Reservations

Reservations are made by staff members on behalf of users (they can also be made via the API). They allow places to be reserved for users, and confirmed/paid for at a later date. Reservations cannot be made by ordinary bookers.

If reservations aren't confirmed by a set time, they are cancelled. A series of reminder emails can also be sent.

Configuration

A single setting, enableReservations, in the Bookings Configuration, enables reservations.

Staff User Group

Because reservations can only be made by staff, Bookings needs a way to check that a user is a staff member. It does this using the same cashPaymentGroup configuration setting (because only staff members are allowed to take cash payments) which by default is named BOOKANDPAYCASHPAYMENT. Make sure your staff members are in this group, even if you haven't enabled cash payments.

Allow Reservations when Scheduling Events

Once enabled, a new reservations section appears when you are The Event Scheduling Form - Scheduling Event Occurrences. This lets you:

• Enable reservations for this event
• Pick the email templates that will be used for the confirmation and reminder messages
• Set how long before the event reservations must be confirmed

Making Reservations

Assisted Service
Make sure your staff members are assisting a user when they make a reservation. If they aren't, the reservation won't appear in the user's account when they log in - it will appear in the staff member's account instead. If the user doesn't have an account, the staff member still needs to use Assisted Service to log an "anonymous request"

When a staff member makes a booking for an event with reservations enabled, they'll see a new button on the booking form.

Select a number of tickets and enter the email address etc of the person the tickets are for. Press the "reserve" button to immediately reserve those tickets. A confirmation email is sent to the address that was entered.

Confirming and Paying for Reservations

Reservations will appear on the User Requests template (accessed via My Account) in the same way as regular bookings. They need to be confirmed/paid for before they expire (see below).

An email is also sent to the user the registration is for. The email template is picked when the event is scheduled.

The link in the email depends on whether the user has an account or not:

• If the booking was made for a user who didn't have an account at the time (an anonymous request) the URL uses the anonymousUpdateUrl in the Bookings configuration
• If the booking was made for a user who did have an account, the URL uses the userRequestsUrl in the Bookings configuration

The confirmation page lets the user complete their booking or cancel the reservation.

Pressing cancel immediately releases the reserved tickets and sends a confirmation email.

Pressing continue takes the user to the usual payment/confirmation screen described in The Booking Form.

Reminders

Up to three reminder emails can be sent about reservations that haven't been confirmed. The reminder times and email templates are picked when scheduling your event.

Reservation Expiry

In the scheduling form you have to enter a reservation cancellation time period. Any reservations not confirmed by this time before the start of the event are automatically cancelled.

Reservations cannot be made within the cancellation time period.

Comms Templates

Reservations use the following templates:

• Reservation cancellation - Sent when the reservation is cancelled by the user or the expiry task (so needs to cater for both)
• Reservation confirmation - Sent when a reservation is made
• Reservation reminder - Sent as part of the reminder schedule

All of the tokens described in Email and Message Template Configuration are available, plus:

• emailUpdateLink - A link to the confirmation page