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๐Ÿ“ฃ The 2021 Square Unboxed Hackathon โ€” results are in!

Hi Seller Community!

 

For the second year in a row, we hosted a hackathon for developers to build software applications for Square Sellers. New for developers in 2021: There are special prizes for the best solutions for Square Terminal, Square Snippets API (which allows developers to modify Square Online), and Web Payments SDK.

 

Participation worked the same as it did last year. In order to ensure that this competition produces solutions that help solve real challenges sellers are experiencing, we needed sellers' help. There were two ways to participate.

 

 

Option 1: Share a challenge prompt for participants to solve

If you're a Square Seller, please share the challenges your business is experiencing. For example, here are some of the challenges that have come up over the last few months:

โš™ Some shop owners may need more streamlined fulfillment solutions to accommodate online ordering and shipping trends.

โš™ Some restaurants may have to manage fluctuations in seating capacity due to changes in local health guidelines.

For those that replied with suggestions by May 27th, we made sure they were available to the hackathon participants as they built their submissions.

 

Option 2: Participate in the Hackathon

Developers interested in participating submitted their entries by July 12, 2021: The 2021 Square Small Business Hackathon.

 

It was great to see sellers' suggestions and developers' solutions! ๐Ÿคฉ

 

๏œ๏ธ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center
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Hello again! The results are in.

 

Thank you to everyone for making this a successful event, especially to sellers who took the time to lay out the challenges they face and to developers for their solutions! I'm excited to follow up with a highlight of the top six submissions from participating developers. To learn more about a particular build, click the link included in the description below.

 

The Winners of the 2020 Small Business Hackathon:

 

First Place and Most Creative Idea:
App name: Flash Order

 

Developers: Jonlund Lund & Weston Hafen
Developersโ€™ Description: One button ordering is now a new ordering channel for the Flash Order platform. Via the Flash Order app a smart button is linked to the Square Terminal and is configured to order a specific menu item. When the button is pressed the ordering details are sent to the Flash Order cloud and routed to the Square Terminal for payment.

 

 

Second Place:
App name: watQ

 

Developers: Cliff Dias, Fabio Nobrega, Jameson Oโ€™Reilly, & Josรฉ Abreu
Developersโ€™ Description: In the simplest terms, watQ? connects a customer to a merchant by enabling the customer to view the merchantโ€™s menu, place an order and deliver the order to the Merchant's Square POS.The Merchantโ€™s inventory in Square is synchronised in the middleware allowing us to generate a consistent user experience for the retail customer. The Middleware uses the Square APIs to synchronise data.

The mobile app [integrates] the middleware and presents the shopping experience using the Merchants branding. watQ? enhances the Square capabilities by adding features like support for earliest delivery time and breaking down modifiers into categories. For example, when the order comes through to the POS, the merchant is notified whether the customer wants to remove, add or provide instructions.

 

 

Best Snippet for Square Online:
App name: Photoreview

 

Developer: Rowland Saer
Developersโ€™ Description: Photo Review is a social validation app that allows you to post original content or repost content from your customers on your product page using your Instagram feed and a hashtag. Creating a carousel that displays all the Instagram posts that have the hashtag you selected.

 

 

Best App for Square Terminal Overall:
App name: Zaastry with PaymentEye

 

Developers: Miko Aro
Developersโ€™ Description: Zaastry web software is used for accepting online ordering and payments from customers using Square APIs and SDKs. The Terminal POS and PaymentEye software in the merchant shop are used for accepting in-person payments using the Square Terminal device

 

 

Best use of Web Payments SDK with another Square API:
App name: mrkntile

 

Developers: Lauren Shultz

Developersโ€™ Description: mrkntile aims to solve 2 main problems:

  1. Help local sellers without a physical location find shops in the area with extra space willing to display their items.
  2. Provide both parties with the tooling they need to easily manage the partnership by integrating with their Square accounts so the shop can take payments directly on behalf of the seller.

 

 

Most Impressive Technical Integration:
App name: React Square Web Payments SDK

 

Developers: Rowland Saer
Developersโ€™ Description: React-square-web-payments-sdk is a library that will help developers easily build payment forms by passing only some parameters and having a Square account.

 

 

Learn more about the winners in Square's Developer Blog here: The Square Unboxed Hackathon Winners.

 

For a complete list of results from the hackathon participants, head over to the 2021 Square Unboxed Hackathon website. You can use the search bar to look for specific details and filter by category (e.g. Square Online, Square Terminal, and Web Payments SDK).

 

Thank you again to everyone for engaging with this event!

๏œ๏ธ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center

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55 REPLIES 55

I would love to be able to run a report and sort by customer.

Thanks!

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Beta Member

We offer meal kits that are produced on a specific day. I need to be able to set the fulfillment date to a specific calendar day instead of 2 days, 1 week, etc. 

 

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Beta Member

Seconding this; I do a lot of pre-orders for items that launch on a known date and it's time-consuming to have to go in and adjust the fulfillment period as time passes.

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Beta Member

As a bakery, we would love this option too. To select a specific date for fulfillment would be very helpful for our bake days as well as holidays. 

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Beta Member

Add a feature where service providers can have more than one appointment calendar

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Beta Member

Few things to fix in Appointments:

 

1. Services Page - Allow to display services by Category. Today they are all displayed on single page which is not ideal for sellers who are many services.

2. Allow appointments to ONLY book at customer's location - Today it required you to have at-least physical location.

3. Appointment Calendar - Allow to see all the appointments for all location under one single view without to have login on each location.

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I second the appointments at a customer's location! I travel to customer's homes and would love for them to book an appointment time with their address. Or to be able to deliver to them when the item is complete and not have a pick-up location of my address. I understand there is a option for delivery right away, but some items take days and I would love to have a future delivery appointment at the customer's address! 

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Add in a feature that allows us to filter "out of stock" items from the inventory. We have some one of a kind items that will not come back in stock and other items that we sell for a few months then remove.  It is not beneficial for us to remove these items from inventory. Can you please add in a feature that either automatically "archives" these items or at least allows a filter option. It would simplify the All Items list in the applications for the users that have difficulty with technology. 

 

best,

Tribus

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I would like to see a feature where you can save tickets from the square online dashboard. We take a lot of orders over the phone. When the register is busy and the terminal is being used elsewhere, it would be great to be able to log in to the online dashboard to create a ticket and save it. Then when the customer comes in, the saved ticket can be opened at the register or our Square terminal. 

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Perhaps there would be a broad benefit from a sales report comparison option in the app by which the current sales day/period could be compared against a date/period of choice in the past.  For example the day before Thanksgiving is always a Wednesday, but it does not necessarily occur on the same date or same week of the prior year.  With the option to select a specific comparison date from the past, coarse analysis of sales trends can be done instantaneously.

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Category and Item Inventory Upgrade would be useful.

Our shop has a need for some "Super-categories" like Apparel.
Ideally under Apparel would be a Brand Category, followed by Items.

Another example: Home Brewing > Hario, Aeropress, Chemex, Fellow > Product(s) & Variations 

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Super Seller

I'm not sure if this would qualify or able to if it doesn't already exist but...

 

The ability to integrate Square Marketing with Wordpress/Woocommerce/Shopify etc.

 

As I'm a one man band, and before jumping on board with Square I built/designed my website some years back. Having the amount of time I do into it, I don't plan on giving that up (nothing personal ๐Ÿ˜‰ But it would be useful to integrate/Sync Square marketing from my website 

Dan
Scorpion Coating Plus,LLC
Square Super Seller
Check out Square support center for additional help.
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Alert the account owners when their accounts are being highjacked or hacked over all. This would be a good hackathon and  add on on.

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Allow different shipping pricing on each product.

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Beta Member

A feature that would allow to mark items on sale by selecting multiple items at one time. A box in the item in square to add it to online automatically. A weight feature in square. This is needed for online. It would cut out on lots of duplicated steps. Also making items "on sale" by selecting multiple items or a complete category. Goin in to each individual item is very time consuming. 

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Allow add-on shipping pricing at checkout. For example in summer months, we use cool packs for our food products. Depending on their location, a buyer may choose the ice packs or not. Right now, we just increase the shipping cost overall for everyone. That's not really fair since some folks do not need or want the ice pack.

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One more: a text-based notification to the seller when an item is purchased in their shop. Yes, notifications are already in the app but if you don't have it open or if you do not refresh constantly, then you might miss an order. We promise to have our orders ready in 15 minutes or less.

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Super Seller

I would love to be able to do even exchanges from my square terminal. 

For our online store I would love to be able to offer sezzle, quadpay, etc for my customers..... 

Jacqueline
Owner of Jackie's Uniquely U Boutique
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I would love to see Square have a form integration similar to an EMR system.

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YES! I agree

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