New Features, new User Interface
Since we launched pingg a few months ago, we've received hundreds of emails with questions, comments and suggestions. We always love to receive feedback from our hosts, since real world experience from our customers is truly an invaluable way for us to find and solve problems which otherwise we couldn't find just by theorizing in the office. For the past month, our development team has been hard at work on a major overhaul of our user interface, and we went live with the update this afternoon. We made a number of changes, some small and some large, all with the intention of making the system more clear, more useful, and generally easier to use.
First, we've split the process of creating an invitation from managing the event. Rather than use the same web pages to create a new invitation and also manage and update the event, we now have a page dedicated to each process. There's no need to navigate between them, the pages simply know when an invitation has been sent, and change to match the context. By splitting the process into two pages, we've been able to simplify them both. Features and functions that are only useful after an invitation has been sent now won't clutter up the creation process, and vice-versa.
On the creation side, the most significant changes are:
- The status box, with the preview and send buttons included have been moved to the bottom of the page.
- The extra space on the right side of the page has been used to give the invitation creation functions more room, making them less cramped.
- It's now easy to select the delivery method for invitations on a guest by guest basis. Now you can choose which guests to invite by email, postcards, or SMS one by one.
- Reminders and thank you notes are now more flexible, and also more straight forward. We've set up some defaults that people will be happy with, and also made it easy to change their content, and when and who they're sent to.
On the event management side, we've made more extensive changes:
- The most important event reporting features are now at the top of the page. The summary of RSVPs, Guest Count, and other key event information are front and center, so it's easy to find out what's happening with your event at a quick glance.
- An event activity log has been added to the event report. The log shows a running list of activities, letting you watch RSVPs come in, and generally track what's happening with your event on a line by line basis.
- The activity log can be downloaded as a .csv file, and loaded into Excel or another spreadsheet. This feature is useful for professionals, and anyone else who wants to keep detailed records.
- The guest list function has been enhanced in a number of ways. There are now easy to use buttons to add guests to your invitation, edit your guest list, and also print or export your list.
- A powerful bounce fixer has been introduced. With one click you can bring up a list of invitations that failed to be delivered, and take immediate corrective action to get the invitations to these recipients.
- Your guests +1 count and the names of their guests are now editable. If one of your guests emails you, or lets you know directly that they're bringing someone, you can now update their RSVP and keep your head count accurate.
- We've introduced a reply feature to your guests private messages. With one click, you can send a private message directly to any of your guests, right from the guest list.
- Creating and editing reminders, messages and thank you notes is now a one step process. Each type of message can be set up on one screen, with no need to go through a confirmation process.
- Reviewing and updating your current invitation has been centralized into one tab, and it's now easy to resend your invitation to selected guests, or all your guests if you so choose.
Overall, we've streamlined the process of creating and managing an invitation and also introduced a number of frequently suggested features. As always, we appreciate all of your input and are excited to keep introducing new and improved features based on your comments and feedback. Please let us know your thoughts on any of the above changes or any additional changes that would facilitate your event planning by emailing us at support@pingg.com. Thanks for reading and we look forward to bringing you more news from pingg.
pingg - your invitation, well sent
7 Comments
Reader Comments (7)
Hi- thanks for your service, so far it looks great! One thing I noticed: the guest list replies are reflected in a pie chart, which I don't think is that helpful. Instead of reflecting the percentage of people coming against the total number of invitees (as the pie chart does) would you consider making a graph with "yes" "no" "maybe" and "no response" bars next to each other? I think this is a better use of a visual representation.
Thanks again.
Hello,
Your website is really fab! I love it.
Just one thing : could you present the activity log the other way round ? starting by the most recent events. It'll save me scrolling down to find out what's going on (lazy, me ?).
One more thing: I would love to use your photos to send e cards to friends and family (wedding, birthday, etc).
Thanks a lot.
You didn't mention that you removed the rss feed link from event activity area, and changed existing rss feeds to: Gone :(
good comments all on the new enhancements. will take a look at and likely put into next upgrade. email support@pingg.com for a personal reply.
I agree with Claire, the activity log should show the most recent activity at the top.
These changes are great and I love the site - thank you!
I have recurring events each month and it would be great to be able to copy the prior invite into the new one so that I don't have to start from scratch each month.
THANKS
I wanted to get some feedback. One function that i think is missing from pingg is the ability to capture email addresses if a person forwards the invitation. That function is available on Evite. I host a lot of events and guests usually want to come to future events. I would like to eliminate tracking down emails for my future events. Since Pingg has a "block email function" it would make sense to have the option of capturing new email addresses.
Please advise!