Webinar: Calendar Structure & Conflict Checking
In this 25-minute webinar, we explore how to organize your calendar tree and how to book your events to best reflect how the event is using the spaces in your venue. We will also discuss how your calendar structure informs the EB Conflict Checker so that you are alerted of potential double bookings at the appropriate time.
One of the most valuable features of EventBooking is conflict checking. When you add an event, EB will check your calendar for other events at that time in that space and make sure that you do not double-book or grant holds out of order.
For more information about event statuses and how they affect conflict checking, please see the article All About Status.
When we set up your account, we will arrange your calendars in a way that reflects how the space can be booked in your building. Using parent and child calendars, we will be able to let the conflict checker know that if space A is booked, then space B cannot be booked. Let's look at some examples of how this works.
Example: Convention Center
In this venue the Convention Center calendar is the parent and has four child calendars: Ballroom, Boardrooms, Function Rooms, and Exhibit Halls. Each child calendar also has its own child calendars.
If you are renting the entire Ballroom, you are able to select the parent Ballroom calendar. This will grey out the child Ballroom A, B, C and D and they cannot be booked for another event. For this example, it also allows you to know that the entire space will be used for one event (no air walls in use).
If you are only renting one part of the Ballroom, you would select only the parts of the Ballroom you need. In the picture below, I'm renting only Ballroom A and B. Ballroom C and D are able to be booked.
Because Ballroom A and B are child calendars, the conflict checker will understand that they are part of the Ballroom and will not allow you to book an event at the same time in the parent Ballroom calendar.
Example: Arena
In this example, our venue is an arena with several child calendars, including an Arena Floor calendar. By arranging the calendar structure in this way, you are able to book the entire arena for your major events:
The conflict checker will not allow additional events to be booked in the Parking Lots, Restaurant, or other child calendars.
If you have a practice or other event in the arena that does not preclude use of the child calendar spaces, you would book it on the Arena Floor calendar:
If there is an event on the Arena Floor calendar, the top level Arena calendar cannot be booked at the same time. EB understands that those two spaces overlap and that there cannot be two different events occurring simultaneously.
Why not just select all the calendars individually? Because you may or may not actually be using those spaces -- they just cannot be used for anything else during that time. For example, your major arena event probably isn't using the Restaurant, but the Restaurant should not be booked for a private event during your arena event. By booking on the parent calendar, you are preventing use of contiguous spaces for conflicting events.