Live Q&A with the Square Beta Team!

[kellyj]

On Wednesday the 4th of December at 2pm PT/ 5pm ET we’re hosting our first ever Square Beta Live Q&A! 

Have you ever considered being part of Square Beta and using the Beta App? Would you like to be on the front line of product releases and updates? Want to drive meaningful change for your business and those around you? We want to work with you to make sure our products are not only useful but also invaluable for your business.

Our own @lindsaybee  and @Howard and myself, will be here to answer all your questions live on December 4th at 2pm PT. 

Square Beta offers our Sellers the chance to do all the things above. We know you have Feedback and Requests - now is a great time to get into our specific Beta Community where you’ll be influencing the next product launches. 

Here are some example questions:

• What is the benefit of being in a Beta Program?
• What is the best way to offer Feedback or report a bug?
• What do you need from me as a Beta Seller?
• Do Feature Requests actually go anywhere?

Click Reply below to ask your question and we’ll answer every question on Wednesday the 4th of December!

To join our Private Beta Seller Community check out this post in the Community, request to join, and download the Beta App to get started!

[#2]

Hiya Community! 

We're here and about to begin answering all your questions on this rainy Wednesday in San Fransisco. 

If you have further questions, feel free to post them and we'll get to them as we are able.

@Howard @lindsaybee and myself! 

[lindsaybee]

@ ironindianrider

We tackled the benefits of beta in @StonebeltSupply’s post above. There are definitely a lot of reasons to be involved. Let us know if you have other questions around our answer, and we hope you consider.

We actually have a Beta Program for Square Register. Please let us know if you are interested and we will send you an email invite.

[BeesAndTreesFrm]

Hi!  Thx for the opportunity.  I have something I like Square to work on!  We give our military and first responders 10% off their entire purchases every day but, when we run a special 20% off price on a product, then we are effectively giving 30% off that item.  Can you do something about this so that item discounts aren’t further increased by an overall discount?

[kellyj]

@BeesAndTreesFrm

Definitely see the difficulty with this kind of thing. We can certainly bring that feedback to our product team. Feature Request roll outs are not created by the Beta team- just managed, so our team that works directly with the discount features will be the correct people to send this feedback to. We’ll get on bubbling up this request for you!

[sammyg]

Is there a Beat Program for Square Register users? It seems like most posts on the forum are from iOS users, but I several feature requests / bugs that I'd like to report on the Square Register, but I'm not sure how to get them out there.

[Howard]

@sammyg We have a Beta Program for Square Register. Please let us know if you are interested and we will send you an email invite. Make sure you join us in the Beta Community which is a private forum here on the Seller Community. Once you have joined the Android group, we can take your feedback there for the Square Register. You can also email your feedback to betafeedback@squareup.com! 

[LTR]

Questions:

1.  This is my first time joining the Square Beta Team.  Kindly explain the process for doing the testing.

2.  Will any hardware be provided for us to do the testing?

3.  For the feedback process, will it be done only by email or will there be phone support as well?

4.  How much time are we given to do the testing?

5.  Will the testing of the features be specific to what we're doing only (eg, for our industry and for the features that we're using like marketing and loyalty for example).

[lindsaybee]

@LTR Great questions! 

1. The Process for joining the Beta program is fairly easy. Download the Beta App and get started!

2. This depends on the needs of the program and can vary by hardware product.

3. We may reach out for feedback through email, phone, or survey.

4. All new features on our POS app are tested on a 2-week beta cycle. Any Beta tester who tests for us on our Square iOS or Android POS apps are eligible for private invitations to preview hardware, software, or partnership programs. These programs vary in length.

5. Testers in the Beta Community may be invited to limited, private programs based on their current use of other products, but we also look at which sellers we think would benefit the most from new tools.

[CherishSales]

Having only used Square a few times, this is a genuine question: What do you need from me as a Beta Seller?

Thank you.

[Howard]

@CherishSales As a Beta seller, we want to hear from you! We welcome your feedback as it helps us during testing and improves our products for all Square sellers. Beta feedback and bug reports inform our product teams on what our sellers are saying and if this product is ready for everyone else to use it. Your feedback is vital to our success! 

[lindsaybee]

Hi @CherishSales 

I would also add -- There are two ways we can get feedback from our beta testers. One way is simply through usage; we get automatic crash reports, and can see what features are being used.

Another way is through vocal feedback, which @Howard is highlighting above.

For our invite only programs, we are really counting on our beta testers to provide vocal feedback. One slot will be given to you for the sole purpose of hearing your opinion on how we can improve our products for business owners. For these programs, active participation, which can look like bug reporting, letting us know if something is confusing, or providing other feedback, is highly valued and required.

Heated opinions welcome! 🔥

[OldFox]

I would like to have a wait list option.  My clients would like to notified if an appointment they would like opened up.

I was also concerned that an appointment confirmation feature started without my knowledge or consent.  My client told me about it.  I like it yet it would have been nice to know..ahead of time.

When will square be able to work without a special doggle with Samsung 10 phone?

Not that I want to leave Square...yet what happens if I do to all of my old appointments and payments?

Can I access square info offline?

I will not be able to be on the call yet hope there will be a transcript.  Keep up the good work!

Arlene

[kellyj]

@OldFox Thanks for your questions. We’re passing your feature requests over to the Appointments product team. The idea of a wait list is a really interesting one.

Usually when we have a release on a product, we do let you know with an email that a change has been released. I’ll check on the above one you mentioned and see what was communicated out.

To answer your question generally about leaving Square — in the case that you move on you can download your Customer Information by exporting your customer directory. Appointment information does not transfer out, and our Appointments Support team would be able to help you with specific questions about that.

You can access your information with Square offline in most cases — but it will not show you updates and changes done in real time, as it needs to sync with our cloud in order to keep you fully updated.

[CarriesCritters]

I operate a pet grooming studio and barkery. 

I would love to discuss options that would improve features for groomers, beauticians and estheticians.

[kellyj]

@CarriesCritters 

We're working to track Feature Requests in a more robust way here in the future. Feel free to start a general discussion on what would work for you and your business on our General Discussion board!

[lindsaybee]

Hi @CarriesCritters, I would also add to @kellyj with this: Do you use our Appointments product?

Without fully diving in, it sounds like this could be the good option for you. We keep track of which products our beta testers are using in our Beta Community, and invite them to programs when new features come up for testing. We'd love to bring you into the pool of testers!

[Jenn1803]

Any plans to add space for customers to add custom requests when ordering in the online store? Right now, I only see that they can add custom info in the shopping cart. Would be super helpful for my business if they can add requests to each item and even upload images or files with their order.

also - when setting up a square website it does not allow a spot to put that hours are by appointment only. we run a business that does not have open office hours and would like a good way to add that info in the "location & hours" section.

[kellyj]

@Jenn1803 

This is a great Feature Request for our eCom team, we'll be happy to track and pass it. We've ran some beta's in the past with ecom, so we'll let you know if there are some in the future.

[FriendlyNatives]

How risky is it? In terms of running the business, if there is a glitch, do we have issues completing a transaction?

[Howard]

Hi! @FriendlyNatives Our Beta app goes through extensive testing and QA before it's released to our Beta community. Overall it's very stable, but we do run into issues from time to time. We don't expect these issues to affect taking payments, but if you do see a bug on the beta app, please file to our team and we will quickly to resolve the issue. We also recommend to keep the App Store version of the Square app downloaded just in case. 

[kellyj]

Hiya Community! 

We're here and about to begin answering all your questions on this rainy Wednesday in San Fransisco. 

If you have further questions, feel free to post them and we'll get to them as we are able.

@Howard @lindsaybee and myself! 

[SmartyPantsJane]

How does this Live Q&A work? I'm not sure where to look or what to do. Am I supposed to just sit and read all the questions that have been posted and see how you responded to them?