It’s been two weeks since we got our hands on the Apple Vision Pro and it’s safe to say that spatial computing has blown us away.

Of course we’ve been visualizing our schedules in a whole new way, thanks to Fantastical for Apple Vision Pro which debuted on launch day. But we haven’t forgotten about our contacts in all of the calendar excitement!

Soon after we got started turning Fantastical into a native Apple Vision Pro app, we turned our attention to Cardhop: the best way to add, edit, search, and interact with your contacts.

It’s exciting to be the only contacts app on Apple Vision Pro — and of course we think it’s the only one you’ll ever need. Your contacts will float right in front of you, literally jumping when you look at them. Who knew making a call could be this fun?

Everything you already know and love about Cardhop is there. You can add or edit contacts using natural language, search through them quickly and easily, and interact with them using a variety of Cardhop actions.

You just need to add your contact accounts to the Apple Vision Pro Settings app under Apps > Calendar > Accounts, then download Cardhop from the App Store on your device and sign in to your Flexibits Account to get started.

You can seamlessly make FaceTime video or audio calls, send emails, open websites, or look up addresses in Maps with just a glance and a tap.

View your recent contacts (with your preferred ways to interact!), send calendar invitations through Fantastical, take notes, see birthdays and anniversaries — anything you need to stay on top of your connections. Cardhop for Apple Vision Pro also has Focus Filtering, so you only see the contacts that matter at that moment.

It’s the best contacts experience we’ve ever made, and we’re thrilled to bring it to you as we continue our spatial computing journey.

If you have any ideas or feedback for Cardhop for Apple Vision Pro, let us know!

Contact management is a key component of your networking toolkit. Now that the era of the Rolodex is far behind us, what are the norms, tricks, and best practices for managing your professional contacts? Read on to find out!

Have your information at the ready

We’ve all been there: you’re having a great conversation with someone you know want to keep in touch with. You’re ready to exchange details, and… now what? Who puts whose number into whose phone? How will you know which “Taylor” this is when you try to look them up later? Should you connect on Facebook? LinkedIn? BeReal??

It’s 2023, and if you’re not using a digital business card, it’s time to up your game.

In Cardhop, your details are automatically housed in a digital business card that you can quickly share with new contacts. You can customize the information that’s shown, change the color of the card, add a photo or logo, and more to ensure you’re making exactly the right professional impression. This support article will tell you everything you need to know about configuring your digital business card in Cardhop.

Depending on how often you find yourself needing to share your digital business card, note that you can add your business card QR code as a widget on your home screen. (More information on how to do that can be found here.)

Do people still use physical business cards?

This varies a bit from industry to industry and place to place. If you’re a technologist at an AR/VR convention handing out physical business cards, you might get a few raised eyebrows — but in general, the physical business card hasn’t died out just yet.

For the most technologically forward but inclusive approach, try leading with the digital business card, but have a few physical cards on hand in case someone prefers to connect the old-school way.

If you receive a physical business card from someone else, note that you can quickly scan their information directly into Cardhop. When adding a new contact on iOS, Cardhop gives you the option to type details in directly, or scan them in from a card:

Related reading: Managing Business Cards with Cardhop

Track Groups, Relationships, and Details

When you make a new professional connection, you’ll want to keep track of their basic contact and work information, of course — but there are a few other useful thing you may want to track as well.

Group contacts by industry or other professional context

Beyond simply tracking someone’s workplace, you can create custom lists of contacts based on your own criteria. For instance, you could…

• House all of the new contacts you met at a VR technologies convention under one “VR Professionals” list
• Create a “Potential Leads” list after making connections at a trade show
• Group all of your contacts at different press outlets in a “Journalists” list

Click here to learn more about how to create lists in Cardhop. Note that Cardhop’s Smart Lists feature can also automatically group your contacts by company for you.

Track relationships within an organization

If you meet a group of people at the same organization, it can be very helpful to keep tabs on their organizational hierarchy (if you know what it is). That way, you can be sure you’re going to the right people with the right questions, and not chasing up an intern for an inroad they can’t provide.

In Cardhop, you can add relationships to your contacts, then see relational graphs at a glance:

You can also import information from an entire directory based in Google Workspace, Exchange, or Microsoft 365 to auto-fill these workplace relationships.

Information on adding relationships to your contacts can be found here, and you can learn how to import entire directories here.

Record the right details

Remembering useful details about a new contact can be a great way to stand out in future conversations — just make sure you’re not bringing up anything that’s overly personal or specific. There’s strategy to networking, but remember that the professional contacts you make are humans, too.

Jot down things like…

• Pronouns
• Specific areas of the industry that they’re really excited about
• Cool projects they’re working on
• High-level tidbits about family, pets, hobbies, etc.

But maybe don’t include…

• Notes on physical appearance
• Highly subjective thoughts on their work, company, or style
• Overly specific details about family or personal life

As a rule of thumb, if you think they’d be embarrassed or upset if they saw a certain note, don’t write it.

You can add notes to the bottom of your contact cards in Cardhop, and even include specific timestamps on your notes to make sure you’re aware of how recent your information is before referencing it in future conversations.

Following up with new contacts

After you’ve exchanged information and kept track of the right details, now comes the big question: when should you follow up?

This is also pretty variable based on context, but here are a few guidelines:

• If a specific timeframe was mentioned: If one of you referenced any specific kind of plan, e.g. “Let’s get coffee next week!”, set yourself a reminder to reach out within that timeframe to firm up plans.
• If you have a specific ask from them: Whether you’re hoping for an interview, trying to lock them down as a new client, or similar, follow up quickly (a matter of days) so that the details of your conversation are still fresh on their mind when they hear from you.
• If you don’t have a specific ask from them: For people with whom you just want to stay in touch, follow up in a more leisurely manner (a matter of weeks) for something casual. You could even look out for an event that matches their interests and invite them down the line.

What if they’re not answering?

If you’ve put a feeler out and haven’t heard back in a week or two, try them one more time, then leave them be. You never know what is going on in someone else’s life — maybe a family emergency or unforeseen issue is keeping them from answering, and the more you pester them with no response, the more you’re souring the relationship.

Following up with Cardhop and Fantastical

Cardhop’s quick actions integrate seamlessly with Fantastical so that it’s easy to follow up with your new contacts.

• Use the invite or Fantastical keywords in Cardhop to invite a contact to an event in Fantastical
• Use event or calendar to directly create a new event in Fantastical with a Cardhop action
• Use task, todo, or reminder to set a task in Fantastical relating to a contact (e.g. “reminder email Anna Burton 11/1”)

You can get a deep dive on quick Cardhop actions that integrate with Fantastical in this support article.

Related reading: Fantastical Actions in Cardhop

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Hopefully these tips will help you feel ready for anything at your next networking event! And if networking with Cardhop has you excited about all of great ways you can manage your contacts, head here for extra Cardhop tips and tricks.

But we know what some of you are probably thinking… “I love using both apps on their own, but wouldn’t it be even better if we could use them together?”

We totally agree! That’s why we’ve created Fantastical actions in Cardhop, letting you take advantage of both apps by linking specific contacts from Cardhop to your events and tasks in Fantastical. So, sit back and enjoy the ride because today we are going to explore the magic of the new actions that connect both apps. (We do ask that you please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.)

Quick and easy invites

If you’ve been keeping up with the Flexireads blog, you’re probably familiar with the first action on the list since it was highlighted in a post by one of our users, Matt, but let’s get a quick refresher on the Fantastical Invite action in Cardhop.

Making sure you invite everyone to an event can be frustrating when you have to add each person individually. Sure, it’s easy when there are just 2 or 3 invitees involved, but what about when it’s a team of 15? Cardhop makes it quick and easy to organize all of your contacts, and now you just need a way to use that information in Fantastical. We hear you loud and clear! So let’s take a look at our first integrated action in Cardhop, the Fantastical Invite action. 

With the Fantastical Invite action, all it takes is a couple of seconds in Cardhop and your invitees are all added to your Fantastical event. Activate the action by typing “invite” then follow that with your contact or group name.

Hit enter and Fantastical starts creating an event with your contacts added as invitees.

All that’s left for you to do is enter the event info and add it to your calendar. It doesn’t matter if you are inviting one person or 20, the Fantastical Invite action has you covered!

Link a contact to your events

Keeping up with family can be hard if you are scattered all over the world. It may not be possible to take a 12-hour flight every month for a visit with your grandparents, but you can always hop on a FaceTime call to catch up with the latest family gossip. A repeating event in Fantastical is an easy way to make sure you don’t miss your monthly call, and you’ve got Granny’s info added in Cardhop. Now all you need is a way to link the two items for even easier access. 

Check out the Fantastical Event action in Cardhop — we think you’ll be pleased. This lets you create an event in Fantastical that includes a link to a second action from Cardhop. Just type “event” and add the action you want to use, followed by your contact. 

Not only will you be able to create a repeating event in Fantastical that shows up every month, but the event will also have a link added that lets you start your FaceTime call directly from Fantastical!

Now you don’t have to worry about missing the latest news on your cousin’s new relationship, and Granny doesn’t have to sit at home wondering if you’ll remember to call. 

We didn’t forget about tasks!

Sometimes you want an item that you can easily check off to show it’s been taken care of. You don’t want to have to add an event to your calendar when a task is all you need to remind you to send an email or make a quick phone call. No worries! We made sure to include tasks in the mix when creating the new actions in Cardhop so you can easily attach a contact to those as well. 

Start by typing “task” in Cardhop and follow that with the action you want to take and the contact’s name.

Instead of an event, Fantastical will start creating a task so that you can fill in the remaining details and quickly add it to your calendar.

When it’s time to send your email, you can start your draft directly from the task in Fantastical with the contact details already included. No more switching between programs and scrambling to find the correct contact information, it’s all available with one tap of the finger or click of your mouse.

Learn more

Want to find out more about the available actions in Cardhop that you can use with our new event and task actions? Simply type a ? in the Cardhop parser and scroll down to the Actions section.

You can also find a complete list of actions in our Support pages for Cardhop on the Mac  and Cardhop on iOS.

If you have any questions, just reach out to our Support team, and as always, keep an eye out for more tips and tricks on the Flexireads blog! 

Okay, so not everyone wants to start the new year with resolutions and productivity and the like, but many of us here at Flexibits are that nerd (sorry, not sorry, as they say). So, if you are also that nerd, let’s talk about Fantastical and Cardhop and how to make productivity easier so you can start the new year with less stress.

To start the new year off right, we’re giving you tips straight from the experts — that is, the Flexibits team themselves! — about what their favorite productivity hacks are.

Look below to find what are objectively the best features of Fantastical and Cardhop, as told by the rest of our lovely crew who make and support Fantastical and Cardhop.

Customize your Calendar Sets

Jonathan would like us all to know that Calendar Sets fully support the use of emoji, which is great news for all of us chronic over-users of emoji.

Go ahead, open up Fantastical and add emoji to all your Calendar Sets!

Tori has another great Calendar Set trick — she optimizes her Calendar Sets by using time and location cues:

“I love the feature that allows you to set your Calendar Sets to automatically switch at a certain time or location. It really helps me manage my work/life balance. Basically, at 5PM everyday, my calendar switches from work to personal, then at 9AM it switches back to work. It is refreshing and very useful.”

Connect with Cardhop

Many folks never realize they need a better contacts app until they try Cardhop (case in point: the epic revelation Megs had regarding Cardhop’s printing feature). What else can this little app do?

Adam uses the timestamp feature in Cardhop to keep meeting notes organized, while Alessandro asks Cardhop to deliver birthday notifications a day early so he’s not caught without a gift. Clever!

Soneé uses Cardhop’s widgets for keeping in touch with his favorite people:

“I really like the action widgets for Cardhop on iOS. I keep them on my home screen so I can quickly call my sister on FaceTime and other family members. I place them in a stack so I quickly swipe between them so it’s like having a speed dial.”

Make our language parser do the work for you!

Many members of the engineering team wanted to shout out the fact that the parser can handle durations.

Just type your event details into the parser and include ‘for x hours’, and watch the magic unfold.

Chrissie uses the language parser to update section labels when adding info to contact cards:

“… just type the label name in front of the info you are entering. So if you are entering someone’s home phone number you could type home then the number and it’s labeled for you.”

(This tip wins the “Most Creative Screenshot” award.)

One more tip before we all get back to work…

David wants to make sure we don’t get too bogged down in all the “necessary” and “useful” things:

“This is more fun than productive, but one of my favorite features in Fantastical is having the ability to add your favorite sports team’s schedule to the calendar.  This way you don’t have to look it up on a periodic basis.”

Of course, our team had too many ideas to fit into one post, so stay tuned for more tips to come. As always, please share your favorite tips and tricks with us!

When I came across the section on printing in Cardhop, I swear I could feel something pop in my brain. Did you know that Cardhop can PRINT LABELS?

So, this year, instead of spending several evenings carefully copying and double-checking addresses, I’m just going to press command-P, put on my favorite Christmas movie, and pour myself a celebratory glass of eggnog.

What are your favorite unsung features of Cardhop and Fantastical? I can’t wait to learn (and share!) more mind-blowing productivity tricks!

Last but not least, happy holidays from all of us at Flexibits! However you celebrate, we wish you a wonderful and peaceful holiday season and a very happy (and productive ) new year.

While widgets are common knowledge these days, we’re going to explore some of the options we offer in Fantastical and Cardhop that you could be missing out on. Stick around and you just might be surprised by some of the things you can do directly from your home screen!

Conquer your day with the Up Next widget

One glance at your calendar tells you that your day is packed full of meetings and tasks you’ll need to accomplish before you can even think about heading home. It’s Friday and the weekend is calling your name if you can just make it through the list that seems to keep growing… and growing… The more you look at your schedule the harder it is to believe you’ll get to leave the office before you have to be back Monday morning.

Instead of calling your partner to have them drop off camping supplies because you’re stuck at the office the next three days, start tackling the list one item at a time using Fantastical’s Up Next widget.

With the Up Next widget, you won’t be overwhelmed by seeing all of the events and tasks that need to be completed because it only shows you the next item on your list. You get to focus on one event or task at a time without having to think about the next five that are upcoming, and before you know it you have everything accomplished for the day! It’s time to head home and enjoy some well earned relaxation. Who knows, you might even break out that camping gear in your backyard and make some s’mores.

Staying in the know with the Cardhop Quick Actions widget

After the fiasco of the last budget meeting, Bob has decided he’s going to start taking matters into his own hands. No more waiting on his colleagues to send him the updated info he needs for his reports, and then not receiving it at all! Instead he’s going to be proactive and reach out to them each month to confirm he has the correct information. Now he just needs to find the easiest way to remember who he needs to contact and he’ll be all set.

Enter the Cardhop Quick Actions Widget.  

After adding this widget to his home screen, Bob can set it to always show him the colleagues he needs to contact and choose the best contact method for each person. Once that’s done, all he has to do is tap on the contact he needs and he’ll immediately be able to reach out using the preferred method for each contact. Ana prefers email? Check. Matthew always wants you to call him on his cell phone? No problem. Eden will only answer text messages? Done! 

Bob is confident that his part of the presentation is correct each time and isn’t left feeling embarrassed, or looking for a new job!

No lists for you? Use the Fantastical Calendar widget

Lists are great, and can be helpful if you enjoy knowing exactly what’s coming next. Just because everyone else likes them doesn’t mean you have to though. You may only want to see a snapshot of the upcoming month or two without all of the details cluttering your screen. No need to know what the events are, just see a visual of what days you have free in the coming weeks. 

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered here as well with the Fantastical Calendar widget. 

Add the Fantastical Calendar widget to your screen, turn on item indicators, and with just a glance you know that you have a free Friday next month on the same weekend your favorite baseball team is in town. In no time at all you have a vacation day approved at work and tickets for the upcoming game. No better way to spend a Friday evening, even if you don’t root, root, root for the home team.  

Celebrate good times with Cardhop’s Celebration widget

So you’re tired of sitting home all the time and want to get together with friends to have some fun? A cookout sounds okay, but is not quite the level of excitement you’re hoping for. What can you plan to get everyone together and have a good time? A party, of course! 

You start by making a checklist in Fantastical of everything you’ll need to do: order food and drinks, find decorations, create a playlist. It’s all coming together great, but you want something to take it to the next level. When you pick up your phone to call your best friend for help, you happen to see the Cardhop Celebration widget and realize their birthday is coming up. Then it hits you, why have a regular party when you can have a CELEBRATION! 

This time next week you and your friends will be eating cake and dancing the night away.

And why stop with just one party? Switch to the large Celebration widget and you can plan parties for ALL your friend’s birthdays… and their anniversaries as well! 

Let the good times roll… and maybe order a new pair of dancing shoes so your feet don’t hurt. 

Creating new events has never been this easy

The pizza was just delivered and you’re ready to enjoy a night with your family. Right before you take a big bite of the warm cheesy goodness you remember that you need to set up a meeting with your colleague for tomorrow. You could unlock your phone, find the Fantastical app, open it, and tap the + to add a new event. Or if you are using iOS 16, you could start creating an event without even unlocking your phone. 

Just add the Quick Action Fantastical widget to your lock screen and no matter where you are or what you are doing all it takes is a quick tap to start creating a new event.

Choose the add event option when customizing the widget and Fantastical will immediately open to the event creation screen with the parser active and ready for your information.

In just a few seconds your meeting is set and your pizza didn’t even have time to get cold. Now you can sit back, relax, and start thinking about what to have for dessert. Who wants ice cream?

Tips & tricks to get the most out of your Flexibits widgets

All Flexibits widgets have multiple settings that can be changed to fit your current needs. Just tap and hold on the widget, select “Edit Widget,” and have fun trying all the different settings that are available.

If you have an active Flexibits Premium subscription, you get access to those features in the widgets as well. This includes the fantastic “Join” button for meetings, and the ability to choose from multiple calendar sets so you can customize what you see.

Widgets are not just for your home screen! Try adding your favorite Fantastical and Cardhop widgets directly to your Today view on the iPhone for quick and easy access to all of your information! If you’ve upgraded to iOS 16, you can use the widgets on your lock screens too. Add different widgets to each of your lock screens to customize what information you see and when you see it!

Have an iPad and want to see even more info? Try out the XL iPad widgets. The Fantastical Event List + Calendar XL widget gives you an expanded view of what’s going on in your life and with the Cardhop XL Celebration widget you can see SO many more upcoming birthdays and anniversaries! 

Finally, there isn’t a limit to how many widgets you can use, so play around with all of them to find the best combo for your needs. Stick the Up Next widget on your lock screen and the Fantastical calendar widget on a home screen. Add the Cardhop Birthday widget on your home screen, and the Business Card widget to your Today view. There are so many possibilities to explore!

Learn more

Widgets are a fun way to customize your devices and can be used on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You can find out more about all of the widgets we offer by checking out our Support pages.

Thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for our next post as we continue to explore the great features of Fantastical and Cardhop!

However, we know there’s a dedicated community of Cardhop devotees eager for new updates too, and today’s release is for you! Cardhop 2.1 launches today, with new features that have been in the pipeline for some time, and a bunch of other minor enhancements and tweaks you’re sure to love. But even if you don’t use Cardhop as much as Fantastical, we think there’ll be a few exciting features for you too

First, let’s break down the main components of Cardhop’s 2.1 update.

Fantastical action

Cardhop already integrates with Fantastical, allowing you to choose contacts or groups in Cardhop and then invite them to events in Fantastical. Cardhop 2.1 expands on this integration, enabling Cardhop to create events and tasks in Fantastical that link back to specific Cardhop actions.

For example, you can tell Cardhop to make a task in Fantastical to call a specific contact, placing a link to the Cardhop Call action in the task’s notes. Or perhaps you might schedule a time to FaceTime another of your contacts. Cardhop will pass this off to Fantastical to make the event and place it in your calendar, again linking back to the FaceTime action for this contact.

This prevents having to enter the same information twice in different apps, keeping you flowing smoothly throughout your day.

What Cardhop actions will you find useful to turn into events and tasks in Fantastical?

Business card QR code widget

We know people love sharing and managing business cards in Cardhop, and Cardhop 2.1 makes it even easier to share the contact information from your business card(s) with new people.

You’ll now find a business card QR code widget for Cardhop, which places the QR code from one of your business cards on your iPhone’s Home Screen or Today view. Now you can share your contact details without even having to open the app!

If you have a number of different business cards, you can add individual widgets for each card’s QR code. Perhaps you could place different business card QR codes on different iPhone Home Screens?

If you want to save as much time as possible, try putting your QR code widget(s) right at the top of the Today view, and then you can pick up your phone and swipe left to share your details — no need to even go to the Home Screen!

Celebrations

Cardhop users are already familiar with how it helps prevent forgetting birthdays, keeping you in your contacts’ good graces!

Cardhop 2.1 now offers the same functionality for anniversaries too, and we’ve renamed the ‘Birthdays’ feature to ‘Celebrations’ to mark this inclusion. Go ahead and pin the Celebrations widget to your Home Screen, configure a reminder for anniversaries just like you can with birthdays, and then when Cardhop notifies you on the day, perform an action in Cardhop to send your best wishes.

…and more!

Cardhop 2.1 also introduces new actions for starting chats and calls in Microsoft Teams, and now you can also paste a social media URL into Cardhop and have it extract and display the username rather than the URL. And of course, we’ve provided a bunch of other fixes and tweaks behind the scenes too. If you’re an iOS 16 beta tester, then you might notice an improved experience on the beta version of iOS too.

Be sure to check out the Cardhop Help Book for full details.

Thank you for your continued support of Cardhop! We hope the 2.1. update continues to add value to your Flexibits Premium subscription, and encourages you to use Cardhop in tandem with Fantastical to keep your life organized and manageable.

See you soon!

If you’ve taken the time to add your contacts to Cardhop, then I’ve got great news for you: the hard part of managing your contacts is already done!

Now you can relax and let the app help you organize everything by using Cardhop’s Smart Groups!

Before you stop reading because you’ve already tried using regular groups for your contacts and they didn’t help, just hear me out. These aren’t your regular contact groups we’re dealing with. We call them “Smart Groups” for a reason.

What makes these groups so smart?

Cardhop’s Smart Groups filters your entire contacts database and groups the contacts together that fit the rules you specify for each group.

In Cardhop for iOS, we offer a set of preconfigured Smart Groups that you can pick from. This includes options such as finding all of your contacts that are companies (so you can easily make an appointment for your pup’s summer haircut), finding contacts that have been recently modified in the last two weeks (because you just realized you changed the phone number on the wrong contact but can’t remember where you made the change), and finding empty contacts (so you can clean out some of the contacts that don’t help you at all). We have a handy selection of choices that can help you quickly identify specific contacts and group them together for future reference.

With Cardhop on the Mac, we take this even further. Not only do you have the same preconfigured Smart Groups that are available on iOS, you also have the ability to make your own Smart Groups. With multiple options to pick from and the ability to add several rules to each group, sorting your contacts will be a breeze!

Plus, if you are using Cardhop on both macOS and iOS, any smart group you create in Cardhop on the Mac syncs directly with Cardhop on iOS when both devices are signed into the same iCloud account. This lets you access your Smart Groups no matter where you are!

Saving your relationships, one birthday at a time

We’ve talked about the importance of birthdays before, and how Cardhop and Fantastical can help you remember those. However, this only works if you have added the birthday to your contact. Family get togethers won’t be any fun if you’re the one kid that forgets to wish Mom a Happy Birthday on her special day…

Instead of frantically searching through all your contacts to find any that are missing a birthday, let Cardhop do the work for you. Just select the “Missing Birthday” Smart Group that we’ve already provided, and you immediately get a group containing all of your contacts that don’t have a birthday added.

Take a few seconds to look through the group that was created and add any important birthdays that you might have left off. Mom gets birthday flowers and a card, and you get to be the “favorite” for a bit.  Everybody wins!

Keeping your team up to date on the latest project

Using Cardhop’s email function is a great way to notify your entire team of last-minute updates to the big project you are presenting to the company next week. Unless you forget to add Bob to the email group and he’s in charge of the budget numbers for your team…

Bob doesn’t get the email to update the numbers on his slides, and no one realizes it until he announces the wrong budget amount for your department… in the middle of the presentation. Now someone has to explain why your team will need more money and Bob is embarrassed! But it could have been prevented with a Cardhop Smart Group.

Create a new Smart Group in Cardhop on the Mac and set it to search for contacts from your company and department.

This gives you a group that includes all the members of your team that you can email directly from Cardhop. Everyone gets the updated information for their slides, the presentation is a success, and your team gets to purchase the equipment you need.

Best of all, the Smart Group will update automatically with any new contacts that meet its criteria. So anytime a new contact is added to Cardhop with your company and department listed, it will show up in the Smart Group you just created.

Catching up with friends, the Smart Group way

The conference you are attending for work just happens to be in the city where you attended college, and a dinner catching up with old friends sounds like a great way to get some important relaxation while you’re there. You know several of your college friends still live in the area and want to make sure you don’t leave anyone out when you start planning your meet up. So instead of scrolling through your contacts and messaging everyone individually, let Cardhop do the work for you.

Book your flight, pack your bags, and use Cardhop for Mac to create a Smart Group of friends that live in the city where you are heading. Your group will sync directly to Cardhop on your iPhone, giving you easy access on the go. 

Now you can message the whole group at any time with just a simple command in Cardhop making planning a breeze.

Learn more

Don’t forget, Cardhop is included in your Flexibits Premium Subscription so if you aren’t using it yet, download it and give it a try! You’ll have access to Smart Groups and all the other great features that help take the stress out of managing your contacts. 

Check out our tutorial videos to get started and let Cardhop make your life a little easier.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for future tips and tricks!

While our current birthday traditions were not always the norm, nowadays, recognizing and participating in a birthday celebration is kind of a big deal.

With all the information thrown at us daily, along with balancing family and work, and social schedules, it’s easy to get swept up and forget someone’s special day. This may result in sending a late email, social media post, or rush to the “Belated Birthday” card section of your local gift shop. However, using a few simple tips in Fantastical and Cardhop, whether you’re planning to go all out to celebrate a birthday or simply want to share a message to let someone know you’re thinking of them, you’ll never miss a birthday again!

Birthdays Basics with Fantastical

When first installing Fantastical on Mac or iOS, it will ask for permission to access your contacts; this allows Fantastical to be used for various features, including birthdays! If you don’t grant permissions for contacts, then you’ll miss out on Birthday displays, as well as the ability for Fantastical to use contacts for event invites. If you change your mind and decide you want to use these features you can go to System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Contacts on Mac, and Settings > Privacy > Contacts on iOS to enable permissions here. Some birthday information will also be pulled by Fantastical from the calendar account you add directly to the app.

In the screenshots below, contacts with birthdays from a Google calendar account are showing in green (green is the nice bright color I’ve chosen for that calendar), but this can be disabled if you’d rather stick to the macOS/iOS Contacts data alone.

Birthdays from the contacts app will show with a present icon and the birthday person’s name next to it. If you click the birthday it’ll show a festive animation along with your contacts’ birthday details. It’ll also prompt you some options to get in touch if you’d like to send a birthday message!

When viewing “All Calendars” you’ll automatically see contacts’ birthdays in your Fantastical calendar (if permissions have been granted).

Fantastical Birthday Tips

If you have a busy work and/or personal schedule, there are also a couple of options to make sure your contacts’ birthdays are not missed, whether you’re using Fantastical on Mac or an iOS device.

The first tip is to have your contacts added under a specific Calendar Set. This way you can quickly check your designated “Birthday” calendar whenever you need to. You can use this tip with any calendar view, but we recommend the month view, since it gives an overview of all the birthdays in that timeframe. If you have a particular month with loads of birthdays to keep track of, then using a “Birthdays” calendar set will make sure these special days are not only kept separate, but also easy to see (in whichever view you choose), and then they won’t get lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life.

The second tip is to duplicate the birthday into an event or task, which also works nicely if you’re planning a party or would like another reminder to send a birthday card! You can do this by right clicking on the birthday > Duplicate (for an event) or Duplicate as Task on Mac. While on iOS devices, tap and hold on the birthday for a few seconds and a menu should pop up with the Duplicate option. The added benefit of adding an additional event or task for the birthday is that you can set up extra alerts to make sure you’re notified — note alerts for tasks will depend on the account type you use.

Also, you can’t really talk about birthdays and not think of a par-TAY! If you love to throw big birthday celebrations, there are also a few Fantastical features to help with scheduling that Birthday bash! If you know who you’d like to invite and their schedules beforehand, you can simply create a birthday event and add partygoers as invitees.

However, if you’re dealing with many people and/or chaotic schedules, why not utilize the Proposals feature in Fantastical and easily find a date that works for everyone?

Birthdays with Cardhop

Cardhop works with your system contacts, and from the accounts you add to it, so all your contacts’ birthdays will be sourced from there. Of course, if you add a contact and their birthday information directly to Cardhop, it will be synced to your contacts account.

To make life super easy, there is already a designated “Birthdays” list in the Cardhop’s sidebar. Simply click this to see a list of your upcoming birthdays that Cardhop has pulled from your contacts. Even if you’re using a compacted view of Cardhop, it is easy to select the Birthdays list!

If you click a contact from the Birthday list, you’ll see that contact’s details, as well as options to message, call, email, or invite them. If you choose to send an invite, then you’ll be taken to Fantastical to create an event with them as an invitee.

Cardhop on iOS also gives you the same quick list and views for Birthdays. Additionally, if you go to Cardhop > Settings, you can enable and set “Birthday Notifications” for Cardhop as well. Even better, if you use specific groups to organize your contacts in Cardhop, and have for example a “Family” or “Friends” group, you can choose to set alerts for those designated groups.

Don’t forget Widgets!

There are also specific “Birthdays” widgets that you can use for Cardhop and Fantastical, on both Mac and iOS! You have a choice of widgets, and can choose from small, medium and large widgets. In Cardhop, the Small Widget will show the next upcoming birthday with more details, such as that contact’s image. While Medium and Large widgets will give you a list of upcoming birthdays.

In Fantastical, if you choose the Event List Widget option, you’ll see your contact’s upcoming birthday as well!

By enabling these widgets you’ll get a quick, compact view of your contacts’ Birthdays! Widgets will help keep these dates at the forefront of your daily information.

Whether you’d like to set a host of alerts or choose to set up and utilize just a few of the choice features we went over here, hopefully the tips I’ve shared will help you explore ways to avoid forgotten birthdays! Of course, features like Calendar Sets, Proposals, and Widgets can be set up in other ways, so if you haven’t explored these useful features yet, you can practice with Birthdays and then consider other ways to implement them for your own scheduling needs!

Feel free to shoot our support team an email if you have any questions, and thanks for checking out the Flexireads blog. See you soon!

But even if we all didn’t have to think twice about swapping business cards due to health considerations, did we really enjoy collecting a large amount of cards that would end up being stuffed into a wallet or drawer and then forgotten about?

When it comes to figuring out what to with your collection of contact business cards, Cardhop for iPhone presents an incredibly helpful solution: just scan the card with your camera and let Cardhop do the rest! You don’t have to touch the card or spend time typing out the contact information manually, as Cardhop will parse the printed information automatically, converting it into a new contact in the blink of an eye. Just point your device at the card — it’s safe, simple, and fun!

What’s more, you can even use Cardhop to make digital business cards of your own, so you always have your card with you and can share it with people in an instant.

Let’s take a look at how this works in action.

Saving contact business cards

Can you guess how many taps it takes to save your contact’s business card data in Cardhop? We’ll give you a hint: it’s not many.

1. Tap the app icon
2. Tap the “+” button
3. Tap “Scan Business Card” and aim at the text you want to save

It’s just as simple as that.

Cardhop will instantly read the card’s details, and with its powerful language parsing, recognize exactly where each piece of information needs to go in a new contact entry.

Cardhop will also save the original business card image too, so you can always refer to the source material if you need to.

So the next time someone shares their physical business card with you, give it a quick scan with Cardhop and focus on the conversation instead of trying to type everything into your phone (or risk losing the business card after you stuff it into a pocket)!

Before we move on, did you know that it’s not just business cards that can be scanned in this manner? You can also point Cardhop’s camera at contact details found on other physical sources, such as letters, posters, and even handwritten text (depending on legibility)! Any printed contact details have potential to become digital contact information in Cardhop. What sort of sources would you find helpful to scan with Cardhop?

Creating and sharing your own digital business cards

It’s great to save business cards in Cardhop, but it wouldn’t be too helpful if you still had to carry a stack of your own business cards to give out to new connections. This is where using Cardhop to create and share your own digital business card comes into play.

Either tap the business card icon next to your contact entry to view your card, or simply rotate your phone to landscape orientation from anywhere in the app to reveal your business card in an instant.

Use Cardhop’s settings to customize the data in your business card, and you can even create multiple business cards for different contexts. For example, try creating a personal card that contains your home address and personal number, and then make a professional card that contains your work number, email, and office address. Create as many cards as you think will be useful for your life, and quickly swipe between them when holding your device in landscape orientation.

Once you’ve got your business cards set up, it’s time to share them with others. Your connections don’t even need to be using Cardhop to receive your business card’s information (although we’d prefer that they did!). Simply tap the QR code on your business card and let your contacts scan it with their device camera to save your details. You can also tap the share icon to share your details via Airdrop, Messages, Mail, or another app you have installed.

Just like saving a contact’s business card, you can share your card with three quick taps:

1. Tap the app icon
2. Tap the business card icon (or rotate your device)
3. Tap the QR code or share icon

Again, it’s as simple as that.

Now that you don’t have to always carry around a collection of business cards to give out, can you think of any other contexts where it could be useful to share your contact information?

Learn more

We hope this post inspires you to take advantage of the simple business card scanning and sharing in Cardhop. For further details on how to use these features, please take a look at the relevant help book page or see them in action in our tutorial video. And most importantly, be sure to give it a try yourself!

Thanks for reading — see you in the next one!