What is availability?

Availability is made up of 4 key components:

1. Session that it is applied to i.e. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, etc…
2. Schedule i.e. Weekdays, Week-ends or specific days of the week
3. Start & End Date: This allows you to define future schedules to automatically take effect once a prior schedule ends, or to override an existing availability on a specific day or range of days
4. Timeslots: The times at which you want to accept x number of guests or bookings at and the frequency between each time slot.

Creating New Availability

To create a new availability, from the main menu, click on Availability and then select Booking Availability. 

Then click on the +Availability button.

Example:

Steps:

• Select the Session that the availability will apply to i.e. Lunch
• Select the Schedule that the availability will apply to i.e. Daily
• Select a Start Date: and End Date: i.e 15/01/2021 - Note: if there is no end date, leave the End Date: blank.

• Click on Add timeslots + button
• Select the start time (the earliest a guest can make a reservation);
• Select the end time (the attest a table can be booked); Note: The start and end times must be contained within the Session Start: & End: times.
• Confirm if you wish the accept a number of guests or bookings in the Maximum No (per time slot) drop down menu and then enter the number you want to accept.
• Select the interval you want to have between each timeslot in Frequency (mins) – this can be 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes);
• Enter the Duration you want to allocate for each booking – by default, it is set to 90 minutes, but it can be any amount of time in multiples of 15 minutes. Note: This table allocation time is necessary to calculate availability for future time slots. It can be overridden if you use the Booking Length feature where you can further define how long a booking is allocated for, based on number of guests in the booking – available at session and day / date range level.
• Click on Add timeslots button.

Your timeslots have now been created. 

You can further edit each timeslot if required by:

• Deleting a timeslot if not required (click on the delete icon for that timeslot);
• Changing the duration for one or more timeslots.
• Changing the maximum number of guests / bookings for one or more time slots) Max. No. (Online) – this is the number of bookings you want to accept for online reservations only);
• Changing the maximum number of guests / bookings for one or more time slots) Max. No. (Total) – this is the total number of bookings you want to accept and includes telephone bookings, web bookings and walk-ins.

If you are happy with your availability, click on SAVE.

The availability is now shown on your availability screen

Editing Availability

You can change your availability at any time by clicking on the Edit button.

Deleting Availability

We do not recommend deleting availability as by default, it will be archived the day after it is set to expire (End Date:). Rather, it is better to create a new availability and set the old availability to the day before the new availability starts. This is to ensure that all current forward bookings are shown in your diary, even if the old availability is no longer applicable.

Copying Availability

If you want to replace an existing Availability with a new one, you can click on the copy button for that availability and then make the necessary edits. 

If the new availability replaces the old one, set the old availability to the day before the new availability starts.

If the new availability is to supersede an existing availability just for a session, date or date range, ensure that it appears above current availability (by clicking on the promote icon).

Availability Override

Note: There are 2 overrides available that allow you to accept more telephone bookings if the Max. No. (Total) has been reached:

• Visible all timeslots check box on add/edit tel booking – if set to YES, will allow the override by checking the View all time slots box.
• Show all timeslots by default on add/edit tel booking – if set to YES, will always display all timeslots, regardless of whether they are available or not.

Please not that the above 2 settings are restricted by the physical table space you have available if you are using the Table Management module.