Add Venues and Venue Configuration

How to add and configure additional venues

Under the Diary heading you will find a number of settings that can be configured to assist with bookings, including emails templates, widget and gift card settings.

[Widget Settings] Online booking settings.

 

Select Widget Settings from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear

1. Enter in a Max number of people for an online booking (this is the maximum number of guests that can be taken per online booking, before they are prompted to contact the venue directly).
2. Enter how far in advance venue would like to take online bookings (many venues opt for a three month/90 day period).
3. If you wish to close off online bookings once service starts, go to the 'stop taking bookings on line X minutes before service' field, and enter in the amount of time (in minutes) prior to service that you would like to shut off bookings. Please be aware that this will affect all services (eg. if venue has breakfast, lunch and dinner and you enter 60 minutes in to field, this will not allow customers to book online 60 minutes before and during each service).
4. If you wish to stop taking bookings a certain time in advance, even if there are available time slots, this can be configured by entering a time in to 'the Stop taking online bookings less than X minutes in advance' field. This feature allows venues to control and stagger bookings, and stop customers from making a booking and arriving within a certain time period.
5. Next, you can select in many hours before the booking you would like customers to Stop editing a booking online. This means they will need to call the venue directly for any last minute changes beyond this point.
6. If you would like customers to self-select where they sit in the venue, select Allow customers to choose which section in your restaurant they book in. The sections you have set up in venue Diary will then be visible to the customer when they are in the booking process, such as 'Dining Room', 'Outdoor Area' or 'Bar Seating'.
7. Ensure that the Allow online bookings is selected in order to activate the Diary.
8. Read over the Terms and Conditions box. This is currently set as an industry standard/default, but it is entirely editable to reflect the specific terms of your venue. Again this has an editable panel so you can add images and links (for more information please see [Procedures for adding a venue and venue configuration] Email Templates.).
9. Select Save & Next to save all changes.

 

[Widget messages] Edit displayed Widget messages

You can edit the messages that customers see when they interact with your bookings Widget under a variety of different circumstances. To begin customising your Widget messages:

1. Select Widget Messages from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear:

2. You'll find a set of pre-set default messages here. These messages appear to customers who interact with your booking widget, according to what dates, times or experiences they select. You can edit these messages at any time to fit with your venue's circumstances and tone of voice.

3. Place holders (the code in brackets) are used in these templates in order to automatically pull information from the system, and personalise the widget messages. For more information on what this means see [Procedures for adding a venue and venue configuration] Email Templates.

 

[Widget links] Colour scheme of online booking widget

Under the Widget Links option in the Admin Panel, you can customise the colour scheme of your online bookings link. To adjust your widget's colour scheme:

1. Select Widget Links from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear:

2. Select a theme from Light, Medium or Dark in the drop down menu.

3. Select a highlight colour from the drop down menu. A preview will appear to show you how these changes will appear on the customer's screen.

4. Click Save. This will generate a new link for your bookings widget, which can now be cut and pasted onto your website or used in Facebook posts, email newsletters or other promotional materials.

You may also wish to add a button to your venue's website that links directly to your Now Book It widget, by taking the following steps.

5. Select and Keyling from the drop down menu. You will then be presented with a variety of button styles to choose from. Once the preferred button is selected, select Save & Next.

6. Again select Widget Links from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel and scroll to the link just below the widget link, show below. This can now be used on venue website.

[Email settings] Customer notifications

Email Settings is where you can adjust the frequency and type of communications and notifications that you send to guests. There are currently five types of email notifications that your Now Book It system can send to your customers. These are:

• Successful Booking and Edited Booking Summary (all bookings and statuses)
• Cancelled Booking Summary (Sent to all bookings when moving to Cancelled status)
• Confirmation requests (sent to Unconfirmed bookings)
• Booking Reminder (sent to all Confirmed and Unconfirmed bookings)
• Thank you email (sent to all bookings that are Confirmed, Partially seated, Seated and Finished).

These emails are already set up with default messages when you launch your Now Book It account. However, you can adjust them with your own wording—or switch them on and off—by following these steps.

Select Email Settings from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear:

1. If you would like to send notifications for bookings made by phone, in select the tick box next to 'Would you like to send email notifications to phone bookings as well as bookings made online?'.
2. If you would like your guests to receive confirmation request emails is they have not confirmed their booking, tick the box next to 'Would you like to send automated Confirmation Request emails?'.
3. If you would like to remind your guests of an upcoming booking, tick the box next to 'Would you like to send automated Reminder emails?' (and select the number of hours before booking as a reminder. These will be sent to all confirmed and unconfirmed bookings.
4. If you would like to send automated Thank you emails, tick the 'Thank You emails' box and select the number of hours after dining when you would like the email to trigger. These will be sent to all partially-seated, seated and finished bookings.

 

[Additional email configurations]

1. If you would like for customers to be able to cancel bookings via email or SMS, select the tick box 'Will you allow your customers to CANCEL their booking via a link in an email?'.
2. If you would like for customer to be able to edit bookings via email and SMS, select the tick box 'Will you allow your customers to EDIT their booking via a link in an email?' Note: this will not allow customers who have payments attached to their booking to cancel or edit their reservation. For this they will need to call the venue.

[Additional Booking Information]

1. Additional Booking Information is where you can add further information for your guests. This will be added to ALL emails sent from the system (see below).

[Promotional Information]

1. Promotional Information is where you can add promotional images such as banners or logos, as well as any links to social media or upcoming events (see below). This will apply to ALL emails sent from the system. For further information on how to use links and images in this panel see this link [Procedures for adding a venue and venue configuration] Email Templates.

 

[Booking Notifications]

Booking Notifications are sent to venues to notify them about all bookings made, edited or cancelled through their online booking system.
Daily Summary Emails can be switched on, so that selected staff are sent daily updates about every booking that was made, edited or cancelled online that day. Tick the box to activate this.
Venues can also receive individual alert emails in real time for any of the following events. To turn this on, specify which email addresses you would like email notifications to go to in the Email(s)* Field. You can separate multiple email addresses with a comma or semi colon.

If bookings are made by a VIP, you may also opt to receive a notification. Enter the email/s you wish this notification to send to under the Emails for a notification when a VIP makes a booking field.
If your venue has a separate finance department, and you would like them to automatically receive an email of all bookings that have a payment attached, add the relevant email address/s to the Email/s to send booking payment information to accounts department field.

[Customer SMS Notifications]

These settings are for SMS notifications sent from the Now Book It system. Now Book It have integrated with Oxygen8 to provide this service (please read the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy). Oxygen 8 is a prepaid SMS system and requires a credit card to complete set up.

1. Select SMS setup from the list on the left hand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear:

2.Select Set up SMS. To setup this service please enter the details show below. Note that setting up your direct debit payment authority will be deemed as acceptance of the SMS Service Terms and Conditions.

3. Complete the Account set up details.

4. Enter in a SMS service name. This name will appear to customers as the sender of the text. Ensure it is only 11 characters or less, and contains no symbols or spaces.

5. Enter a short name for your venue. that will appear in the text to customers.

6. Enter in an email address where administrative emails such as low credit, errors etc. will be sent to inform venue.

7. Next, select Set up payment on the bottom right corner of the screen. The following window will appear:

8. Enter in the number of tables per venue, the number of services per day and payment country. This information is used to estimate the total prepaid credit that you will need to purchase for the venue.

9.Select Proceed. This will take you to Oxygen8's secure website, where you will be asked to enter your credit card information to complete your purchase of prepaid credit.

10. Select Save & Next.

[Integrations]

Now Book It offers a suite of integration tools for marketing and data analysis. These currently include Impact Data , Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics.
This area is only to be used by experienced marketing/digital marketing staff, web developers and IT staff. It provides ability to track conversations of digital advertising campaigns, social media activity and referral links from Google and Facebook Ads Manager.
To set up your integrations:

1. Select Integrations from the list on the lefthand side of the Admin Panel. The following window will appear:

To complete any of the above fields you will need:
For Impact Data—your account user name and password (for further information on impact data please speak to your BDM).
For Facebook—your Facebook Pages Pixel ID. For further information about Facebook set up please follow this link: Facebook conversion tracking.
For Google Analytics—your Property ID. For further information about Google Analytics set up please follow this link: Google conversion tracking.