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Accessing the Bookings Feature

Once room(s) have been created and the appropriate reservation rules and settings have been configured, the next step is to ensure your users/patrons can access the pages that allow them to view your rooms and submit their requests. 

Stacks has 2 pre-built pages that are associated with Bookings, using the path to either of these pages will direct users to this room booking information.

  • Availability page (path: /availability)
    • This page displays a grid view that lists all rooms and time blocks indicating room availability. Blocks in green indicate the room can be booked for that time, whereas, greyed-out blocks indicate the room is not available or has already been booked 
    • From here, users have the ability to select their booking times and can click the 'Book' button to access the request form (with their selected times already pre-populated)
  • Rooms List page (path: /rooms)
    • This page displays a list of all rooms added to Stacks
    • From here users can browse the list, or use the filter vocabulary values to filter larger room lists. Once a room has been found, they can click on the room's title to view a more detailed description of the room. From the detailed view, they can click the 'Request Booking' button to access the form for submitting a booking request

There are various methods could be used to direct people to either of these pages, these can include through menu links, header buttons, other Stacks features, or a footer link. No one method is necessarily the best, ultimately the best method is determined by how you want your users/patrons to find and navigate to content on your site.

This article will discuss the various methods that can be used to direct your users/patrons to the bookings pages, as well as the display settings that can be configured for the Rooms List page.

Menu Links

Stacks has 2 menu areas, the main menu and the top menu; either can be used to provide access to the Availability or Rooms List pages.

To add a menu link:

  1. From the Dashboard, click the Menus tile
  2. Click the List Links button to the right of either the Main Menu or Top Menu, depending on where you plan to add the link
  3. Click the +Add link button
    1. Menu link title, enter a title for the menu link, this is the value users/patrons will see in the menu
    2. Link, enter the path to the appropriate page, in this case either /availability or /rooms
      1. Note: as these are internal Stacks pages, the full URL is not required in the link field
    3. Enabled, ensure this box is checked to enable the link to appear in the menu
    4. Description, optional, enter a description for the menu link
    5. Show as expanded, when checked, this will expand the menu link to display child links that can be added under this 'Parent' link
    6. Language, if applicable, select the appropriate language
    7. Parent Link, select the appropriate option
      1. <Top menu>, select this option to display the link in the top menu
      2. <Main menu>, select this option to display the link in the main menu
      3. <--link name>, select from other menu links listed to embed this link as a child link under the selected 'Parent' link
    8. Weight, enter a numerical value to determine the order of appearance
      1. Alternatively, after saving, click and drag the 4-way arrow in the list link page to change the order of appearance
    9. Click Save to complete the creation of the menu link

Header Button

Call to Action (CTA) buttons are up to 4 customizable buttons that can be added to your header, these are often used for navigating to internal Stacks pages or external websites. Depending on your site's theme or selected header layout, these buttons typically appear either beside or just under the main search bar.

  1. From the Dashboard, click the System Configuration tile
  2. Click the Header tile, then the Header CTA Buttons option from the menu on the left
  3. Enable, check the box to enable the CTA button feature
  4. Header Button 1 through 4
    1. Title, enter the button name, this will be visible to the user/patron
    2. URL, enter the path or URL to the where the user/patron will be directed when the click the button, in this case either /availability or /rooms
  5. Click Save configuration when done

Other Stacks Features

Another method to direct users/patrons to your bookings pages is through another Stacks feature such as a Callout, Slider, or Custom Block as example. The advantage of using features like these in particular, are the image options that can be used as a way of drawing the attention to the content the user/patron may want to access.

As described in the other article sections above, the key to directing people to the bookings related pages is by using either the /availability or /rooms path in the appropriate link or URL field. 

For more information on creating or editing features such as Callouts, Sliders, Custom Blocks, etc.. please see the associated user guide articles for the desired feature type. 

Footer Link

The footer of your Stacks site allows for the addition of custom content and links that can be used for navigating throughout your site, including the room booking pages. 

  1. From the Dashboard, click the System Configuration tile
  2. Click the Footer tile, then click the Custom Link option from the menu on the left
  3. Custom Link Title, enter a name for the custom link section, this can be enabled to be displayed in the footer if desired
  4. Display Title, check this box to display the Custom Link title in the footer section
  5. Custom Link 1 through 4, click the title to expand the section
    1. Custom Link Title, then the name for the link, this will be visible to the user/patron
    2. URL, enter the full URL to your database listing page
      1. Important! Unlike other areas, this area does require the full URL (for example: https://yoursitename.com/rooms)
  6. Click Save configuration when done

Room List View Settings

As described above, when users or patrons do navigate to the Room List page, they will be presented with a list of the rooms you have added to your site. From here, clicking on any one room from the list will display a more detailed view of the room as well.

Various settings can be configured to control how this list should be organized and displayed, as well as what information should be included in both the list and detail views.  

  1. From the Dashboard, click the Bookings Management tile
  2. Click the Rooms tile, then click the Settings tab near the top of the screen
  3. Click the Listing View sub-tab
    1. Enable Listing View, when checked this enables access to the listing view for the content type
      1. If disabled, when a user attempts to load the URL for this content, they will be redirected to the homepage 
    2. Title, edit the title for the page if desired, the default value is Rooms
    3. Description, enter a description for the page if desired, this will be visible to users/patrons
    4. Display section
      1. Expand First Group by Default, check this box to expand the items, when they are grouped
      2. Display search form, check this box to display a search bar for rooms
      3. Display A-Z Link Index, check this box to display a link on the list view when "Group by None" is selected
      4. Enable Add to saved list button, check this box to enable a save to list button
    5. Defaults section
      1. Default Page Limit, select the number of rooms to be displayed before pagination is enforced
      2. Default Grouping, select the default value rooms should be grouped by
        1. Note: users/patrons can change this when viewing the list of rooms
      3. Default Sort Field, select the default value rooms should be sorted by
      4. Default Sort Order, select the default order in which rooms should be sorted
        1. Note: users/patrons can change this when viewing the list of rooms
    6. Field Visibility section
      1. Check the box beside each field that should be made visible to users/patrons when viewing the list of rooms
    7. Click Save configuration when finished
  4. Click the Details View sub-tab
    1. Field Visibility section
      1. Check the box beside each field that should be made visible to users/patrons when viewing the list of rooms
    2. Enable Add to saved list button, check this box to enable a save to list button
    3. Click Save configuration when finished
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