Overview
Using the DaySmart Online Booking feature, your customers can see available time slots designated for birthday parties, provide answers to questions needed ahead of time if necessary via a custom form, and book their time slot all in their Member app.
Setup
First thing that needs to be done is if your database has not used the Online Booking feature before, there is a switch in the Company Settings section that must be turned on. This is considered an "Add On" product so there is a fee associated to being able offer your parties to be booked online.
Next step, involves the Event Type that will be used for the Birthday Party. As of now, we can only use the default "Rental" type for all online bookings. This means if you are currently using this event type on the Admin side you may want to stop using it, so that way you will know on the calendar, that if you see a "Rental" event type it is actually an event that was booked online.There are some options on the event type that you may want to consider turning on:
Custom Form: If you want to prompt a form of questions to be filled out at the time of the booking, you can create a custom form and attach this to the event type. It would have to be a generic form that works for all birthday party types. Click here to learn more.
Has invoicing & is rentable: This toggle must be turned on in order for events to use the Booking Manager
Send email/sms reminders to customer(s): It is nice to be able to have your customers get automatic reminders for the events they book.
The next thing that will need to be created are the Birthday Party Package products. If you offer different types of birthday parties and need to track them, make sure you create a different product for each of these.
If you create an email template for your birthday party, you can attach it to the product so that when the customer checks out online, they automatically receive this email with any details you provide along with their receipt.
The biggest piece to all of this is to set up are your Booking Options for each of your birthday party packages you want to offer your customers to view and buy online. If you have not set any Booking options up before, be sure to check out our help page on how to do this first and then come back here to get tips specifically for a Birthday party setup. Here are some tips for birthday party specific booking option setup:
Create a different Booking option for each Birthday Party Package you want to offer to your customer. Examples are Inflatable only, Inflatable and field combo, or Field only.
The booking Options page is for all locations. If you offer the same Party package but at a different price or different time slots depending on location, it is best to create a different booking option and denote the location in parenthesis.
If you offer overlapping party slots or at the same time, create 2 different booking options. For example, I may offer 3 blocks of an Inflatable birthday party that begin at 11:15 with a 45 min buffer in between and a second booking option that starts later and has a staggered time from the first one.
For each booking option that is created, we will also create a new Resource later to connect them
Resource Types are important in this process because we can cluster similar types of resources into groups. These groups are what customers will pick from online to view the different packages available. So if you have 3 different options for an Inflatable type of party, create an Inflatable resource type, assign one of the booking options (packages that includes the inflatables) to that resource type. Understand that there are other booking options that also need to be considered for inflatables, but we will go over that when creating the Resources in our next step.
Each of the Booking Packages/Booking Options created needs to have its own Resource. Therefore when a customer books online, it will appear in the Admin calendar in its designated resource. If you have shared Resources such as fields or ice where you need to consider Blocking Rules. Make sure to set these up ahead of time with these new resources you are creating since essentially the party will be taking place on different surfaces than what the calendar is displaying. Some may put up Birthday blockers on the real resources. Here are what you need to set for your new resources:
Each Resource name, should match a package/booking option you created. If you offer more than one Inflatable booking option to your customer, than you need a resource for each one since they could overlap.
Type: Here is where you need to enter which Resource Group Type it falls under.
Booking Option: Select the Booking option this resource should use.
DaySmart Recreation Member App Settings: This piece is CRUCIAL for the online party booking to appear. An employee/user account must be added. This person will receive an email anytime a booking has occurred so they can follow up with the customer. You can create a new User in the system that is an alias group so that it is not just one person responsible for every birthday party booked.
Here is an example of an email a staff member will receive when a customer has booked online.
Amenities: On the Member App, when the customer is looking for birthday party slots, there is a filter to view amenities associated to the resource/party. This is not something that is required to add.
Other Tips or Notes to Consider
At this time, Membership discount pricing on the birthday products do not play well with the online booking feature when a change needs to occur on the Admin side. The initial transaction with the customer online is fine but if there are any changes that need to occur on the booking on the Admin side, than the membership pricing is removed and the customer is charged full price. This is a known issue and will get fixed in future iterations of the software.
Online booking can only use the “Rental” event type (it does not function with custom event types). With that, the following will come into play:
If you already have some online booking options set up - note that parties/field rentals/booking contracts will all use the same event type.
If you want to use a custom form on the online booking option, the custom form will populate for ALL online rentals (regardless of whether they are a field rental or a birthday party).
If custom forms are attached to the event, they can be edited as you gather more details from the customer or if changes to the party occur.
If needing to create a bday party on the Admin side, the "Rental" event type will only allow you to book time on the resources at the scheduled time you have set in the booking options. If you want to book outside of those times, you will need to create rental outside of the booking manager.
Each bookable area or party type will need to be its own resource - not a sub resource (ex: Gold party package, Silver party package or Inflatable party, field party, etc).
Video tips demo
Here is a video that goes over the topics discussed above.
How it Looks
To see how the customer uses the Member App to book the birthday party, check out this help article here.