Booking Enquiries allow new or existing customers to request a room booking by completing a form on-line. It is particularly useful in conjunction with the public calendar, though this is not essential.
As some venues do not wish to take booking enquiries this way, and because there is some configuration you need to do when enabling booking enquiries, this feature is disabled by default. This article explains how to enable booking enquiries for your venue.
Please see the related article on managing booking enquiries.
How to enable booking enquiries #
There are three steps needed to enable booking enquiries:
- Preparation – preparing your terms and conditions and privacy policy
- Setting up MyHallWizard – enabling booking enquiries on MyHallWizard
- Pointing your customers to the booking enquiries form – either from the public calendar or using links or buttons
Preparation #
Before you enable booking enquiries, you need to prepare and publish terms and conditions for your bookings, and also a privacy policy.
Terms and Conditions #
Ensure you have a web page on your venue’s website with your terms and conditions, and make a note of its URL (web address).
If you have multiple documents that your customer needs to agree, your main terms and conditions page should reference each of the various documents. This is because MyHallWizard will need a single URL when you configure it.
If you don’t have a website, prepare a PDF document with the terms and conditions (you can do this with a word processor, then “Save as PDF” or “Print to PDF”). Upload to a file sharing site, such as Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud or Dropbox, and share the document with the public. You will need to make a note of the URL of the document when you share it.
Privacy Policy #
Ensure you have a web page on your venue’s website with your privacy policy on it. Once again, make a note of its URL, and once again, if you don’t have a website, use a file sharing service.
If you are unsure what to put in your Privacy Policy, you can find guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/make-your-own-privacy-notice/ together with a template Privacy Notice document. When completing the Privacy Notice, there are three things you need to know:
- On page 2, you need to state that you share data with HallWizard Limited, as we are your data processor.
- On page 3, you should state that information is securely stored in the Republic of Ireland.
- Our SaaS agreement with you does not currently have any clauses in it regarding data retention periods. For now, therefore, you will need to delete the paragraph which reads “We keep [type of personal information] for [time period]. We will then dispose your information by [explain how you will delete their data].”
MyHallWizard’s booking enquiry form does not use persistent cookies and does not generate any third party cookies, so there is no need to seek permission from the customer regarding cookies (though if the rest of your website uses them, you will need to seek permission when they visit your website).
Setting up MyHallWizard #
To go to the Calendar Settings, click on Settings in the navigation bar then click on Calendar Settings.
If you haven’t enabled a Public Calendar, we recommend doing so, though this is not essential.
Scroll right down to the bottom of the screen to the Booking Enquiries pane, and click on the switch which says “Enable booking requests”.
Complete the settings, as required, then click Save Changes.
Do you want to allow booking enquiries for rooms which are already booked? #
This settings determines if booking enquiries can be made when a room has already booked or has previously been requested by another customer. By default, it is set to “not allowed”, to prevent you receiving booking requests which you cannot fulfil.
Some venues, however, would like to receive booking enquiries even if their hall is already booked, because that way they can get in touch with the customer and see if there is some other way to accommodate them. For example, they may be able to agree an alternative date or time with the customer (many customers are quite flexible regarding dates and times, in our experience). Alternatively, it may be possible to persuade a customer with an existing booking to change rooms or even booking times. Change the setting to “allowed” if you would like to work this way.
Note that your booking administrators can enter bookings for any room which is not already booked, even if there is a pending booking enquiries for that room at that time. This setting does not impact that capability.
Do you want to make the customer address field mandatory on the Booking Enquiry form? #
By default the customer is required to enter an email address and a phone number on the booking enquiry form. There is an address field, but this is optional.
Some venues want to make the address field mandatory as well; to do so, change this setting to Mandatory.
Regardless of how you set this field, please remember that it is up to you to perform any due diligence on your customers such as checking that the contact information the customer gives you is correct and that the customer is genuine. We know of at least one case where a venue did not do this, the customer did not pay for the booking and they have been unable to track down the customer to seek payment.
How far in advance can a customer request a booking? #
Most venues do not want customers to request bookings too far in advance. By default this is set to 12 months, but you can change this limit up or down according to your requirements.
URL for Terms and Conditions, and URL for Privacy Policy #
Enter the URLs for your terms and conditions and for your privacy policy which you noted earlier. The complete URL must be entered, including http:// or https://. Both these fields are mandatory.
Instructions for the Booking Enquiry form #
The text you type in here will be displayed at the top of the Booking Enquiry form. It’s a good place to give guidance to the customer, and also to share about your venue’s policies regarding bookings. For example, if you don’t accept bookings for parties, you could say so here, even if you mention it on your website.
Guidance for the Other Information form #
At the bottom of the Booking Request form, there is a field to collect Other Information from the customer. If you have specific information you need to collect (for example, when there is no suitable field on the Booking Request form), you can change the guidance to request this information. The guidance is displayed underneath the field on the Booking Request form, as shown in the following picture:
Pointing your customers to the booking enquiry form #
Once you have enabled your booking request form and clicked Save Changes, you need to ensure your customers can find the booking form.
From your public calendar #
If you have your public calendar enabled, the customer can make a booking request by clicking the “Request Booking” button or clicking on the calendar in exactly the same way as you make bookings from the calendar.
Add links or “Book Now” buttons to your website #
The Calendar Settings screen will give you the URL of the booking enquiry form which you can use in links or buttons on your website. For example, in the following screenshot, we can see that the URL is http://hallwizard.test/venue-02/bookingrequests/create.
If you use a website builder, such as Wix, for your website, you can easily create a link or a button on the website and link it to this URL.
If you hand code your web pages, use code such as this to create a link (make sure to use the URL shown on your Calendar Settings screen, not the one in our example):
<a href="http://hallwizard.test/venue-02/bookingenquiries/create" target="_blank">Book Now</a>If you set up a link before April 2023, it is possible the URL you used referred to bookingrequests rather than bookingenquiries. This will still work correctly, even though it has been superceded.
Next steps #
You have now fully set up booking enquiries. Read our related article on managing booking enquiries.