, instead of promising that someone will confirm it.
    • Reminders and campaigns stay off the days you are closed, your closed dates included. For businesses that write in Hebrew this is on from now on, and you can change it in Settings → Appointment messages. Campaigns also keep to your opening hours.
    • You are now told, by email and on Telegram, when WhatsApp restricts your number, when Google Calendar needs you to sign in again, and in the week before a plan arranged with our team ends.
  11. Concierge in the cloud

    Closed dates

    • Closed dates: in Settings → Opening hours, mark the days or hours you are closed on top of your week, such as a vacation, a holiday or an afternoon off. The bot offers no booking times then, your out-of-hours rules answer, and they can send a message of your own instead, like “We are on vacation until the 28th.” The Calendar and your business page show it too.
  12. Concierge in the cloud

    Business pages in search results

    • Business page: choose how it shows in search results. Write the title and description a result shows, for the page and for each of its languages, and see how the result could look. Pick your type of business and add your city, so search engines show the page to people nearby, or keep the page out of search results altogether.
  13. Concierge in the cloud

    Business pages move to the DutyDesk website, and take your own look

    • Business page: your page now opens on the DutyDesk website instead of the dashboard’s address. Links you already shared keep working and lead to the new address, which the Business page screen shows.
    • Business page: make it yours. Add your logo, a line at the top for news, and links to your Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, website, email or phone. Choose light or dark, a layout, a font, the text size, the corners and a tinted background, one of twelve colours or your own, and the order of the sections.
    • Business page: add a cover photo and a gallery of up to nine photos, and your logo becomes the page's icon. The page now says whether you are open right now, has a “Book” button beside each service, and can be read in other languages too, each at its own address: English, Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian or Arabic.
    • Forms in conversations: send a customer their own form link right from the reply box, or have a rule or a menu message add it under its answer. From Starter.
  14. Concierge in the cloud

    A business page, reviews, win-back, forms and a staff roster

    • Business page: a page of your own with your services, opening hours and buttons that open a chat with your bot. On every plan, the trial included.
    • Reviews: after a visit the bot asks the customer how it went, with a link to leave a Google review. Ratings and comments are on the Reviews screen. On every plan.
    • Win-back: the bot writes to customers who haven’t booked for a number of days you choose. Customers who asked not to be messaged don’t get it. From Starter.
    • Forms: a health declaration or intake form goes out before the appointment, and the customer fills it in and signs on their phone. Filled forms are kept on the customer’s card. From Starter.
    • Staff roster: plan the week’s shifts and send each person theirs on WhatsApp or Telegram. Someone who can’t make a shift can say so, and you see it on the Roster screen. From Starter.
  15. Concierge in the cloud

    Booking in the chat, and an AI that knows your business

    Appointments

    • A customer who asks for an appointment in their own words gets the booking menu, open on the day they asked for.
    • Customers can cancel their own appointment in the chat, from a step in a menu.
    • When you move or cancel an appointment on the Calendar, one switch lets the customer know in their chat.
    • Booking alerts: your team hears by email or on Telegram when the bot books, moves or cancels an appointment.

    AI replies

    • The AI can write your business description from your website, a price list or a PDF.
    • “Ask the bot” lets you ask a question the way a customer would and see how the AI answers, before any customer does.
    • Prices, times and dates in an AI answer are checked against what you told it.
    • An AI answer that was not sure enough to send waits in Conversations, for you to send, edit or dismiss.
    • When the AI cannot answer, the customer gets a short note that their message arrived, and the conversation goes to your team.
    • On the trial and Basic, 50 AI previews a month show how the AI would answer about your business. These plans still never answer customers with AI.

    Conversations

    • A missed WhatsApp call can be answered in the chat, with your own words, a menu or AI.
    • Photos and files your customers send now show in the conversation, and a rule can reply to them.
    • When you answer a customer from your own phone, the bot stays out of that chat for 30 minutes.
    • Also: “Mark done” on a conversation waiting for a person, older messages in long chats, Contacts export to CSV, and a dashboard you can install as an app.

    Getting started

    • A new workspace sees “Get your bot live” on the Overview: four steps, each with a button to the screen that does it.
    • Starter packs: pick your kind of business, answer a few questions, and get ready-made rules, opening hours and a greeting.
    • Keyword rules can match whole words only, so “תור” no longer answers “תורה”, while “בתור” and “והתור” still match.
    • Chat links show how many of the people they brought went on to book, and a link’s name can be changed.

    Your account

    • A heads-up by email and on Telegram three days before your free trial ends, the day before, and on the last day.
    • The emails and Telegram messages DutyDesk sends you come in Hebrew or English, in the language of your dashboard.
    • When the trial ends, ask for a plan right on the Plan & billing screen, and our team arranges the rest.
  16. Concierge in the cloud

    Chat links

    • Chat links: a link that opens a chat with your bot on WhatsApp or Telegram, and counts the people who came through it.
    • DutyDesk Planner can connect to your workspace and put a chat link of its own in each Facebook group post.
    • Labels and counts in the dashboard that still showed in English are translated.
  17. Concierge in the cloud

    New names

    • The bot is now DutyDesk Concierge, and the site shows it beside DutyDesk Planner, our Facebook group poster.
  18. Concierge in the cloud

    Monthly plans

    • Plans are monthly only, and the plan comparison on the site is rebuilt.
  19. Concierge in the cloud

    Files in replies

    • Rules, menu steps and your own replies can send a file, such as a price list, a menu or a photo.
    • A campaign message can carry a file too.
    • “Write it with AI” writes a rule’s instructions from your own files and links.
    • The dashboard fits a phone: its menu folds into a bar at the top.
  20. Concierge in the cloud

    Google Calendar

    • Appointments are written into the Google calendar you choose, each titled with the customer’s number.
  21. Concierge in the cloud

    A bot that knows the diary

    • AI replies know the customer’s own appointments and the services you offer.
    • The bot can move a customer’s appointment.
    • A new menu starts with its default lines in your workspace’s language.
  22. Concierge in the cloud

    Holidays and themes

    • Public holidays are marked on the Calendar.
    • Twelve dashboard themes, three of them made for colour blindness.
    • Send yourself a test notification from My notifications.
    • The Settings menu is grouped under five headings.
  23. Concierge Desktop

    Concierge Desktop goes on sale

    • DutyDesk Concierge Desktop: the core of Concierge on your own computer, with your own AI key. One yearly licence covers two computers.
  24. Concierge in the cloud

    The trial, and opting out

    • The free trial is seven days of Basic.
    • Customers can opt out, and opt back in, with words in their own language, Arabic included.
    • The dashboard’s Hebrew is rewritten in natural, gender-neutral wording.
  25. Concierge in the cloud

    DutyDesk Concierge opens in the cloud

    • The bot answers your customers on WhatsApp and Telegram, from a dashboard in your browser. There is nothing to install.
    • Rules, menus and AI replies, a greeting for first-time customers, and answers in the customer’s own language.
    • A Calendar the bot books appointments into, with reminders and the busy times from your Google Calendar.
    • Conversations, Contacts, campaigns on WhatsApp and Telegram, Analytics, and a team with roles.
    • Voice notes are written out and answered like any other message.
    • Four plans priced in shekels, and a dashboard in five languages.