Booking Agents for Designer Widgets v.3

As part of you winery subscription to eCellar you have access to Booking Agents within Reservations Manager (note: your winery must have migrated to Designer Widgets, legacy clients will be unable to utilize these capabilities).  Booking Agents are used on your website to invite customers to request experiences (e.g. tours and/or tastings) at your winery.

Customers can access their existing accounts or if they don't have one, create a new account to place a reservation request.  The experience requests can be automatically booked or requested and then be found on the corresponding tab of your Reservations Manager calendar.  An email notification is sent to the Reservations Manager contact within eCellar for each reservation request received. A confirmation email can automatically be sent to the customer confirming the receipt of their request.

How to use Booking Agent(s)

Location in ACP Menu: Res Mgr -> Booking Agents

Setting up a new Booking Agent:

To create a new Booking Agent, click   Add Booking Agent in the upper right hand corner (of Res Mgr -> Booking Agents), and select 'Add Booking Agent'. Please note that all fields marked with an asterisk are required.

1

Select Reservation Type

2

Select Location

3

Select Station   (Optional - Stations will be no longer be supported in future versions of Reservations Manager and should not be used for new Booking Agents as they have been replaced by Tables within Floor Plans) 

These three pull down menus are set in  Res Mgr - Calendar -> Settings for the Reservation Type and Station, and within the Company Locations settings.

Please note: These cannot be changed after initial creation) 

4

Enter Public Name (displays as the name of the Reservation Type on your website).

5

Notice Slug is auto-populated from initial Public Name entry.  This is used on your website to directly (deep) link to the Booking Agent.
IMPORTANT: If you change the slug AFTER it has been created, any website navigation or emails sent containing the old slug will no longer work.

6

Enter a number for Sort Order - this defines what order this experience will appear on your website.

7

Check all of the optional boxes that each booking requires:

Automate

Booked Reservation Status - Receive online reservations to the calendar in the 'Booked' status. Leaving this box unchecked results in online reservations being received in a 'Requested' status

Send Email Confirmation - Automatically sends an email to the customer either confirming their booking (if Booked Reservation Status has been checked) or confirming the receipt of their request.

Requires

Payment Method: This forces the customer to select an existing card on file, or enter a new card-on-file for later use if they don't have a card on file.

Email Address: Requires an email address for this customer for new accounts (or allows them to update their email if they already have an existing account).

Phone Number: Requires a phone number for this customer when booking

 

Ask Customer

If assistance will be needed: Creates a text box for the customer to input any onsite assistance they will require, for instance wheel-chair accessibility.

If there are dietary restrictions: Creates a text box for the customer to input any dietary restrictions they need to make the winery aware of when entering their reservation request.

8

Check Active box if this Booking Agent should display online.

9

(optional) Enter Begin / End Dates if you want this Booking Agent to show on your website during a specific date range. 

10

(optional) Select Blackout Dates: Very helpful if there are holidays or special event days at the winery and this Reservation Type is not available for public booking during those date(s),  e.g. Christmas, New Year's Day, etc...

11

Enter a number (x in hours) Book Ahead By: The value used prohibits a customer from booking x hours before the next available timeslot. 
For example, if  Book Ahead By is set to 1 and it's 11:29 AM currently, the 12 PM timeslot will not be available: the 1 PM will be the next available timeslot.  If  Book Ahead By is set it to 12, then it will look ahead 12+ hours to the next available timeslot (from the current time). If you want a "24 hour" advance limitation, enter 24. 

Reminder:  Book Ahead By x hours moves with the current time, not by day-based calculation!

12

Cancel Up to: Enter a number, the value used allows a customer to cancel their reservation up to the value hours before their reservation online.
For example, if the start time for their reservation is 10AM, and the value of Cancel Up to is 24 hours, the customer can cancel online up to 9:59AM the day before their reservation. At 10AM (or later) the customer will need to contact the winery directly to cancel their reservation. 

NOTE:  This moves with the current time, not by day-based calculation!

13

For Display Only

NOTE: These fields are displayed for the customer when booking online but do not effect your capacity. The Timeslots now determine if a given online booking is available.

14

(optional) Min Party Size: the minimum number of guests hosted by this experience.

15

Max Party Size: the maximum number of guests displayed online as hosted, however your actual capacity is dictated by the Floor Plan, number of Tables and corresponding seats.

16

Duration: This is how long this reservation type lasts in minutes.

17

Description: Enter the description of this experience to display on your website. HTML is ok to use here.

18

Floor Plans - A floor plan (or multiple floor plans) can be added by clicking the Add a Floor Plan link and selecting the floor plan from the pull down menu. Once chosen, a selected floor plan can be deleted using the trash can icon.
For Booking Agents that have multiple Floor Plans assigned, the order in which tables are assigned when Auto-Assign has been selected is sorted by the order listed. This can be changed by drag-and-drop with the 'Move Plan' button. Further information on Floor Plans is available here.

19

Limit Booking - Allows the Booking Agent to only be selected by chosen customer type(s) and / or a customer with a specific club subscription. Customer's who do not meet the selected criteria view a message online stating, "This experience is limited to specific customers. Please login and try again or contact the winery at 999-999-9999."  (The phone number displayed is the Phone Number entered under the Reservations Contact within the Company General Information.)
In the example shown below, only customers with the Customer Type eCellar Test (who have logged in) will be able to select the chosen experience from the public website.

20

Timeslots - Timeslots give the winery ability to control the availability of a given experience. A given experience can be offered at various times across various days. Users have the ability to control the size of parties allowed in a given timeslot, to control the overall number of parties hosted and to determine if a given timeslot is offered online (or only via the Calendar's New Booking feature). A given party will be auto assigned to a table and the days of the week for which a given timeslot is available unless the Auto Assign feature has been unchecked.

21

To create a new timeslot click the 'Add a New Timeslot' link, this will open the Add New Timeslot window as shown below:

The Add Timeslot feature allows you to customize the times an experience is offered, the size of party it is offered to, and the number of parties you wish to host simultaneously during the timeslot.  Use the Online check box to decide if the given timeslot is offered online via your website or not, and the Auto Assign check box to auto-assign a given reservation to a table.
The days of the week an experience is offered can be restricted by unchecking the given day of the week.
Click 'Continue' to save your new Timeslot and return to the Booking Agent or Cancel.

22

Existing Timeslots may be edited by clicking on the Timeslot under Time: 

Each timeslot is individually customizable. Times offered, number of parties, online availability, auto-assign feature and which days of the week offered are all editable fields.

23

Hit the [Save] button to save this Booking Agent