Administration

This area allows administration and assist users to manage the system.

When logged in, the administration link is displayed either in the header (then only on the portal page) or in the footer (then always).

The administration area consists of the following pages.

Overview

Displays a high level overview of the next 4 weeks and its bookings. The date range to display can also be changed.

Rooms

These pages allow to create, edit and delete the rooms of your facility.

Each room must have a unique number or identifier. Usually this is the same as the actual room number in the building.

Additional attributes include

• Number of persons intended for this room
• Status (the room can be temporarily deactivated)
• Name of the room (if it has one)
• Info line (very short text line that may be displayed under the room number or name)
• Description (extensive description or advertisement of this room; may include images, documents and other files as well)
• One or more pictures (the first picture will be displayed in the room list; any picture may be selected as first one)

Products

A product can be an actual product or a service you offer to your clients in addition to bare night bookings.

On this page, you only define which products or services you generally offer, with name and optional description. You can later assemble bundles with different product pricings for different bundles.

For example: You define and describe a product "tickets for swimming bath" which you can then offer in two different "winter" and "summer" bundles for different pricings.

Bundles

A bundle is a package of pricing rules for nights, products and services. It basically defines what clients can choose and how much it costs.

You can have many different bundles, even for the same period of time and room. If there are multiple bundles available, the guest can choose one. However, if there are no bundles for a room, it cannot be booked and does not appear as available.

For example: You define a basic bundle with some basic pricings for nights and some default products to choose from. This bundle is always available, thus you set no start and end time for it. You may set the priority to something low to ensure it is always the last bundle displayed.

Now it's summer and you create a "summer" bundle, with some special products and rather low (or high?) pricings for nights. This bundle has start and end time set, so it is only available for a limited amount of time.

When dealing with bundles (which you must) there is an important concept to understand: The separation between the bundle's attributes and its components. Let's make that clear.

The bundle itself has the following attributes (visible when creating or editing):

• Name (which your guests do also see)
• Room this bundle should be available for
• Code; when provided, this bundle is not available unless the guests type this code into the coupon code field
• Start and end date between this bundle should be available
• Priority number to control the order of bundles

These attributes do only define the bundle itself, not how it is assembled.

The components define how much nights cost, which products are available and how much they cost. This is designed as a list of rules. Each rule defines the pricing for one specific amount of nights or one specific amount of product units.

The minimum and maximum amount of units for a product determines also what the user can select during booking. For example, if both are 1, the user has no choice and it will always bill 1 unit. Additionally, if the price is 0 (zero), the system will display "inclusive" for this product.

This system allows you to manage difficult and complex scenarios. For example, you can add one product rule with exactly (min/max) one unit for free, and add another product rule with 0-10 for additional, charged units.

You can also use this system for yes/no options by setting minimum to 0 and maximum to 1.

The bundle system may seem overwhelming complicated at first, but it really is not. Once you understand the concept, you will have a very powerful and versatile tool at your hands.

Bookings

A booking is a reservation of a room for a specific amount of time. Details like products and pricing can be set by one or more related bills.

The important concept to understand here is the separation of

• Booking
• Bill
• User

Each ones are rather independend records of data and can be individually displayed and edited. However, they are usually "connected". A booking has usually a bill and a user connected.

This logical separation is the reason why you check and edit the booking's bill data or the user's personal information on separate windows. However, the booking displays preview boxes with the most important data when editing.

Bills

A bill is a package of night bills and product bills. It is usually related to bookings. It basically defines what clients have choosen and how much it costs.

A bill actually mirrors the function and structure of a bundle. Thus if you have understood the bundle system, you will also understand the bills, since they work the same way.

A bill and its components contain the actual night and product choices the user made during the booking process.

Users

User is a collective term for people interacting with your system. This includes you, your staff, your one-time guests and your registered regular guests.

Export

Export your booking data to your favourite spreadsheet application (e.g. Microsoft Excel).

Config

The configuration page allows you to customize the behaviour and data of your system.

You can switch the language (using the flags in the upper right corner) in order to provide language-dependent configuration for names and text.

Under "related pages" you also find options to edit the info and help page, define rules and conditions that need to be accepted prior to completing the booking process by your guests, and the text for the automatically generated confirmation emails.

The configuration items are generally self-explanatory and/or provide additional help notes.