Product & Feature

The Ten Defining Features of 2021: Through the Eyes of the Product Team

TIMIFY
By TIMIFY
30 December, 2021

Delve into a special edition of our annual product highlights featuring the people and the stories behind TIMIFY's design and development during 2021.

timify features 2021
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As January approaches we find ourselves - like many of you l’m sure - in a reflective mood. The holiday period gives time for pause; time to mull over what went well, what took us by surprise, and how we can apply lessons learnt to the fresh new year ahead.

Compiling our annual highlights has become a Product Team tradition. It's something we take a lot of pleasure in doing. Usually, we measure our top ten in terms of user satisfaction; this year, we wanted to approach it a little differently, and instead applied the metric of team input. And because it's fun to read about the people and stories behind the scenes, we asked the team to share their thoughts. We hope you find it as interesting as we did to get their perspective.

So, here are our proudest and most memorable achievements of 2021. On behalf of the team, we'd like to thank you sincerely for giving us the opportunity to do such rewarding work.

With every best wish for 2022,

Boyan Tanchev
Chief Product Officer

Hristo Hristakiev
Chief Technical Officer

1: The Most Transformed


The Branch Manager

"The Sales Team gave us a clear objective: to cut down the manual work involved in onboarding new company branches. Once we delivered that, and I saw what an impact it had, it made me think - ok there’s potential here, what can we do next? Over the year, we’ve seen the software steadily morph into this awesome product. I enjoy looking at the Branch and Statistics Overviews; for me, those elements make the product really come alive.”

Yanko, Head of Front End

2: The Most Necessary


Two Factor Authentication and Single Sign On

“Before I even thought about writing code for 2FA, l knew the challenge would be in making sure the functionality worked not only across different products, but across different access points - web, desktop, mobile, and tablet - for one and the same user. Single Sign On, like many functionalities that are quick and time saving to use - well, they’re oftentimes the most fiddly to build - but worth it!”

Razvan, Head of Engineering​​​​​​​

3: The Almost Impossible Challenge


Service Allocation Groups

The benefit of this feature is clear: users can put a ring around how many times a service can be booked over the course of a week. Developing the feature was not so simple; in fact the interface had to be re-worked to fit the build.

"Behind the relatively clear usability, lies a multitude of complex code. Although Service Allocation Groups is presented as a service based feature, the functionality is built around resource availability. Resource time is limited, and this allowed me to use the measurement of time distribution to write the code.

The challenge lay in building a mechanism that would persist changes - say, a new service getting added. Some changes have an immediate impact on the weekly calculations; others trigger "restart" protocol, that rebuild the configuration and clean the weekly calculations. It took some effort to get everything to come together.  "

Andreja, Senior Backend Engineer​​​​​​​

4: The Most Satisfying to Work On


Public Holiday Groups

“This feature sets our software apart. After the testing process, l can see why so few other companies offer it! I put myself into the shoes of one of our international clients who offer their services globally, and tested multiple different constellations of regions, countries, time zones, and resources to catch any bugs. It was a huge effort, but 100% worth it. As an international company, we reap the benefits. The days of manually checking public holidays and adding calendar blockers are gone- phew!”

Ivan, Lead Quality Assurance

Read more: Effective time management on a company level​​​​​​​

5: The Most Exciting


The Developer Platform, 3.0

"The Developer Platform is our tangible representation of TIMIFY's philosophy of interconnectedness. Getting to work on it is an honour - the growth from v 1.0 to v 3.0 is huge. The platform opens up our API - our core - so that developers the world over can build up their own creations. It's basically a gateway to unknown potential. I’m curious to see how and what gets created. I may even contribute something myself."

Veselin, Senior Frontend Engineer

Jose

"When l started writing documentation for the Developer Platform, I had three objectives: to make it accessible, comprehensive, and detailed. I focused on common use cases and built examples around them. So far, so good. But the Developer Platform is a constantly evolving ecosystem, and none of us can know the direction it will take. I’m looking forward to getting more user feedback, so l can update the documentation and support its growth.”

Jose, Deputy Product Manager​​​​​​​

6: The One That Took Us By Surprise


The Call Centre

Bernard

“This product add-on makes it possible for agents to take care of appointment scheduling, in real time,  whilst on the phone with customers. The Call Centre is the first big project l got to work on at TIMIFY. I'm really invested in it, and excited to see how it grows.”

Bernard, Frontend Engineer

Ardi

"At first, l felt like this product just came out of nowhere. But when l got into it, I realised its actually an organic extension of the Branch Manager. The move from concept, to design, to build was really smooth and quick - that’s not always the case! We all got caught up in the momentum, as we could see just how useful the functionality would be."

Ardi, Frontend Engineer​​​​​​​

7: The Most Celebrated


Mobile App: Biometric Login

Simona

“Most features are built for the core product, then it’s up to me to make them fit to the Mobile App.

Back in November l was tasked with developing Biometric Login. This got me excited, for two reasons. First, it’s just such a great feature - as far as l know, we’re the only scheduling software who offer it. Second, it's one of those rare features that is exclusive to the Mobile App. Ending the year with the release of such a cool feature is a great feeling."


Simona, Senior Front End Engineer

Martin

"Designing content rich features that not only look good in mobile, but are UX friendly is an on-going challenge. It was brilliant to be involved with Biometric Login, and for once the design was not so challenging.

I'm pleased we're giving more attention to the Mobile App. Right now, I'm finalising designs for our revamped Shift Plan - and I’m using a mobile first approach. This could be one of those features that truly elevates our Mobile App. I can’t wait to see the Shift Plan come to life on my phone."


Martin, Senior UX/UI Designer​​​​​​​

8: The Defining Software Visual


New Scripts

Clare

“My favourite request from Sales is for software localisations. I'm always fascinated to hear which region wants to use TIMIFY next, and what locales they need. This year, setting eyes on our software in Korean and Japanese scripts was a defining moment. It's wonderful to see our software take root in corners of the world further and further afield from our Munich home, and a testament to the whole company of our growth. l'm already excited for 2022: Mandarin is on the cards!”

Clare,
Content Design and Localisation Manager

9: The Most Rewarding


The App Marketplace grew this year; so much so, that we couldn't limit this category to just one app…

Reserve with Google App

"Integrating Reserve with Google to TIMIFY was a dream come true. As a developer, l seek out new challenges, new learning opportunities, and enjoy collaborative work - this sync project provided it all - in spades.

The dashboard from Google helped me with debugging in staging and production, and the team provided us with test cases for different scenarios, which helped me identify edge cases. Overall, this app was just a joy to work on.”

Faizan, Backend Engineer



The TIMIFY Survey App

"It took me a little by surprise how popular the TIMIFY Survey App became, pretty much straight away. It pleases me that l got to go back and do further enhancements. The recently released standalone survey option, and the customisable survey page were highly requested. I'm really happy users find this app so helpful."

Petko, Fullstack Engineer



"Being part of the team that brought this app to fruition was a great feeling. From a personal perspective, testing the app has been an important learning curve for me, as it was one of my first big projects. It's one of our largest apps, and offers a wealth of user customisation - ensuring it works flawlessly was essential."

Ivo, Quality Assurance Engineer

TIMIFY Book and Shop

Deyan

“It’s been another year where Covid dominated more than we expected or wanted. Governments and businesses the world over were pressed to implement ever changing measures. In the face of this, we created a dynamic solution. The Book and Shop app allowed safe and controlled entry to stores, opening up an essential activity to millions of customers, and supporting businesses.

A value l saw in the team this year is a readiness to think dynamically.We turned around the Book & Shop app in four days total. This is a record for us, and an achievement that will stand out for me; not just this year, but for many years.”

Deyan Spasov, Manager TIMIFY Bulgaria

Read more: The TIMIFY Book and Shop App​​​​​​​

10: The Most Essential


The Team Scrum Mistress

Delivering features only happens when you have someone to keep you in check.

"The biggest challenge for me this year was getting the team to stick to the work flow. When the team comes together and we’re all on the same page, we can achieve so much. Our work quality and quantity goes up. The more we achieve, the more motivated l am… the harder l push the team… and well, we achieve even more!”

Geri, Scrum Mistress​​​​​​​

TIMIFY

About the author

TIMIFY

TIMIFY is an appointment booking and resource scheduling software for teams and enterprises