Your Waiting Room, Your Way: Meet CrowdHandler’s New Templates

CrowdHandler has always given you the freedom to shape your waiting room exactly how you want it. For example, you can upload your own HTML, tweak the messaging, or match your brand. 

Over time, customers started pushing that flexibility far beyond what we originally imagined. We’ve seen waiting rooms with immersive video backgrounds, interactive 3D product visuals, and custom scripts that adapt the entire experience based on real-time queue conditions. 

There was just one catch: unlocking that level of sophistication often required deep JavaScript expertise. What should have been simple tweaks (like adjusting messaging or hiding elements under certain conditions) ended up involving mutation observers, DOM manipulation, and complex event handling tied to queue data.

We kept seeing the same patterns repeated across different customers. And the conclusion became obvious: this shouldn’t be this hard.

So, we made a few changes.

Why Vue.js?

When we set out to redesign the template engine, we focused on a simple question: who actually edits these templates?

It’s not always senior developers. More often, it’s designers, marketers, or junior developers. These are people who are comfortable working with HTML and CSS, but shouldn’t need to reverse-engineer complex JavaScript logic just to make a small change.

Vue strikes a balance that’s hard to beat. Its syntax feels like familiar HTML, enhanced with a few intuitive attributes for adding logic. There’s no complicated build setup, no JSX, no tooling overhead. You write markup, and it works.

For everyday edits, such as updating layouts, refining copy, or rearranging sections, the experience feels almost identical to editing plain HTML. However, when you need dynamic behaviour, Vue lets you add it directly into your markup without wrestling with the DOM.

From Complex Workarounds to Simple Markup

Many of the customisations we’ve seen customers build over the years follow the same pattern of practical, user-focused tweaks that previously required far more effort than they should have.

Now, instead of writing custom scripts to monitor and modify wait time displays, you can handle it with a simple conditional expression. Instead of intercepting queue updates to hide stock levels during countdown mode, you can apply a single directive directly in your markup.

A Better Starting Point

Alongside the new templating engine, we’ve completely redesigned the default waiting room template. The goal was simple: give you a stronger foundation, whether you want to customise heavily or just make a few quick changes.

The new template is built to be flexible, accessible, and ready for global audiences straight out of the box. You can quickly align it with your brand, it has triple-A compliant accessibility, and it can serve users in multiple languages without additional setup. 

In addition to accessibility, the templates deliver a multi-lingual experience to your users. The standard multilingual template supports 50 different languages out of the box.   

A Faster, Smarter Workflow

One of the biggest pain points we heard from customers (especially designers) was the feedback loop: Make a change. Upload it. Trigger a queue scenario. Spot an issue. Repeat.

It was slow, frustrating, and unnecessary.

With the new system, you can work with built-in mock data locally. 

Want to see how your waiting room behaves with thousands of users in the queue? Just change a value. 

Need to preview countdown mode or stock behaviour? Toggle a flag.

You can explore every scenario without ever leaving your development environment.

The mobile view

What About Existing Templates?

Nothing changes.

Your current templates will continue to work exactly as they do today. There’s no forced migration, no deprecation timeline, and no disruption to your existing setup.

The new templates are launching in beta alongside the current system. If what you have works, you can keep using it. But if you’re starting fresh (or looking to upgrade), the new system offers a much smoother path forward.

Try It Today

The new templating system is available now in beta within your CrowdHandler control panel.

Whether you’re aiming for pixel-perfect design control without heavy scripting, or cleaner, more maintainable logic without fighting the DOM, this update is built to make your life easier.

If you’re already using CrowdHandler, dive in and explore the new templates. If you’re new, now’s the perfect time to get started. You can sign up to Crowdhandler for free.