New in OpenChair: easier bookings, clearer conversations and reports

Product updates | 1–14 October 2026

When you’re running a busy appointment book, small interruptions add up. A reply gets left halfway through. A booking needs adjusting. A sales figure needs a closer look.

Our latest updates make those everyday jobs easier to pick up and work through. Here’s what changed in OpenChair from 1 to 14 October.

The updates below are available in your web browser, including supported phone and tablet layouts. Android improvements are listed separately at the end.

1. Help clients manage their visit#

Clients now have a clearer place to find their appointments and account details in My Account. Your business’s colours and typography carry through from the booking page, so the experience feels familiar.

For businesses offering client sign-in, this gives your team somewhere to direct people who need to check their visit or update their details. Clients can move between account sections without losing an unfinished profile edit during that visit. Any booking changes still follow your business’s policies.

Sending a form is more reliable too. If you correct an email address on a client’s record, reopening the form-send window now picks up the current details. An address you deliberately enter yourself is preserved.

Clients who miss a required field get a prompt to complete it and try submitting again. Your team can then review the completed form as usual.

2. Pick up client conversations where you left off#

If you’ve ever been interrupted halfway through a reply, you’ll appreciate the changes to Inbox.

Unfinished replies stay in the current browser tab as you move around the Inbox. Reading an older part of a conversation? New messages no longer pull you away from it. Select Latest when you’re ready to catch up.

There’s also a 60-second Undo window after resolving a conversation, provided it hasn’t changed in the meantime. If you already use AI suggestions, you still control what gets sent, with separate steps to review, use and send a draft.

On smaller screens, navigation keeps Today, Schedule, Inbox, Cue and More together. Businesses that use the walk-in queue as their default workspace see Walk-ins instead of Schedule. Settings and Help are under More, and Updates is in the page header.

Open a conversation and it gets the available space, making it easier to focus on the client in front of you.

3. Get from a report total to the detail behind it#

Reports are now grouped around what you’re trying to understand.

Appointment sales brings together the sales overview, trends over time, sales by service and individual appointment details. Appointments brings together the schedule, outcomes, cancellations, no-shows and bookings that need review.

As you move between compatible views, your dates and supported filters come with you. If the next view can’t use a filter, OpenChair asks before changing it.

You can also move between a summary, the records behind it and an explanation of the calculation. That helps when you need to understand why a booking’s value differs from the money collected.

Your saved pins, recent reports and search still take you to the reports you use. Access continues to depend on your role and plan.

4. Keep the diary aligned with the work#

An appointment can include more than the time a client spends with one team member. Processing, return work and cleanup all need room in the diary.

Online booking now checks those stages more accurately when assessing whether a service fits inside a processing gap.

For example, fitting another service into a colour-processing gap means checking both the initial work and any later return work, along with the reset time. Staff, resources and other bookings still need to be available.

On the web calendar, resizing a booking and using Undo also preserve saved processing and cleanup time more reliably, without changing the service template.

Availability checks now recognise resource opening hours that run continuously across adjoining saved periods, while still respecting actual gaps and closures.

5. Work through checkout and account details more clearly#

If a client’s reserved time expires during online checkout, they can return to choose another time with their booking details retained.

At the front desk, payment entry uses the latest remaining balance and handles recovery more safely when a manual payment has only been partly recorded. This helps your team work from what is still owed.

Voucher records now distinguish the buyer, recipient and assigned client more clearly, making it easier to see who bought the gift and who it is for.

For annual subscribers, we’ve also corrected the monthly renewal period shown for included communications. Your allowance still renews monthly even though your subscription is paid annually. The allowance amount hasn’t changed.

6. Android improvements#

Android version 1.0.247 includes improvements to entering and checking forms, clearer saved appointment timing, and refinements to reports that account for processing time.

The newer Inbox, Reports and navigation changes described above are web updates. Those changes have separate release schedules for the Android and iOS apps.

Across this fortnight’s updates, the focus is on the jobs your team handles every day: looking after clients, keeping the diary accurate and understanding the business.

Browse the Product updates archive for earlier release notes.