More flexibility for our Starter Licence: introducing extensions

If you are already a customer with us on a Starter (or old Lite licence) or considering joining us, you may already know that Calpendo's Starter licence covers a lot of ground in terms of running a research facility. Unlimited bookings, resources, projects, and reports are all included from day one. For many facilities, that's everything they need.

But over time, we started hearing a consistent story from a subset of Starter customers. They'd hit one of Starter's built-in limits such as four booking rules, four time templates, or twenty custom properties and found themselves at a decision point that didn't feel right. The only option was to upgrade to Premium, which unlocks everything, but also comes with a meaningful jump in cost. For a facility that just needs one more rule, or a couple of extra properties, that felt like a poor trade.

We agreed. So we've introduced Starter extensions.

What are extensions?

Extensions let Starter customers unlock additional capabilities without moving to a full Premium licence. Rather than treating the Starter-to-Premium upgrade as a single all-or-nothing step, extensions let you pay for exactly what you need.

The three available extensions are:

• Unlimited booking rules: remove the cap of four rules and create as many as your facility's access and scheduling logic requires
• Unlimited time templates: go beyond four time templates to define as many booking slot structures as you need
• Unlimited custom properties: add as many custom fields to your bookings, resources, or projects as your reporting and data capture requires

Each extension is independent. If you need more rules but are perfectly happy with your current templates and properties, you can unlock just the rules extension. You can add further extensions later as your needs grow.

What's not included?

Unlimited workflow automation is not available as a Starter extension, and this is deliberate.

Workflows are one of the most powerful parts of Calpendo as they can automate complex sequences of actions across bookings, users, notifications, and more. They're also the part of the system that benefits most from dedicated configuration support. If your facility has reached the point where it needs significantly more workflow capability than Starter's basic automation provides, that's usually a sign that your requirements have grown to the point where a full Premium licence, and the configuration work that goes with it, is the right answer.

Is an extension right for you?

If you're on Starter and you've bumped into one of the limits above, extensions are worth a conversation. The right answer depends on which limits you're hitting and what you're actually trying to do with the system.

If you're hitting multiple limits, or finding that workflow capability is becoming a constraint, it may still make more sense to look at Premium. We'd rather have that conversation with you and give you an honest view than have you pay for an extension that doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Get in touch at https://calpendo.com/contact or post a ticket at https://exprodo.freshdesk.com/  and we'll take a look at your setup together.

Not yet a Calpendo customer?

If you're evaluating facility management systems and cost predictability matters, the extensions model is worth knowing about before you make a decision. You don't have to buy Premium capability on day one to have room to grow. Start where your facility is now, and expand your licence as your needs develop.