Latest System Updates!

We’ve released a number of small updates over the past few months that collectively deserve to be called out for our customers. Coming out of last year where we made a lot of large updates, we’ve been spending a bunch of time on a lot of “little” things the first few months of this year. We’re constantly releasing updates so you may have noticed some of these already but we hadn’t formally announced these yet - check out all the updates below.

Virtual & In-Person Registration Counts

We released our Hybrid Registration system last summer, but there were still a handful of places where we weren’t separately calling out the number of in-person vs. virtual registrations and attendances - namely on the “Today” page. That’s now updated!

Permissions Updates

We’ve updated the permissions so that users with the role of Instructor and above can update the broadcast url filed on events. Previously users had to be a Desk or Admin user to make this update, and this change should help some studios with their workflow around getting your Livestream events started.

Added Captcha to Payment Forms

On a few occasions we’ve had to deal with bots hitting customer payment forms. We’ve updated our payment forms to include invisible captcha to prevent bot spam, and for an extra layer of protection you can optionally turn on “checkbox captcha” on your payment form settings page, which will require users to solve a captcha image puzzle before proceeding with making a payment.

Bug Fixes and General Maintenance

In addition to the above we’ve also squashed a number of small bugs, and have also made some updates to the infrastructure which allows our customers to host our widgets on their own domain. A small handful of customers were seeing degraded performance with their widgets and we were able to track down and resolve the issue.

More to come soon!

We’re always working hard to improve the system, and we’ll have more updates to share soon!

New Feature: Waitlists!

We’re thrilled to announce a new feature we’ve been working on for a while - the ability for your students to join a wait-list for in-person attendances. Now, when when your in-person registrations are full, students will have the ability to join a wait-list, in addition to registering for virtual attendance. (when virtual is turned on of course.)

Fully Integrated

Fully integrated with our hybrid registrations system, students can now register for in-person or virtual attendance, join a wait-list when in-person is full, join the wait-list and register for virtual, and manage their registrations to switch from virtual to in-person when spots open up.

Depending on the exact situation of an event, and a student’s specific registration status, students can see a variety of different options.

Once a student adds themselves to the wait-list, they’ll receive a confirmation email that they’ve been added to the wait-list. If/when spots become available, students will receive a notice of spot availability, if spots are available, when the de-registration time threshold is reached.

Turning on waitlists

To enable wait-lists head on over to the “Registrations Settings” page in your studio menu, and scroll down to the “Deregistration and Waitlist Settings” section. (Note: The wait-list option can only be used when you also allow students to de-register from events)

IMPORTANT: The timing around when students on the wait-list receive the notification that spots are available is tied directly to the de-registration threshold:

• If students are allowed to de-register up until 12 hours before class starts, students on the wait-list will receive notice of space availability 12 hours before class starts, if in-person spots are available.

• Likewise, if students are allowed to de-register up until 3 hours before class starts, students on the wait-list will receive notice of space availability 3 hours before class starts, if in-person spots are available.

On the event management side of things, you’ll know when people are on the wait-list, when you see the blue clip-board icon. Click/tap on that to expose the list of students on the wait-list.

Available now for everyone

We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to ship yet another big update to our registration system to help our customers adapt to the ongoing pandemic. With hybrid events containing in-person, virtual and on-demand offerings now becoming the new normal, we’re thrilled to now also offer our customers a way to give their students an option to join a wait-list for the precious in-person spots.

This new feature is now live in production and available to be used by all customers on all plans. Thanks so much to our customers who gave us such valuable insights while building this feature, we hope you’re as happy with it as we are!

Tula Software officially sunsets support for all native iOS applications

We are happy to announce that effective today Tula Software will no longer make any applications available for download via Apple’s App Store. This includes the Tula Software application as well as any client ‘white-label’ applications. Note: All customers still on the white-label plans will have their Tula Software subscriptions updated accordingly.

At the end of last year we wrote about Apple’s decision to tax brick and mortar businesses bringing their businesses online, and how Tula Software customers were able to avoid paying this unnecessary 15% of their revenue fee to Apple. As well, we wrote about how Apple and Google’s app store policies are outdated, and that they end up requiring studios to break up their passes into on-line vs. in person, else risk Apple taking a 15% cut of even your in-person attendances.

Now that we have rolled out the ability for our customers to host in-person and on-line hybrid events, along with the corresponding ability for students to choose their preferred method of attending, now is the right time to do this.

To be abundantly clear: If we were to provide the functionality we just released on the native iOS applications, you would be required to pay 15% of your revenue to Apple.

We find the idea of Apple receiving 15% of your revenue to be absurd, and it is not something we will support or participate in.

Fortunately, none of our customers need Apple to sell their classes, and none of their students need apple to register for and attend their classes, thanks to the ongoing magical powers of the open web.

As you know by now, Tula customers are able to host our website integration widgets on your own domain and every studio comes with a mobile app site (formerly called student urls) that mimics all the functionality of the apps, but in the browser, which also lives on your own domain.

We have a ton of exciting plans for the future on both the student side and admin side of things as we focus all of our development efforts on the browser this point forward.

To all of our customers who have written such kind emails to us over the past few weeks about our updates, we can’t tell you enough how much we appreciate you!

New Feature: Attendance Types for Hybrid classes

We’re excited to announce a major update to the Tula Software registration system, which allows our customers to effortlessly track both in-person and virtual registrations and attendances for their hybrid events. As well, our new feature allows you to host both in person only or virtual only events.

As we wrote about towards the end of last year, we believe that the path forward for studios involves providing in person, livestream and on-demand classes going forward, as we anticipate consumers will have an ongoing expectation that they’ll be able to access yoga classes however it’s best for them. (Added bonus: our solution doesn’t require you to hand over 15% of your revenue to Apple)

To help our customers more easily facilitate these events, now when you create an event, right alongside the other registration settings you’ll see a “virtual” switch.

Turning this switch on will give students the choice of registering for either an in-person or a virtual attendance. (Note: If you don’t turn on the virtual switch, we’ll simply display ‘Confirm Registration’ as we do now.)

When a student registers, they’ll be added to your registration list as always. In person registrations will appear as usual with a green check-in button, and when they’ve registered for a virtual attendance the check-in button will appear in orange. You’ll also see an orange laptop icon next to their name, indicating that it’s a virtual attendance.

Once an event has reached it’s in person limit, students will see in person registrations has closed, and they’ll be able to register for a virtual attendance.

It’s worth mentioning as well, that any student who has registered for an event, whether for in person or virtual, will have access to the broadcast link. So if someone registers for an in-person attendance but ends up showing up online, you can simply update their registration type by clicking the menu icon next to the check-in button.

You’ll also notice on the event series page, you’ll see a count of both your in person registrations as well as your virtual registrations, so you can quickly and easily see which events people have registered for and which attendance types have been chosen.

Works for everyone

It’s worth mentioning as well that this new feature will work for all users, both logged in as well as those logged out (when you have guest access enabeld). Keep in mind if a logged out student registers for a virtual attendance, they’ll still need to log in to access the broadcast link.

In person / Livestream / On-demand

This update, along with our already existing event recording feature, now allows you to create a single event that students can attend in person or virtually, and to which you can upload a recording for members who wish to watch on-demand.

We spent a lot of time working on a slew of tiny details to make sure this feature fit seamlessly into the system you’ve been using for so long. But don’t mistake the simplicity and ease of use of this update for it being “something small”. This is a massive update that sets our customers up for success in a way that none of our competitors are doing, and studios using Tula

As we’ve written about a couple times now, we believe studios using Tula have opportunities that large tech companies tried and failed to secure for themselves pre-covid, and that together we’ll impact the industry for years to come.

We hope you’re as thrilled with this latest feature as we are, and can’t wait to share what’s coming next!

🥂 Ready 2021: Three live events to help you prepare for the new year

At the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shut-downs, we held a few online events for our customers to help them use our broadcast links feature to quickly bring their businesses online. It was a lot of fun to get together with our customers and we received a lot of feedback that it was helpful for a lot of people.

As we head into the new year, I thought it might be useful to again make ourselves available to share more about the product decisions we’ve made, talk in more detail about some of new feature’s we’ve built, how they align with what’s happening in the industry at large, and generally help our customers get the most out of everything we have to offer for the year ahead.

Each event will take place at 10am ET, on each day of Monday the 28th, Tuesday the 28th, and Wednesday the 30th. I’ve broken the events down into three high level categories, but the format will be casual with plenty of time for open discussion and Q&A.

The event topics will give us a high-level framework to guide discussion more than anything. The schedule will be:

• Monday 12/28: Hybrid - The Holy Grail

• Tuesday 12/29: Memberships, Recurring Revenue and On-Demand Offerings

• Wednesday 12/30: Your website, custom domains, student apps and more

One of my favorite weeks of the year is the week between Christmas and New Years Day - a time to hang on to the things that are working, let go of the things that aren’t, and the hope for a better year ahead.

As we say goodbye to a difficult year, join me to prepare for what we believe will be the brightest days ahead for independent studio owners.

To register for an individual event, please visit our calendar. Alternatively, you can also register for all three events using this link.

We hope to see you there!