Light Blue 2023.1 release notes

Light Blue 2023.1 is a major update that adds new features that makes it easier to work with your clients and get paid by them.

New online payment methods

We’ve added support for the full range of payment methods available via Stripe, including ApplePay, Google Pay, Klarna, Afterpay / Clearpay, iDEAL and Bancontact, in addition to our existing card payment option.

Scheduling requests

Scheduling requests allow you to use your scheduling calendars to book meetings or shoots with existing clients. You can send a scheduling request from either a shoot or a contact: your clients will love them because the booking form will be pre-filled with the information that you already have, and you will save time because the event that’s created will automatically be linked to the relevant records in Light Blue.

You can insert a scheduling request into an email or text message, and you can automate inviting your clients to book a consultation or viewing session by including them in workflow messages.

Forms in workflows

You can now include forms as steps in your workflows, allowing you to automate double-checking your clients’ details and requests in the run-up to a shoot.

Making phone calls

Added an option to show “Call Phone Number” buttons that use the tel: protocol to work with VOIP software installed on your computer.

• On a shoot record, a “Phone Call” button is displayed next to the “Email” and “Text Message” buttons. You can also hover your mouse over any linked contact that has a phone number to show a “Call Phone Number” button that will all that specific contact.
• On a contact record, a “Call Phone Number” button is displayed when you hover the mouse over a phone number and “Call Phone Number” is in the options menu for the contact method.

Other changes

Scheduling calendars

• Added “Add to Apple Calendar/Outlook” and “Add to Google Calendar” buttons to the scheduling calendar booking confirmation page.
• The options for sharing or opening a scheduling calendar have been moved into a window of their own, to simplify the scheduling calendar setup screen.

Integrations

• Zoom meeting features for appointments are now more obvious in the appointment window.
• Added an alarm option to Light Blue calendar feeds.
• Calendar feeds that are filtered to only show specific shoot types no longer filter out appointments if you’ve chosen to include them in the feed.

Miscellaneous

• When pasting text that contains line breaks into a single-line text field, the line breaks are automatically replaced with commas. e.g. pasting an address into the shoot Location field will automatically reformat it for you.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for creating records in the main sections.
• The client portal date picker now has month and year menus that make it easier for clients to select dates a long way in the past or future.
• Added a preference that allows you to default the date selected when you use the “Add Workflow” command from the “Activity” panel to today, instead of the start date of the shoot.
• Added new time off types.
• Added an option to show the ISO week number in the built-in calendar.
• Added an option for ProSelect order imports that allows you to apply a specific tax rate to untaxed items (e.g. a zero-rated tax).
• When you export or import a workflow, forms that are part of that workflow are now included.
• The printed / PDF version of invoices now have their payment schedule translated.
• Re-enabled macOS Contacts publishing for macOS 13 Ventura users who have updated to macOS 13.2 or newer. There’s a bug in macOS 13.0 and 13.1 that can cause Light Blue to crash when trying to publish contacts, so we’re only re-enabling this feature for macOS 13.2 or newer.
• On macOS, the picture import feature now supports PSD as a processed file format.
• When you accept a contract that included one or more quotes, you’re no longer asked if you want to accept any quotes that weren’t included in that contract’s options.
• When you select the “Copy Link for Online Payment” option from the sale print dialog, we now wait until a data sync is complete before copying or opening the URL to ensure that online version is fully updated.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the invoice date shown in lists to not update if you edit the invoice date on an invoiced sale.
• Fixed a bug where the “Merge Duplicate Contact” button in the “Linked Records” tab doesn’t do anything when you click it.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Home screen enquiries widget “too many records” warning from showing.
• Closing the Preferences window before it’s finished initialising could cause a crash on Windows, so if you try to close it too quickly a progress bar is shown until it’s able to close safely.