The latest features and improvements.
We’re pleased to announce that button responses are back on WhatsApp! You can now use the buttons below invites to respond ‘in’ or ‘out’ and see who else is going.
These responses are smarter than before so we’ll no longer need to ask which activity you mean if you have multiple open invites. Look out for more buttons on more message types in the near future...
Squaddle emails now have a new look and are easier to navigate. Look out for new buttons that help you get to your outstanding payments and account settings more easily, too.
We've simplified the activity creation flow by separating single and repeating activities right from the start. This also makes it less confusing when you come to edit an activity, as single and repeating activities are now distinct.
Previously, cancelled activities would disappear from the Schedule screen. This made it hard to keep track of any activities you'd recently had to cancel. Now, cancelled activities are visible on the Schedule screen with a 'Cancelled' label and you can still see who signed up.
When an activity is cancelled, anyone who's already paid via Squaddle is refunded. Now that we show information about cancelled activities, we also show a refund icon next to affected participants. If a user drops out after paying for an activity, they will also be refunded (which will now be clearer thanks to the new icon).
When you create an activity, we show you a summary of the details right before you confirm. We've updated this screen so the information is clearer.
If you use Squaddle to organise activities that involve splitting people up into two groups or teams, you can do this in the app and send out team information to attendees. Start by pressing the “Select teams” button on the activity page. Name your teams/groups and then assign confirmed attendees to either side. This is great for picking two opposing teams or for naming Starters and Subs for a competitive match. Once you’ve finished selecting teams, you can send them out (along with a message, if required).
When you create an activity, you can choose specific squad members to be 'marked in automatically'. This means they will be confirmed in by default and will have do drop out if they can't go. You can do this for one-off activities or repeating activities. With this feature you can ensure regular attendees always get a spot. Activity creators can also uncheck themselves if they don't want to be on the in list by default for each activity.
Some people found our time picker a little confusing, so we've swapped it out for a much simpler dropdown menu with 15 minute increments (this will be familiar to anyone who uses Google Calendar on the web).
Instead of having only three invite time options for repeating activities, it's now possible to choose any hour of the day.
You can now request an exact number of participants as the minimum and maximum can be the same.
We've reintroduced the ability to cancel all activities in a repeating block (in one go). We previously removed this feature due to a bug, but it's back. It will come in handy if there’s another pandemic.
We've updated our onboarding messages so it's easier to get started with Squaddle. If you create a new squad and add your WhatsApp number, you'll get a handy link that takes you right to your squad along with a signup message you can forward to your friends (see below). The messages people receive when they join a squad have also been updated with clearer instructions on how to use Squaddle.
It's now possible to see your outstanding balance and make payments using the new WhatsApp "Pay" command. Simply reply "Pay" in the Squaddle chat and we'll show what you owe and provide payment links so you can settle up.
Squad owners can now withdraw partial amounts from their squad's balance. Previously, it was only possible to withdraw the entire balance.
Now, when an admin manually marks someone in or out for an activity, Squaddle sends a notification to the individual letting them know that they've been marked in or out.
We've made it possible to include a message when cancelling an activity, so you can tell your squad why it's not going ahead. This will only apply to activities where invites have already been sent and is entirely optional. Messages will be included with cancellation notifications and sent via WhatsApp and/or email, depending on the alert preferences of squad members.
We added three new notifications types for Squaddle admins to help them stay informed about their activities without having to check the app.
We'll now alert admins when:
🔘 Someone drops out — When someone can no longer make an activity and changes their response, admins are now notified so they can take action immediately if they need to.
🔘 Activity minimum is reached — If you set a minimum number of participants for an activity, you will be notified when this number is reached.
🔘 Activity maximum is reached — If you set a maximum, you'll also be notified when it's reached.
These new notifications are designed to give organisers peace of mind that their activities will have enough people attending without constantly logging in to Squaddle to check on things. Notifications will be delivered to all squad admins via WhatsApp, email, or both, depending on your alert settings.
We changed the following to large, wide buttons so their purpose is clearer and they're easier to use:
🔘 New Activity button on the Schedule page
🔘 Add Members and Message Squad buttons on the Squad page
After lots of great feedback, we made improvements to the Outstanding Payments section so that each individual activity owed for is listed (and linked) for each squad member. This should make it much easier for admins to answer queries about payments from their squad, and they can easily get to the activity in question to make changes (mark as paid, etc). Hit the date and you'll be taken to the corresponding activity.
When you have more than one invite, replying IN/OUT/WHO on WhatsApp requires you to respond again with a corresponding number for each activity. This can be a little confusing at first, so we made the following improvements to these messages:
🔘 It's clearer which number you need to respond with for each activity
🔘 If you're already IN or OUT for an activity, your current status is clearly shown underneath
🔘 You can respond ALL to be IN/OUT for all upcoming activities
🔘 We removed the IN/OUT/WHO buttons that were included with invites, because these caused confusion (due to the limitations of WhatsApp, they didn't correspond to the invite they were attached to)
It's now possible to edit activities, although there are still several limitations.
Things you can edit:
✅ You can edit the Title, Location, Date, and Start/End Time of any activity (your squad will be notified if you do)
✅ You can change the minimum and maximum participant number (you squad won't be notified about this)
✅ You can change the message (only for non-repeating activities)
Things you can't edit:
❌ You can't turn on/off repeat weekly, or change the repeat weekly settings if turned on
❌ You can't turn on/off payments, and you can only change the price is payments aren't turned on
If you need to make changes that aren't yet supported, you'll need to cancel the activity and create a new one. We plan to make further improvements to this feature in the future.
To edit an activity, go to the activity details screen, open the three dot menu ⋮ then select Edit details.
The Send Message and Add Guest buttons on the activity page have been updated to be more prominent/easier to use.
On the 15th September 2022, we publicly launched the Squaddle beta, along with our new branding 🎉
For more about the launch, check out the blog post.