What's new in Sokoleho
New features, core improvements, and bug fixes.
Pre-appointment WhatsApp reminders
Booking businesses now automatically send customers a WhatsApp reminder 24 hours before their appointment — reducing no-shows without any manual effort.
- Reminder sent ~24 hours before each confirmed or pending appointment
- Message includes the business name, appointment time, and service booked
- Runs as a background cron alongside the existing post-appointment rating request
- Idempotent — each customer receives exactly one reminder per appointment regardless of how often the cron fires
Product variants for e-commerce stores
E-commerce stores can now offer variant groups — Size, Colour, Material — with optional price adjustments per option. Customers select their variant before adding to cart.
- Add variant groups like Size or Colour to any product
- Each option can carry a price adjustment (e.g. +R20 for Large)
- Customers pick a variant before adding to cart
- Catalog editor labels these as Variants instead of Options for e-commerce stores
Stock inventory tracking for e-commerce stores
E-commerce merchants can now track units in stock per product. When stock reaches zero, items are automatically marked sold out on the storefront — no manual toggle required.
- New Track stock toggle per product in the catalog editor (e-commerce stores only)
- Set a starting stock count when adding or editing a product
- Stock decrements automatically when customers complete an order
- Product auto-marks as sold out the moment stock hits zero
- Opt-in per product — items without stock tracking behave exactly as before
Template-aware business setup
Businesses now choose how they operate when signing up — not just their industry. Three non-food templates (Bookings, E-Commerce, Showcase) unlock exactly the right features from day one, with no unnecessary clutter.
- Register page now reveals a template question after category — Appointments, Sell products, or Enquiries & showcase
- Founding merchant setup updated with the same progressive disclosure flow
- Category and template are independent — a Beauty business can choose Bookings, E-Commerce, or Showcase
- Food categories automatically lock to the Restaurant template as a safety guard
- Admin panel shows template type per business and allows override
Staff Roles & Security Hardening
You can now invite your team to manage orders without giving them access to your billing or branding settings.
- Added Staff Accounts tab with "Manager" and "Staff" roles
- Secured backend endpoints to prevent unauthorised data access
- Hardened Paystack payment verification to strictly match order totals
- Added per-phone-number rate limits to the WhatsApp webhook to prevent spam
Public Knowledge Base & Auth Upgrades
We rolled out a brand new help centre and overhauled how sessions are handled behind the scenes.
- Released the public Help Centre with search and categorised FAQs
- Global API rate limiting to protect platform infrastructure
- Switched WhatsApp webhook processing completely to the Meta Cloud API