Manage Booking Portals

The Elite Booking Portal is a separate site which allows customers to search, book, and pay for rooms for their event. 

Most venues will have one Booking Portal site with one or more groups assigned to it. Groups are used to control the access of the user to specific rooms and pricing (through a price schedule) as well as event status, event length, and other settings. Users booking events via the Booking Portal are assigned to groups, either automatically as they create their account on the portal or manually in Elite. You can also create a separate group for internal users with the appropriate spaces and zero value pricing. 

If you have multiple venues or need to have other sites with different branding, you may create multiple portals based on the terms of your contract.

The Booking Portal is an add-on and must be enabled by our support team. If you are interested, please contact your Account Manager. You will not be able to follow the instructions below until it is enabled.

Before you can complete configuration the booking portal, pre-requisite setup must be done: 

• Create a booking portal Price Schedule. You can set up as many price schedules as you need based on the groups and spaces which will be booked.
  Note that stock alerts are not supported in the Booking Portal at this time.
• If you would like events booked in the Booking Portal to have a particular event type, create that type. Event Types are set at the group level.
• Create an invoice template; this is the document sent to the users as a receipt. This is set at the group level, so you are able to use a different template for each group. Your consultant will work with you to create this template.
• If you would like users to receive a confirmation email, create an email template which is a Booking Portal type. See Manage Email Templates for more information.
• A payment gateway must be added to your Elite account if you are charging for rooms. This won't be necessary if you are not adding rates to your spaces. This is not required to configure the Booking Portal, but must be set up before the site can go live. See Set Up a Payment Gateway for more information.

To configure a Booking Portal you will:

1. Create Booking Portal Price Schedules
2. Create Groups
3. Create and Configure the Site
4. Share the Site

Navigate to the Booking Portal Settings

1. Click your name in the upper left corner and select System Admin to access the Admin console.
2. Click Booking Portal in the left sidebar.

Create Booking Portal Price Schedules

The price schedule assigned to each group will control which rooms and items the group of users sees, as well as the rate they are charged. Each room can only have one room rate. Be sure to select the Booking Portal type on the price schedule.

• Step-by-step instructions to create a price schedule are available in Create a Price Schedule.
• Instructions to add rental rates are available in Manage Rental Rates. Note that booking portal rental rates can only use per day and per hour units.
• Since booking portal price schedules can only have one room rate, we do not recommend that you copy existing price schedules to create these. If you do, be sure to check that you only have one rate per room!
• Price schedules assigned to default groups cannot be inactivated. They also cannot have their type changed (such as changing the type from Booking Portal to Exhibitor). A different price schedule must be assigned to the default group first.
• Instructions to add inventory items are available in Add and Edit Pricing for Inventory Items and Packages. Packages are not supported in the Booking Portal and should not be added to the Price Schedule. 

Create Groups

Groups are used to segment users by the rooms they can book, the price they should pay, what status they can book to, and other settings. Groups can be assigned to a site when the group is created or edited, or active groups can be selected when you configure the site. If you allow users to create an account on the Booking Portal, a default group will be assigned (this is selected in the site configuration).

• A group can only be assigned to one site. Multiple groups can be assigned to each site. 
• If a group is the default group on a site, it cannot be inactivated. To inactivate the group, choose a different default group on the site.
• If a group is the last available group on an active site, it cannot be inactivated.

To create a group:

1. On the System Admin > Booking Portal page, click Groups.
2. Click the + to open the Create Group slider.
   1. In the Name field, add the name of the Group. 
   2. In the Description field, add a description of the Group. This is internal information. 
   3. In the Site field, use the dropdown to select the site the group will belong to. This can be done later on the site configuration. 
   4. In the Price Schedule field, use the dropdown to select the Price Schedule you have configured for this group.
   5. In the Invoice Template, use the dropdown to select the Invoice Template to be used for this group.
   6. In the Event Type field, use the dropdown to select the Event Type. You can only have one Event Type selected. 
   7. Click Save. This closes the slider, leaving you on the Groups list page, where you can see the Group card on the right. 
3. If this group's events should be marked as Internal, you can re-open the General Settings and check the Create Internal Events box. This will mark the events as Internal when the event is created.
4. Select the Room Settings tab.
   1. Click the edit pencil to open the Edit Room Settings slider.
   2. In the Booking Capability field, select the highest event status these users can book. If you select Tentative, they will only be able to book tentative events and their events will be created with the appropriate hold rank. If you select Definite, events will only be booked definite if there are no holds at the time of booking.
   3. Add the Open Time and Close Time to indicate the times the rooms are available to be booked. 
   4. In the Booking Lead Time fields, add the minimum length of time you want between when the space is booked and the event start.
   5. In the Minimum Booking Duration field, enter the shortest event length these users are able to book.
   6. In the Maximum Booking Duration field, enter the longest event length these users are able to book.
   7. Click Save.
5. If you want to send email confirmations of the event, select the Email Settings tab. 
   1. Click the edit pencil to open the Edit Email Settings slider.
   2. Toggle Send Emails on. 
   3. In the Create Event Email Template field, select the email template you want to send to this group. 
   4. Click Save.

Create and Configure a Site

You are now ready to create and configure your booking portal site!

To create the site:

1. On System Admin > Booking Portal page, click the Sites tab.
2. Click the + to open the Create a Site slider.
3. In the Name field, add the name of the site. This is internal information and will not be seen on the Booking Portal.
4. Add the URL Specifier. 
   • The URL Specifier is unique text added to the booking portal site link that will distinguish it from other booking portal sites you may have.
   • Special characters and spaces cannot be used in URL specifiers.
5. Add a description of the site. This is internal information only.
6. Click Save.

Now that the site is created, you can continue with the site configuration.

1. On System Admin > Booking Portal page, click the Sites tab.
2. In the Sites card, select the site to edit. The site's settings will load in the card to the right.
3. Select the Groups tab. Confirm that the correct groups have been added to the site. To add additional groups:
   1. Click the + to open the Add Group slider. 
   2. Select a group from the dropdown.
   3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to add multiple groups.
      Groups cannot be removed from a site. If a group should not be on a site, inactivate it.
4. Select the Access Settings tab. 
   1. Click the edit pencil to open the Edit Access Settings slider.
   2. If you want to allow new users to create an account on the site, select the checkbox on Allow Account Creation. 
   3. In the Default Group field, choose the group you want new users to be added to.
   4. Click Save.
5. Select the Regional Settings tab. This information is taken from your Elite System Admin information and cannot be edited at this time.  
6. Select the Branding tab. This is where you will be able to update the headings, images and colors on the portal. To see where each branding item appears on the booking portal, see Booking Portal Site Branding Guidelines.
   1. Click the edit pencil to open the Edit Branding slider. 
   2. Customize the colors and text and add images.
   3. Click Save.
      Room images are added to each room. See Edit a Room for more information.

Share the Site

Before sharing your site, be sure to:

• Activate all Groups.
  • In order to activate the site, it must have at least one active group.
• Activate the Site.
• Confirm that a payment gateway has been added to your Elite account.
• If you are not allowing users to create their own accounts, create booking portal user accounts for users in Elite. This is done on the contacts details page. See Create a Contact's Booking Portal Account for instructions.
• Create Event List views and enable email notifications for key staff so that you are aware when an event has been booked via the portal. Your consultant will work with you to develop this workflow.

To share your booking portal, click the assignment clipboard next to the URL on the Sites page. You can embed this link into a website, or send it via email to your contacts.