New this October: repeat bookings that follow the school year, and more
Edited 6 October to add a section on Extras for Particular Rooms
Repeat bookings can now follow the school year. They can run on more than one day of the week, and skip school holidays or public holidays. Alongside that, extras can be booked in quantities, you can put your rooms and extras in your own order, and your iCal feeds can leave out cancelled bookings. Here's what's new.
Repeat bookings on more than one day a week
A group that meets on Mondays and Wednesdays used to need two repeat bookings. Now it needs one. Choose Weekly, then tick each day the group meets. The booking date's day is always included.
The old Weekdays option is now simply a weekly repeat with Monday to Friday ticked, and your existing weekday bookings carry on unchanged. Booking enquiries can ask for more than one day too.
Term time, school holidays and public holidays (beta)
Toddler groups often stop for the school holidays, and holiday clubs run only in them. A repeat booking can now be set for term time only or school holidays only, and can exclude public holidays. Enter your local school term dates once, with their half terms, and MyHallWizard works out the holidays between them.
Shown on your calendar. School holidays and public holidays are shaded, and named alongside your bookings.
Easy to adjust. If a group stops a week earlier than the schools, add or remove that one date on the repeat booking's page.
Kept up to date. If term dates change, the affected repeat bookings are flagged, and you choose whether to update each one.
For enquiries too. People making a booking enquiry can ask for term time only, or to skip public holidays.
You can also add calendar notes, such as "Small Hall closed for redecoration", and choose whether visitors to your public calendar see them.
These options are disabled by default, and need to be turned on. If you're the venue owner or a Venue Administrator, go to Settings > School Terms, Holidays & Notes, turn on the options you want, and enter your dates. Read the full guide.
Note: this feature is in Beta initially. If you experience any issues or you have feedback, please let us know.
Quantities for extras
An extra can now be booked in a quantity, such as 20 chairs or 3 tables, with the price charged for each one. Turn quantities on for an extra in Settings > Extras.
You can set a maximum in two ways:
For each booking, for example no more than 4 urns per booking.
For all bookings at the same time, for things you own a set number of. If you have 2 projectors, no more than 2 can be booked at any one time, and MyHallWizard tells you when there aren't enough left.
Extras for particular rooms
Sometimes, an extra can only be booked if the customer books a specific room or rooms. For example, you might have stage lighting installed in your Main Hall. In this case, it does not make any sense to book stage lighting if the customer is booking one of your side rooms but not your Main Hall.
Settings > Extras now gives you the ability to restrict extras to specific rooms.
Rooms and extras in your own order
Put your main hall first and the meeting room last. In Settings > Rooms and Settings > Extras, drag the rows into the order you want. That order is used on your calendar, your booking forms and your booking enquiry form.
Cancelled bookings gone from Google, Outlook and Apple calendars
If you share your bookings with Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook or Apple Calendar through an iCal feed, a cancelled booking used to stay on them. Each iCal feed now has a setting for cancelled bookings. Choose Remove them from the feed, and they disappear from those calendars.
Find it in Settings > Integrations > iCal, by editing your feed.
Try them now
All of these are available in MyHallWizard today. For school terms and public holidays, start with our guide to school terms, public holidays and calendar notes [knowledge base link]. As always, if you have any questions or ideas, get in touch — many of these features started as suggestions from venues like yours.