Collisions monitoring in time

In addition, the resources serve as an information base for the offer of dates, incl. filtering and signposting, and then subsequently as information for individual reservations, it is also a very important element in automating the reservation process. Thanks to collision monitoring, it is possible to set a very comprehensive automatic evaluation of whether it is possible to create a reservation for a specific time or not, due to the use of resources (service, employee, place), eg occupying a sauna with another reservation in the same time. Collision monitoring is available for most types of appointments, ie it is not available, for example, for appointments using a seat reservation.

In case of two dates are tied to one source item (service, employee, place), two reservations cannot be created for these dates at the same time (of course in connection with a specific offer and method of booking for a particular business). An example is the rental of a multi-purpose playground on which it is possible to run more sports activities. One course is understood as a PLACE item and each sport will correspond to one resource. When booking a course for one of the sports, the course must be automatically blocked for all other sports, otherwise two customers could book two different activities at the same time, but there is only one course.

We must therefore use collision monitoring, when we activate it on such a source item, which is limiting from the point of view of the impossibility of the existence of current reservations. In our case, it is the item PLACE. The collision assessment is performed by taking into account all specific resources using the item and comparing it with existing reservations. If there is a reservation (incl. Time breaks) using a given specific source item at a given time, then the system will not allow the creation of another "collision" reservation.

When collision monitoring is set, it is also possible to determine whether the collision is to be evaluated within a given date or only between different dates. In practice, this means that if there is a term with a larger capacity, then monitoring collisions within the term will make it impossible to create more than one reservation at a given time and with adequate resources, even if the free capacity is sufficient! This can be used when resources of one type are selected en masse within a deadline, eg booking one tennis court blocks all other tennis courts at a given time.

Within event and between events

Collisions can occur between events or even within an event. In the event that the form with the appointment setting contains several ticked resources sharing one resource, which may be the subject of a collision, then the conflict monitoring option within event and between events must be selected. The sample below offers a date for booking a multi-purpose playground. The parameters of the term are the same, and therefore we can afford to set the term within one form. It is important to watch out for collisions on a common resource, which is a multi-purpose playground.

Only between events

The second possible situation on a multi-purpose field is, for example, the possibility of reserving the entire multi-purpose playground for collective sports or one of the existing courts for badminton. The main difference here is the possibility of booking multiple badminton courts or the entire court in parallel.

The collision monitoring principle allows the use for blocking a longer period of time, for example in case of closure, reconstruction or vacation. If we want to disable reservations for certain dates, or only parts of them, we will use the creation of an off-date reservation in combination with the use of collision monitoring.

Configuring monitoring settings for off-date bookings will be reflected on the resulting booking page as an already booked date (the red highlight is slightly brighter for blocked dates than for traditional direct bookings), so customers will not be able to make new bookings. When setting up this special reservation, it is necessary to select the corresponding specific sources that we want to block, and also to activate collision monitoring for the given types of source items.

In order to block the customer's booking options, it is important to keep in mind that collision monitoring must be set at least once for a given period of time. Either when setting the given date (in connection with future reservations) or when creating the reservation itself outside the date.

The example below illustrates how we can simplify our work if the resource consists of a place (Courts) and a service (Tennis). If you need to block the possibility of booking courts in a given period (eg technical reasons), we will create a reservation outside the deadline (it does not matter whether the standard deadline has / does not have collision monitoring set). In order to be able to block all courts, it is necessary to create a resource containing only the tennis service, which is practically superior to the courts. Of course, at this moment there must be no standard reservation for the specified source and time period, because then the reservation could not be created correctly off-date!

The benefits of this two-source solution are two. We do not have to make as many reservations off-date as there are individual courts (to block reservations for all). And also, if we compile resources for the signpost, we can use the name of a specific service, ie Tennis. If necessary, it is possible to inform customers about restrictions or changes through the textual content of the reservation page or other communication channels (SMS, e-mail, etc.).

Collision monitoring functionality is a very effective tool for automation solutions within the services offered .Thanks to various combinations of service, location, employees in the source and the method of evaluation, it is possible to define relatively complex rules. It is thus possible, for example, to block reservations for individual tennis courts in the hall, in the event that the customer has already booked the entire hall for football. However, it is important to understand the principle of operation, try it out and design resources well and how they are interconnected.