Ask or tell Bizzly lets you set up your whole booking offering by describing it in plain English. Instead of filling in your classes, plans, venues and times one sheet at a time, you tell Bizzly how your business works and it prepares all the changes for you to review.
This article is about describing a lot at once. For a single change, such as moving a session or changing a price, see Ask or Tell Bizzly.
Where to Find This
Only administrators see it. Press Ask or tell Bizzly: it is the line in the rail on a laptop or tablet, the button under Do something on Home, and on a phone a row at the foot of most screens or in More. It works from any screen. See Ask or Tell Bizzly for what it needs first and how your AI allowance works.
What It Does
You describe your offering in your own words. Bizzly works out what services, plans, allowances, and time slots are needed and shows you a clear list of proposed changes. Nothing changes until you review the list and press Do it.
A good description covers these eight things. The same list is in the sheet itself, under What to tell me:
- Classes and camps: what customers book: its name, how long it lasts, one to one or a group
- What a plan includes: which of your plans can book each class, and how many sessions a week or a month
- Booking rules: how far ahead people can book, how much notice they give to cancel, the cut-off before a session starts, how long a place is held for the waiting list
- Shared allowances: classes that draw on one allowance between them, such as the in-person and online versions
- Times: venues, weekly sessions (day, time, places, age ranges or requirements), blocks of dates, and opening hours for appointments
- Closures and days off: holiday closures for the whole business, or days one class skips, such as a school holiday week
- Seasons and packs: a dated block people join up front, such as a season, a short course or a taster pack, with a price for each venue and a cancellation rule
- Prices: plan prices, new plans or price changes (people already on a plan keep the price they pay)
Bizzly can also add or change the named blocks of your year themselves ("Autumn runs 8 September to 12 December", with a later start at one venue), so a season you describe is created alongside the packs that sell it. See Setting Up Your Seasons.
It can also set whether buying a particular thing counts as joining. Say "the taster shouldn't charge the joining fee" and the plan includes a step reading "never bundle the joining fee with this purchase"; ask for it back and the step reads "bundle the joining fee with a first purchase again". See Account Fees.
How to Use It
1. Describe your offering
Type a description into the box headed Your message at the foot of the sheet, then press Send (or Enter; use Shift+Enter for a line break). For example:
"We offer 1:1 sessions (45 min) and group sessions (60 min). Basic gets 2 sessions a month; Premium gets unlimited sessions. Book up to 30 days ahead, cancel with 24 hours' notice."
If you'd rather not start from a blank box, the sheet gives you shortcuts before your first message. Each one only fills an empty box for you to edit, and sends nothing:
- Try saying: short things to say, such as Fill my week and Add or change what you sell.
- Or start from your own setup: an example built from your own services and plans, or from your launch pack's setup if you sell nothing yet. A business with neither is shown two general examples.
- Start from a template: under Describing all of it at once, a fill-in-the-blanks outline of nine lines, with your own currency sign in its prices.
- What to tell me: opens the list of what is worth covering, above.
2. Review the proposed changes
When Bizzly has a change to suggest, a card headed This will: lists each step in plain words. Watch for two things:
- If a step affects people who already subscribe, it says how many, such as "12 people on it". When a step changes what a plan includes and people are on that plan, the card adds "Changes to what a plan includes apply to those people straight away."
- A step that takes something away (deactivating a service, deleting a shared allowance, archiving a price) is marked Takes something away. Changing a season's dates is asked about too, because it moves the sale window for every plan on that season.
To adjust the plan, press Not that and say what to change instead.
3. Do it or throw it away
- Press Do it to make the changes. If any step takes something away or reaches people already on a plan, Bizzly first asks a question that lists exactly what. Read it, then confirm to go ahead or cancel to stop.
- Press Not that to throw the suggestion away without changing anything. Bizzly replies "Nothing was changed. Tell me what to change instead."
- Press Start over at the top of the conversation to clear the chat and begin a fresh description. If a change is waiting, Bizzly asks first.
When the change goes through, the sheet closes and a message at the bottom of the screen says Done, with an Undo button for a few seconds. The screen you were on updates. Your classes and plans are on the What you sell screen, and your times are under Venues there.
If you (or someone else on your team) changed your setup after the plan was drawn up, Bizzly makes no change and says "Your setup changed since Bizzly worked this out, so nothing was changed. Ask again and Bizzly will work it out from your setup as it is now." Press Ask again to repeat what you said from the setup as it is now, or Not that to leave it. It never runs a plan that no longer matches what's there.
When you change a plan's price, people who are already subscribed stay on the price they signed up at. New pricing applies to new subscribers only.
Bizzly always shows its plan first and never changes anything until you press Do it. Read the step list, especially any step that takes something away or reaches subscribers, before confirming.
If You Reach the AI Limit
Every message that gets an answer uses one of your plan's monthly AI generations. If you run out, a card headed AI limit reached appears with a See plans button. You can upgrade for more generations, or wait for your allowance to reset at the start of your next billing period. You can still set everything up by hand from the sheets under What you sell in the meantime. See The What You Sell Screen.
For how the allowance works across all the AI assistants, see Usage Limits.