Availability calendar update makes scheduling easier

Now you can use the availability calendar to view hourly reservations and fixed-schedule reservations. The calendar has also been updated to include more date ranges (month, 14-days, week and day) and you can easily navigate the calendar using the scroll-bar at the bottom .

With the calendar update it’s easy to view availability and make corrections if necessary. Say for example that a unit becomes unavailable due to maintenance. To mark it as unavailable in the system, simply go to the availability calendar and click the link Mark unit as unavailable. This will take you to a form where you can select the unit and select the time period for which the unit is unavailable. You can even enter a description for the unavailable entry so it’s easy to see why it’s unavailable.

Click on the thumbnail to view full screenshot. 

When units are unavailable, they are marked with a gray box in the availability so they can easily be distinguished from other reservations. If you need to change an unavailability entry, simply click on it in the calendar and change the timeframe as needed. To remove an unavailable entry, open the entry by clicking on it in the availability calendar and click the button named delete this entry.

Keep better control of your availability

The first WebReserv.com update for 2008 has arrived and with it a powerful new availability calendar. The new availability calendar provides extends the old availability calendar with a fresh new colorful calendar that shows you availability, reservations and inventory status in a flash.

To experience the new availability calendar, simply go to Frontdesk -> Availability calendar or click here: http://www.webreserv.com/availability.do

From the availability calendar, you can click on each reservation or OOI (Out-Of-Inventory) item to get more information. To mark a unit as unavailable simply click on the link below the calendar.

Fixing booking widget icons

Depending on your customer settings and reservation rules, you may experience that the date icon doesn’t align with the rest of the fields on the reservation widget as shown in the screen shot below.

The icons are pushed down below the date fields because the width of the reservation widget is too small. Fortunately, it’s very easy to correct and get the date icons aligned.

To correct it, open the HTML file for your website and look for the width of the reservation widget (IFRAME).

Change the width to be about 100-150 greater than the existing width. In most cases a new width of about 600 will be sufficient to get the icons aligned. After changing the HTML files, save it and test it to make sure that the date icons are shown correctly as shown below.

For more tips on the reservation widget, check out the Resource Center at http://www.webreserv.com/resourcecenter.do

How to filter products in the availability calendar

By adding a few parameters to the availability calendar, you can control exactly what products are being included in the list. You can also control what product should be the default product in the list.

Here’s an example of a regular availability calendar URL:

http://www.webreserv.com/book?hostcode=DCSA

Adding a product filter

To filter the products in the product list, add “productfilter=[productid]“. You can include multiple productid’s, separated by comma.

Example

This availability calendar shows only the standard single:

http://www.webreserv.com/book?hostcode=DCSA&productfilter=5

And here we show the standard single and standard double:

http://www.webreserv.com/book?hostcode=DCSA&productfilter=5,6

Making a product default

To make a specific product the default, include the parameter “ptid=[productid]“.  In the URL below, we include all products, but default to the suite (productid 7):

http://www.webreserv.com/book?hostcode=DCSA&ptid=7

See also http://www.webreserv.com/articles/20060901 for more tips on the reservation widget / availability calendar

Adding the availability calendar to your website

The reservation widget / availability calendar is a cool utility from WebReserv.com. It can be added to one or more existing websites and provides all the reservation functionality needed to make a website interesting for the consumer. The reservation widget provides the following features:  availability calendar, customer information, credit card information.

The reservation widget can be embedded within your site or it can be opened as a pop-up window. In most cases, you’ll want to embed it in your site as it looks awesome with the availability calendar right there on your website.  It is easy to customize the reservation widget to have the same look as your own website (colors, fonts etc). Whether you embed the widget or open it as a popup-window will give you the same functionality.

How to embed the availability calendar

When you embed the reservation widget / availability calendar on your website, you can make it blend completely with your website layout and many customers prefer this option for that reason. In the screenshot (and example link) we made Casa Deco’s booking component use the same colors as the website, and the result is impressive.  Click here to see it:

http://www.webreserv.com/casadeco/reservation.html.

How to pop-up the availability calendar

The pop-up version widget can be added to any website with just one line of HTML code. With the pop-up approach, you’ll get a booking button on your website, and a booking window will open when a customer clicks the booking button.
This is what the pop-up widget looks like:

http://www.webreserv.com/casadeco/reservation-popup.html.

Note: You can copy the HTML code from WebReserv.com and paste it onto your website. To get the HTML code specifically for your business, log on to WebReserv.com and select Web Components from the main menu. Click here to see it:

 http://www.webreserv.com/casadeco/reservation.html.

Adding the booking component as an embedded component requires a few more lines of HTML code and possibly a little bit of tuning to get the colors right. To get the HTML code specifically for your business, log on to WebReserv.com and select Web Components from the main menu.