Adding a service photo or video can significantly increase customer engagement. It helps them get an overview of what your service provides and what’s included.
Planfy now features a new “Gallery” section in the service settings, letting you add multiple photos and videos to each service. These visuals will appear directly on your booking widget, giving customers a clearer idea of what your service offers.

How to Add Photos or Videos to Your Service

First, open your service page and choose the service you want to edit. In the top menu, you’ll find the “Gallery” tab, where you can upload photos or videos for your service.

For photos, you can upload files directly from your device. We support multiple formats, including JPG, JPEG, PNG, and GIF

For videos, you can enter a YouTube or TikTok URL.
You can also add a description or heading for each photo or video.

Your gallery will display photos and videos by service, allowing you to manage their position, delete, or replace them.

How to Display Photos and Videos as a separate Step on the Booking Widget

We’ll display the thumbnail in the service list, and the photo or video details will appear alongside the service description when the customer clicks “About”

If you want the photos step to always appear when a customer selects a service, you can enable it by going to Settings → Booking Policy and turning on “Show Photo Gallery & Description Step”

Photos and videos are now displayed on the service details step, giving your customers a better overview of your service

The Planfy App is now available on the Shopify App Store, making it easy to add a booking widget to your store for seamless service bookings.

This integration allows you to effortlessly accept bookings via your website for consultations and other services, helping your e-commerce store, salon, or local business manage appointments efficiently.

How to add the Booking Widget to Shopify Store

In the "Apps" section of your Shopify admin, search for and install our "Planfy Bookings" app.
After the installation is complete, click "Link Existing Account" to connect to your current Planfy business account or "Create New Account" to set up a new one

Now you can easily add the Embedded Widget as a section

Or the Popup Widget to your online store:

The app also allows you to customize the widget with different languages, colors, and custom CSS.

Check out the Demo Store

You can check out our Shopify Demo Store.
It features an integration with the app, allowing you to see and test the Embedded Widget in the "Services" menu, the "Book Online" button, and the Popup Widget at the bottom right.

Multiple Booking options

Planfy offers multiple booking options to suit your business needs.
You can accept bookings directly through the Shopify Store using the Embedded or Popup Widget. Customers can also book services through your dedicated widget page or profile page on planfy.com.

Planfy also supports bookings through Instagram and Facebook, helping you connect with customers across multiple platforms

You can also display the Booking Widget during the Shopify checkout process, such as on the Thank You page after customers complete their payment. This allows you to encourage bookings at the perfect moment when customers are already engaged. Learn more about setting this up in our blog post.

Some services require more than one staff member, for example: a couple's massage or group training with multiple coaches. So it's helpful to be able to assign multiple staff to a single service.

How to Assign Multi-Staff to a Single Service

In order to assign multiple staff, on your portal, first go to Staff, then create a new staff user to represent the staff members you need

Then go to Services and create a service that will be delivered jointly by the two staff members above

When a customer books the joint service, manually block the time in both staff members' personal calendars. You can easily block time in personal calendars by clicking and dragging your mouse, then input your note details in the pop-up modal:

This way, multiple staff members can be booked, blocking the available time for the booking - allowing your staff to collaborate on a service.

Positive reviews on platforms like Google and Facebook help boost search rankings, and show potential customers that you offer excellent products or services. Encouraging customers to leave reviews is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and build lasting relationships.
Planfy allows you to set up SMS or Email templates after a booking is completed, where you can include your Google or Facebook review links.

How to include a review link in the booking completed template

You can mark a booking as completed by editing it from the Calendar or the Bookings page, then by default, the customer will receive a SMS/email with a summary of the booking details

To edit the booking completed template and include a review link, go to Settings and select SMS & Email Templates

Select Booking Completed and you will see the editor for the SMS and Email templates. Besides the parameters containing booking information at the bottom, you can customize the templates and include your Google or Facebook review link

After the template is approved, when a booking is completed, the SMS or email notification sent to the customer will include your review link

For services with all-day availability, span multiple days, like booking a venue for a long event, hiring equipment, or a 3-day spa retreat, the booking duration setting is helpful as it allows customers to create multi-day bookings

Update the working hours of the company or the specific staff member

To allow the system to support multi-day bookings, the company or staff working hours must be set to 24 hours. You can change the entire company working hours by going to Settings and selecting Company Details

Then, select Business Times and choose 24/7

You can also change the working hours for specific staff members by going to Staff, choosing the one that is allowed to accept multi-day bookings.

Disable the toggle for Use Company hours which is enabled by default, to customize the working hours for this staff member. Then, you will see a dropdown with the option for 24/7

Set up the service duration

Go to Services, select the one that allows multi-day bookings, and then set the duration with the number of days

Booking a multi-day service

Now, customers can book a multi-day service for all staff (if you set the company working hours to 24/7) or for specific staff members who have 24/7 working hours

In some services, such as a spa retreat or wellness center, one staff member can sometimes handle two or more services simultaneously. Planfy provides a concurrent bookings setting that allows staff to accept multiple bookings at the same time.

How to Allow Staff to Accept Bookings Simultaneously

First, go to the staff settings in the right menu and select the staff member who can accept multiple bookings simultaneously

Next, select the settings tab and look for the toggle "Concurrent Bookings". By default, only one booking or customer is serviced at a time.

You can change this to the number of simultaneous bookings the staff member can accept

After changing this setting, the staff member can be selected for multiple bookings at once

Your Shopify store’s thank you page (also known as the order confirmation page) is an ideal place to further engage customers.

Planfy system allows you to quickly integrate a Popup Widget or Embedded Widget into your Shopify thank you page, enabling customers to schedule appointments, consultations, or services right after their purchase

How to add the Booking Widget

Firstly, please go to your Shopify store settings and select "Checkout"

Then, scroll down to the "Order Status Page" section and locate the “Additional Scripts” text box

Log in to your Planfy account, navigate to the widget settings page, and choose either the Popup Widget or the Embedded Widget. Click "Install Widget" and copy the script

Paste the script into the “Additional Scripts” text box in your Shopify admin

Click Save at the top of the page to apply your changes.

Your Planfy booking widget is now displayed on your Shopify thank-you page, allowing customers to book services immediately after checkout.
As a popup:

Or an embedded section:

Planfy booking system allows you to create vouchers and coupon codes that your customers can use to redeem discounts and thus save when booking your services online.

How to create discount codes

In order to create your first discount code, please go to the "Discounts" page (https://www.planfy.com/portal/discounts) and then click on the "New discount" button. Then, you will need to fill in the provided fields such as coupon name, percentage discount given, discount code, and maximum number of customers who can redeem this code. For example, in the following video, we've created a new discount code for Mother's Day which gives customers 10% savings and a maximum of 100 customers can redeem this code. To get the discount, customers will need to enter "Mother10" code during the booking process.

Please note that if you want to expire a specific discount code, you can disable it by turning off the "discount status" toggle or deleting the code completely.

How customers can redeem discounts

As demonstrated in the video below, when a customer books services online using the booking widget, they have an option to enter a discount code. If the discount code is present in the system and its status is marked as active, the discount will be applied, allowing the customer to save a predetermined percentage on their booking.

How to promote discount codes

There are numerous ways you can promote your coupon codes. You may add them to your email campaigns, include them on your website, or publish them on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and others.

A great idea is to use our "banner designer" to create images that promote coupon codes for various occasions. For example, if you want to promote a "Mother's Day" voucher, you could choose a template that you like in the gallery, add the "Discount Code" and share the banner with your audience via marketing channels.

In the following video, we create a banner that promotes a "Mother's Day" voucher and allows customers to visit your booking widget by scanning the QR code.

Planfy booking system is a global service and available in over 34+ languages. If your language is currently not supported, please contact us via Live Chat and we will consider implementing it.

Customers from a wide variety of countries use and benefit from Planfy software. The following list shows all available versions of Planfy, so you can choose and access the system tailored specifically for your language:

• Bulgarian - https://www.planfy.com/bg

• Chinese (Simplified) - https://www.planfy.com/zh-cn

• Chinese (Traditional) - https://www.planfy.com/zh-tw

• Croatian - https://www.planfy.com/hr

• Czech - https://www.planfy.com/cs

• Danish - https://www.planfy.com/da

• Dutch - https://www.planfy.com/nl

• Estonian - https://www.planfy.com/et

• Finnish - https://www.planfy.com/fi

• French - https://www.planfy.com/fr

• German - https://www.planfy.com/de

• Greek - https://www.planfy.com/el

• Hebrew - https://www.planfy.com/he

• Hungarian - https://www.planfy.com/hu

• Icelandic - https://www.planfy.com/is

• Indonesian - https://www.planfy.com/id

• Italian - https://www.planfy.com/it

• Japanese - https://www.planfy.com/ja

• Latvian - https://www.planfy.com/lv

• Lithuanian - https://www.planfy.com/lt

• Maltese - https://www.planfy.com/mt

• Norwegian - https://www.planfy.com/nb

• Polish - https://www.planfy.com/pl

• Portuguese - https://www.planfy.com/pt

• Romanian - https://www.planfy.com/ro

• Russian - https://www.planfy.com/ru

• Serbian - https://www.planfy.com/sr

• Slovak - https://www.planfy.com/sk

• Slovenian - https://www.planfy.com/sl

• Spanish - https://www.planfy.com/es

• Swedish - https://www.planfy.com/sv

• Thai - https://www.planfy.com/th

• Turkish - https://www.planfy.com/tr

• Ukrainian - https://www.planfy.com/uk

Didn't find your language on the list? Please get in touch with Planfy team and we will be happy to help.

If you have Instagram account for your business, you can add the "Book Now" button to your profile. It can be achieved by linking your Planfy and Instagram accounts.

How to add "Book Now" button to Instagram

Go to your business profile using the Instagram app and tap on the "Edit profile" button. Scroll down and tap on the "Action buttons" option.

Next, choose the "Book now" button type.

You should see a list of tools, select "Planfy Bookings" to link Planfy booking system with your Instagram business account.

On this step, you will be asked to login to your Planfy account or create a new user (if you don't have one yet).

When you are logged into your Planfy account, you will need to choose the account you wish to link with Instagram. If you are new to Planfy, you have an option to create a new Planfy business account as well.

In the example below, we select an existing business account "Pretty Valley Salon" in order to link it with Instagram profile.

Finally, click the "Continue" button to complete the integration process.

Great work! That's all done!

Preview how your "Book Now" button works on Instagram

Go to your Instagram business profile using the app or a web browser. There you should see a new "Book Now" button. Click on it.

You will be redirected to your Planfy booking widget. This demonstrates how customers will be able to book your services via Instagram.

Useful notes: "Book Now" button works on both Instagram & Facebook

It's worth to note that if you have your Facebook and Instagram business accounts connected, the "Book Now" button will appear on both platforms after you link either Facebook or Instagram with Planfy booking system.

Planfy booking system allows businesses to accept bookings on Facebook and Instagram. In just a few clicks customers can book your service via these platforms.

How to add "Book Now" button on Facebook

Go to your Facebook business page using a web browser or Facebook app and click on "Add a Button".

You will see a popup which will ask you to select what type of action button you want to add to your Facebook business page. Select the "Book Now" option.

Next, click on the "Connect Another Tool" option.

Now, you should see a list of tools, choose "Planfy Bookings" to link Planfy booking system with your Facebook page.

In order to initiate the integration, click on "Continue".

On this step, a popup will appear asking you to create a new Planfy business account or login to an existing one. If you are new to Planfy, please click on the "Sign up" tab and create your user.

When logged into your Planfy account, you will be asked if you want to link an existing Planfy account with your Facebook page or create a new Planfy business account and link it. In the below example, we're linking an existing account called "Pretty Valley Salon", hence we click on this option.

Now, you will be taken back to your Facebook page to confirm the linking of the accounts - click on the "Continue" button.

That's it - you've completed the integration! You can start accepting bookings on your Facebook business page and manage them using Planfy business portal (https://www.planfy.com/portal).

Preview how your "Book Now" button works

When you complete the above steps, you can test how the Facebook "Book Now" button functions. To do so, please go to your Facebook business page, refresh it and click on the "Edit Book Now" button. This will open a dropdown where you will see the "Test Button" option. Click on it.

Next, you will be taken to your Planfy booking widget page where customers can book your services. This means that the systems are integrated well and everything is working correctly.

Useful notes: "Book Now" button works for both Facebook & Instagram

If you have your Facebook and Instagram business account connected, then if you complete Planfy account linking with Facebook, the "Book Now" button will appear on your Instagram business account as well. Similarly, if you add "Book Now" button to your Instagram, it will appear on Facebook page as well.

If you would like to read more about linking Planfy with Instagram, we have a dedicated article covering this topic - you can find it here.

Planfy team is excited to launch a new "Resources" feature. It brings a highly requested functionality which allows businesses to manage limited resources and prevent overbooking of them.

For example, if your business has 2 staff who provide a service which requires a resource (e.g. a desk) and there's only 1 desk available, you may use the "resources" feature to prevent overbooking.

How to setup resources

Firstly, go to the Resources page (https://www.planfy.com/portal/resources) and create limited resources that your business has.

In the example below, we create a "Manicure Desk" which is required to provide a "Manicure" service.

Tip: If you have multiple of the same resources, it's recommended to name them uniquely such as Desk 1, Desk 2 and Desk 3,  so you can differentiate between the resources.

Next,  it's important to set which services use the newly created resource. This can be done on the services page (https://www.planfy.com/portal/services) by selecting the "Manicure" service and enabling the "Resource Required" toggle.

Once the toggle is enabled, a list of resources will appear. You just need to select the resources that this service uses. In our example, Manicure service requires "Manicure Desk" as shown below.

Adding bookings which require limited resources

When you add bookings which require limited resources via portal, you will notice that there's a new message displayed asking you to select a resource that will be used for that booking.  In the following screenshot, we select "Manicure Desk" and click "continue" to add the booking.

As you can see in the calendar below, the system reserved the 10AM-10.30AM time slot for "Manicure" service, therefore "Manicure Desk" is not available for other staff during the time when Cameron is using it.

If you try to add a new "Manicure" booking for the same time (10AM-10.30AM) using another staff (e.g. Kelly), the system will show a warning message explaining that the "Manicure Desk" is already reserved for the selected time.

In this case, you have options to select a different time or resource.

It's worth noting that the above message is a guidance and it doesn't prevent staff from adding the booking. If staff want, they can go ahead and add the booking even though the system suggests that the resource is not available.

Resources handling in the booking widget

Your booking widget calculates staff and resource availability, therefore your customers will be suggested times when both staff and resource are available. If there are multiple resources available, the widget will select one automatically.

Planfy system automatically sends booking confirmations, reminders and other notifications via SMS.

Normally, 1 SMS is limited to 144 characters. If text is longer than the allowed character limit, more than one SMS is sent. In some languages (like Greek or Russian) the maximum character limit can be much lower because the mentioned languages have "nonstandard letters". For such languages, the character limit can be ~70 characters or even less.

If your language uses special letters, there is a solution to help you increase your character limit. This feature is called "SMS transliteration". It allows you to convert special letters to Latin alphabet.

For instance, instead of showing Russian letters in your SMS, it will show the sound of the word in Latin letters: 1) "spasibo" instead of Russian word "Спасибо" which means "thanks"; 2) “dobry den” instead of Russian phrase "Добрый день" which means “good afternoon”.

This is a good way to save space in your SMS thereby saving you SMS credits since fewer messages have to be sent.

By default, transliteration feature is disabled and has to be enabled upon your request. If you would like to use transliteration in your SMS, please contact Planfy support team via live chat and we will activate this feature for your account.

If you’d like certain services to be available only during specific hours which are different from your default business opening times, you can achieve this by utilising multiple staff.

For example, if a dental clinic is open from 9am to 6pm but manager wants to schedule "dental check-ups" only during morning sessions (such as from 9am to 12pm), they may create a new dedicated user for that purpose (https://www.planfy.com/portal/staff). Then, on the "working hours" tab disable the "Use Company Hours" toggle for that user and set custom working hours from 9am to 12pm as shown below.

In the next step, the "dental check-up" service needs to be assigned to the newly created staff which has working hours from 9am to 12pm. You can do so on the services page (https://www.planfy.com/portal/services) by selecting the new user.

Now, when customers place bookings online and choose "Dental Check-up" as the service, they will see available times only between 9am and 12pm. This happens because "Dental Check-up" is assigned to a user whose working hours are from 9am to 12pm.

Planfy is a global booking system which adapts to different locations. It does not matter where your business and customers are based and what language they speak - we are always focused on providing excellent user experience.

All areas of the system (business portal and customer facing elements) are translated to over 24 languages. You can read more information about this here: https://www.planfy.com/blog/how-to-change-translation-currency-time-zone/

We are glad to introduce a new feature which enables you to translate services & their descriptions to different languages. This is a particularly useful functionality for businesses located in countries where there are more than one official language.

Easy steps to translate services

Firstly, select a service that you would like to translate to a different language. Then you will see a small "translate input" button in the field. This indicates that the field is translatable.

When you click on the "translate input" button, a popup will appear showing you the original text of the field and allowing you to select a new language for which you would like to add a translation.

Next, enter the translated text for this field and save the changes.

You will notice that the saved fields have red count labels. This indicates that a specific field has a translation added and the count shows how many translations there are for a particular field. In the below example, the service name and description are translated to one language.

How translated services & descriptions appear in the booking widget

By default, when a customer opens the booking widget, Planfy system automatically detects customer's language and translates the widget and services.

For example, in the screenshot below, the system detected that the visitor's language is English as suggested by the flag at the top right hand side. If the user wants to switch to a different language, they can click on the flag icon and select a language they prefer.

In the following example, the customer selects Lithuanian language which instructs the system to translate the widget user interface.

As you can see, the service names are translated as well. This happens because Lithuanian translations were added via Business Portal as showed in the second section of this article.