Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson you will know…

1. How to add a new event/function to a booking you have just created

2. What to do next after creating the function. Spoiler alert: products!

Creating an Event/Function in a Booking

Creating a booking takes a few steps. Now that you have created the booking, added the booking details, and the guest rooms [Knowledge Base article on how to create a new booking], you may need to add some events, such as a breakfast, meeting, dinner, etc. 

If you have already checked the function diary and the space is available, follow these steps to create an event in the booking you have created:

1. Find the booking and open it.  On the right side, click on the “Related’ tab, scroll to the ‘Events’ section and click on the ‘New’ button.

2. This opens up a window for you to create your new event.

3. Type in the name of the event (e.g. Gala Dinner). You can leave the ‘Expected Guests’ field blank, as it will automatically fill in the number of guests from the booking. 

4. The ‘Booking’ field will already show the booking name, because we are creating the event from the booking.

5. The ‘Hide on Offer’ checkbox is for you to check if you don’t want something to show on the contract. If you don’t see this ‘Hide on Offer’ checkbox on this page, your property doesn’t need to use this feature. [Example of this could be: a back-up space indoors that’s being blocked in case it rains. The client doesn’t need to know this.]
   

6. The ‘Complimentary’ checkbox denotes if you are not charging for this event. 

7. You can leave the start and end dates and times blank, as they will take on the property’s defined default event start and end date times.

8. Leaving the ‘Day Number’ field empty, will automatically add the event to the first day. If the event you are creating is not on the first day of the group’s stay, e.g. a Dinner is on the second night, you will enter 2 in the ‘Day Number’ field. If the dinner is on all four days of the event, create the first dinner, assign the function space, add any other details, Save it, and then copy the event to days 2 to 4 from the Clone tab on the booking.

9. To select the meeting/function room, place your cursor on the ‘meeting room’ field, and type the first 3 letters of the room name and the menu will show you the rooms that start with the 3 letters. Click on the one you would like to block.  [If you have a lot of rooms with the same first 3 letters, you can either keep typing the name or click on ‘show all results’ on the top of the list of names. This opens up another window and you can select the correct meeting room.]

Note: if the space you have chosen is already taken, you will get a warning that you are ‘overbooking’ the space, and do you wish to overbook yes/no. Depending on whether you have the permission to overbook or not, it will either let you block the function space anyway, or it will block you from blocking the space.  

10. Click on ‘Save’.

11. A new window comes up to show you the event you have just created.  You can check here if everything is there, but it should show you the information you have just entered.

12. To add products to an event, refer to the Knowledge Base article on How to Add Products to a Booking.

Best Practices for Creating an Event in a Booking

• There is no best practice on where to create events. You can create events from the group booking, but you can also create a new event from the ‘Function Diary’.

• Some users like to check the function diary first to check space availability, and then find the booking, and edit it (as in this lesson).  The more savvy catering team may prefer to book most of their events straight through the function diary.

• If the user is trying to book a function space that’s already blocked, and the user does not have the ‘overbooking’ permission, they will get a message saying this space is already booked, and won’t be able to proceed. 

• If the user is trying to book a space that’s already booked, and does have ‘overbooking’ permissions, a message will come up to confirm, whether they want to proceed. 

Resources

1. How to edit a booking - Knowledge Base article 

2. How to block a group from the account - Knowledge Base article

3. How to edit a booking - Knowledge Base article