Booked 2.5.9 was released earlier this week. I’ll wait while you go grab it. If you subscribe to our hosting service, you’re already updated.

As far as minor releases go, this was a biggie. Some frequently requested features finally made it in, like showing custom attributes on reports, more options for what to show in the reservation label, reservation approval request emails and much more.

It took a while to get this release out the door. Partly because there were a lot of features added, but also because I’ve been spending a lot of time on custom development. The good news is that most of the custom work will be making it’s way into the main code base.

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Which leads me to the state of Booked version 2.6. This version has been in the works for a while now and it will be a significant update. It will also very likely be the last major release before Booked 3.0.

So what will be in 2.6, you ask?

A lot.

The biggest feature is a new UI which will be mobile friendly. Booked “works” right now on mobile, but it doesn’t work great. Mobile will be a first class design concern in 2.6.

Custom attributes will also be getting some love in 2.6 with support for admin-only attributes, the ability to prompt for reservation-level attributes only when specific resources are booked, and setting reservation colors based on custom attribute values.

Some other features that are in 2.6 include the ability to tie accessories to resources, ability for guests to participate in reservations, the ability for guests to book.

The plan also includes support for some alternate views of a schedule, such as for a monitor or a small tablet outside a conference room. Checking in and out of reservations and automatically releasing reservations are on tap. I’m also planning to support both Facebook and Google sign in.

As for a release date, I’m not yet sure. With my current pace I’d expect to have a beta out in the spring of 2015. If I get some development help the timeline may shrink considerably.

The full list of feature requests can be found here and I’ll be keeping this up to date as 2.6 progresses. Please keep the feature requests coming! That’s how Booked became great and how it will continue to be great.

Update November 26th
You’ve got to love open source software! A defect was found in 2.5.9 that prevented emails from being sent on *nix machines. I released 2.5.10 last night.

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