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Creating Rooms and Configuring Booking Rules

One of the first steps in setting up the Room Bookings feature is to create the rooms that your patrons/users will be able to book; as well as, configuring the rules for submitting bookings, this article will look at both topics. 

Users with the Booking Manager, Program Manager, Moderator, or Administrator role will all be able to create and edit the rooms which your users and/or patrons can make requests for. 

Considerations

Site Labels and Filter Vocabularies

Before creating new rooms consider how your users/patrons will be interacting with this information. Site labels can be updated to ensure field names and other terminology matches what your users/patrons expect to see. Rooms can also be filtered/grouped using the Type and Category filter vocabulary fields, consider creating or editing these list values before creating new rooms.  

Filter vocabularies and site labels are discussed in more detail in the Considerations for Creating Content article, but it should be noted that administrators can quickly access the filter vocabularies and site labels specific to just the rooms, from the tabs at the top of the bookings management > rooms dashboard.

Note: only moderators and administrators have access to update the site labels and filter vocabularies.

Easy Forms

Stacks already provides a basic form that is used by your users/patrons to submit room bookings; however, if you have a need to capture more information above and beyond what the default form asks, you can add a custom-built EasyForm to the booking process for individual rooms.

Consider what additional information you may require and build the form to include with your room bookings. Form more information on how to create a form, please see the article Creating Easy Forms.

Creating Rooms

  1. From the Dashboard, click the Bookings Management tile
  2. Click the Rooms tile
  3. Click + Add Room
    1. Title - enter a title (name) for the room
      1. This is how patrons will identify the room they wish to book
    2. Body - enter any applicable information related to the room, for example, this could include amenities or equipment in the room that can be used
    3. Bookable - check this box to make the room bookable by patrons
      1. Note: this box must be checked to make the room a bookable entity
    4. Joined Room - check this box if the room is attached to another room which could potentially be booked at the same time, the room will then be listed in a drop-down list with all other joined rooms for patrons to select from
      1. Note, the other room must also have the Joined Room box checked as well
    5. Location - select the location of the room
      1. Note: the values that can be selected here come from the Locations and Hours
    6. Occupancy - enter the maximum occupancy for the room
    7. Room Category - select the most appropriate value
      1. Reminder, this is a filter vocabulary field as described in the Considerations section of this article  
    8. Room Type - select the most appropriate value
      1. Reminder, this is a filter vocabulary field as described in the Considerations section of this article  
    9. Easy Form - select the appropriate form from the list, users/patrons completing a room booking will be prompted to also complete this form when submitting their request
      1. Note: the Bookable box must be checked in order for this field to appear
    10. Easy Form Settings, click the drop-down to expand the section
      1. Status, select the most appropriate option
        1. Open, the form is open and submissions can be made
        2. Closed, the form is closed and submissions cannot be made
        3. Scheduled, the form is open for submissions during a specified time
    11. Open Hours, click the drop-down to expand the section
      1. Click Set Open Hours, then enter the room's open hours for each day in the From and To fields
        1. Note, if left blank, open hours will default to the hours for location
      2. Comment - use this field to add any relevant information, this could include typing 'Closed' if there were a day the room would not be bookable (on a consistent basis, for exceptions, see below)
      3. Click Add Time Slot to add multiple times during the day, a second set of From and To fields will appear below, repeat as needed
        1. For example, use this if the room is available from 8am - 11am, then again from 1pm - 3pm
      4. Click Copy last day or Copy previous day to save time in configuring open hours if they are the same for multiple days
    12. Exceptions - exceptions can be added to account for abnormal hours or temporary closures which are exceptions to the open hours above. This could be for holidays, special events ,etc.
      1. Click Add Exception
        1. Date - enter the date for the exception
        2. From and To - enter the from and to time to indicate the alternate hours
        3. Comment - use this field to add any relevant information, this could include typing 'Closed' if there were a day the room would not be bookable
        4. Click Add Time Slot to add multiple times during the day, a second set of From and To fields will appear below, repeat as needed
          1. For example, use this if the room is available from 8am - 11am, then again from 1pm - 3pm
        5. Click Copy last day or Copy previous day to save time in configuring open hours if they are the same for multiple days
    13. Update the Publishing Workflow as needed
    14. Click Save to save the room configuration

Configuring Booking Settings

You have complete control to manage how your users/patrons can make room bookings. This includes identifying the minimum and maximum bookings times, how far in advance bookings can be made, what fields are required on the booking request form, as well as creating custom emails to notify users/patrons of the status of their booking requests.

  1. From the Dashboard, click the Bookings Management tile
  2. Click Booking Settings tile
  3. Reservation rules
    1. Minimum Duration - enter the minimum duration a room can be booked for
      1. Note: if 30min or 1hr is selected, the availability grid view will show 30min time slots for both options
        1. This allows for bookings from 1:30pm - 2:30pm as example
    2. Maximum Duration - select the maximum length a room can be booked for
    3. Maximum Days in Advance - select how many days in advance a room may be booked
  4. Advanced configuration
    1. Show advanced Room Booking fields - when checked, all fields from the Required fields section (listed a little further below on the page) will show on the booking request form
      1. If left unchecked, then only the fields marked as required will appear on the booking request form
    2. Allow All Day Booking - when checked, this will override the maximum duration and allow room(s) to be booked for the day
    3. Allow anonymous bookings - when checked, this will allow anonymous (or non-logged in users/patrons) the ability to request room bookings
      1. Note: changes or cancellations to room bookings from anonymous users must be done by administrators or booking managers, as anonymous users will not have access to manage their own bookings
      2. By default, a Captcha will be added to the submit a booking form to help reduce spam submissions. The challenge question will be based on the default Captcha setting
  5. Required fields
    1. Check the box beside each field you wish to make required for entry on the booking request form
  6. Email Notifications
    1. Send Email Notifications?, check this box to enable email notifications during registration or event updates
      1. Booking Requested
        1. Booking Requested, check this box to enable this email notification
          1. Create a custom notification 
            1. Subject, enter a subject for the email
            2. Body, enter the body of the email
            3. Click Browse available tokens to select tokens to include in the subject or body
      2. Booking Approved
        1. Booking Approved, check this box to enable this email notification
          1. Create a custom notification 
            1. Subject, enter a subject for the email
            2. Body, enter the body of the email
            3. Click Browse available tokens to select tokens to include in the subject or body
      3. Booking Denied
        1. Booking Denied, check this box to enable this email notification
          1. Create a custom notification 
            1. Subject, enter a subject for the email
            2. Body, enter the body of the email
            3. Click Browse available tokens to select tokens to include in the subject or body
  7. Click Save Configuration to save these settings
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