Booking Enquiries allow new or existing customers to request a room booking by completing a form on-line. When they do so, your venue’s booking administrators need to review the booking enquiry and either confirm or decline it. It only becomes an actual booking if it is confirmed.

It is necessary to enable booking enquiries before they can be used.

What the customer sees #

The customer accesses the booking enquiry form either from your public calendar or via links on your website.

The top part of the booking enquiry form asks for their contact information, including name, email address, phone number and address. If they are booking for a group, they are also asked for the group name. All this information is mandatory.

The second part of the form asks about their requirements. It is based on the New Booking form in MyHallWizard, but asks for the information in a different order and providing a little more guidance. In particular, one field you will see here, but which you don’t see in the New Booking form, is what the purpose of the booking is. Additionally, the number of attendees is mandatory on this form.

The final part of the form allows them to confirm they have read and accept your terms and conditions and privacy policy. There is also a “recaptcha” control to help prevent spam from robots. The customer must tick both these boxes before submitting.

Once they have made a booking enquiry, a thank you screen is displayed, and an email is sent to the customer. They have the opportunity to make another booking enquiry; using this button will automatically complete the “About You” section of the booking enquiry form, saving the customer from entering the same information a second time.

Reviewing the booking request #

Notifications #

When the customer submits a booking request, an email is sent to all booking administrators for your venue (i.e. all users except “read only” users). This advises that a booking request has been received and summarises the key information. Additionally, there is a button on the email which you can click to review the booking request.

In addition to receiving the email, you will be able to see the booking enquiry on the MyHallWizard calendar. There is also a notification on the screen that you have received a booking request.

Note that the booking request is shown in white on the calendar, instead of the usual colour for bookings. This is so you can differentiate between a confirmed booking and a booking request. The rooms booked are shown in clear coloured circles in the Week, Month or List views.

Click on the booking enquiry to review it, or click the “Show Booking Enquiries” button on the notification message to get a list of all booking enquiries.

List of all booking requests #

If you click the “Show Booking Enquiries” button on the notification on the calendar, you will be taken to the main Booking Enquiries screen. This lists all pending booking enquiries. By default it is ordered in the same order as the requests were received. If you work on a first come, first served basis, you should review the booking enquiries in the order they are shown on the screen.

Click on a booking enquiry in the table to review it.

Reviewing the Booking Enquiry #

Reviewing a booking enquiry allows you to decide whether to confirm or decline the booking, and allows you to manage the Customer record and the Booking itself.

You access the Review Booking Enquiry screen either by clicking on the button in the email, by clicking on a Booking Enquiry in the calendar or in the Booking Enquiries screen.

Customer Information #

At the top of the Review Booking Enquiry screen, you can choose the Customer record to be used. To make this easier, MyHallWizard looks at the information entered by the user and attempts to match it with your existing Customer records.

The customer information is displayed in two columns. On the left is the Customer record you have chosen (or which MyHallWizard guessed) and on the right is the information entered by the Customer on the Booking Request form. When a Customer record is selected, the contact information from the Customer is shown to help you check you have selected the right customer. In the example showing below, it looks like we have a particularly good match.

Looking at the above example, we can see that our Customer record doesn’t have John Smith’s email address phone number on it. But it would be useful to capture that. Clicking the button will copy across any information which is missing, as well as updating anything which is different.

If the customer who made the booking request is a new customer, you can choose Create new customer in the Customer field.

Because more of the contact information was already completed, all the information you need is automatically set up. You have the option, however, to edit the customer name, select a customer category and change the default price list to be used.

Booking information #

The second part of the form creates the booking for you. The layout of this form is identical to the New Booking form you are familiar with. However, because the customer has already provided all the information in the Booking Request, it is already filled out for you. All you need to do is to check the information and make sure you are happy with it.

The Booking Name is set up based on the Customer you select and the Purpose of the booking entered by the customer. Check this out, to make sure you are happy with it.

By default, the booking created will be a Provisional Booking. This is because the Customer has not yet seen the price of their Booking Enquiry, and it gives them the opportunity to Confirm or Cancel the booking once they see the price that you are charging. The fact that they have to respond to an email also provides added security to you regarding their identity. However, if you prefer to create the booking as a Confirmed Booking, you may change the Status field accordingly.

The Rooms field states which rooms the customer requested. If those rooms are free, they will be automatically selected for you. It’s always a good idea to check this matches.

The price list and price calculation will be based on the default price list for the customer you selected. MyHallWizard does not give a price to the customer when they make a booking enquiry. You have the option now to change the price list, or to override the calculated price, in exactly the same way as making any other booking. The price will be communicated to the customer when you confirm the booking.

If the customer entered any other information with their booking enquiry, this will be shown in the Administration Notes. You should read this in case there is anything you need to know.

You can change any information on the form in the same way as you would for any other booking.

Create the booking #

Once you have selected the Customer record and you are happy that the booking can go ahead, you should click the Create Booking button. This will update the Customer record and change the Booking Enquiry to a Provisional or Confirmed Booking, depending how you set the Status field.

It will also prepare an email to be sent to the customer based on the Provisional Booking or Booking Confirmation email template. You can edit this email as necessary before sending it.

Declining the booking enquiry #

If you do not wish to accept the booking enquiry, click the red Decline Request button. This will prepare an email to be sent to the customer based on the Booking Enquiry Decline email template. We recommend that you should edit this email before sending it, to explain to the customer the reason why you are declining their request.

Handling spam #

From time to time you may receive spam or malicious booking requests. If this happens, please Decline the Request.

You may choose to Discard the email rather than sending it. Alternatively, change the To field to support@hallwizard.com and add a note to the email to advise us that you received the spam.