There are a few different ways you can communicate a booking's venue both for your team and for any registered clients: facilities, locations, and rooms/kennels. But how do you decide which option best suits your needs? Let's take a look at the various functionalities of each.
Facilities | Locations | Rooms/Kennels |
Required for all bookings & services. | Required for bookings, defaults to facility address. Custom option may be assigned to bookings and to individual (one-on-one) services. | Optional for bookings, may be assigned to individual (one-on-one) services. Kennels required for boarding services to be self-bookable by clients. |
Intended for separate brick and mortar locations. | Used to assign an address & location name to bookings, may be used to indicate online (no location) services or those held outside the facility. | Used to manage capacities within a given facility, preventing overbooking. |
Allow for separation of customer lists, finances, service lists, and user schedules. | No separation of customer list, finances, or services. Ideal for services linked with the same facility but taking place at a separate location (local park, pet supply store, etc.). | No separation of customer list, finances, or services. Ideal for services taking place in different parts of a given facility (upstairs classroom, agility field, etc.). |
It's important to note that a booking's facility, location, and room/kennel information is not automatically included in your automated messaging. It is up to you whether or not you wish to include that information for your clients.
Let's take a look at a few different service examples and explore which venue functionality works best in each situation.
A training business with two classrooms within the same building.
For this case, the business is offering classes and private training at their facility, which has Classroom A and Classroom B. They want to ensure that clients know the address of their business and which classroom their appointment is in, while also preventing double bookings.
To set this up, they need to create two rooms, named "Classroom A" and "Classroom B". Each of their rooms will have the concurrent services set to 1 (to prevent double-bookings) and pet capacity set to that of their largest class (i.e. 12 pets). They will then assign their private training services to Classroom A and Classroom B, and ensure that all of their group bookings are assigned to the appropriate space. This will cause the system to show the private training as unavailable during times when there are already classes taking place in both classrooms. There is no need for them to select any custom location for their bookings/services as the system will default to the facility address.
When setting up their automated messaging, they will include the dynamic content {{booking_room}} as well as either {{booking_location_address}} or {{booking_facility_address}}. This will help ensure their customers have the address of their facility and information about the classroom in which their appointment will be taking place.
A daycare business looking to restrict total pet capacity.
For this case, the business offers both full-day and half-day daycare and has a total capacity of 20 pets across those two services. Though they are happy to have all 20 spots filled by full-day daycare dogs, they are fine having up to 10 spots filled by half-day dogs.
To set this up, they can create a single room with concurrent services set to 2 (or more) and pet capacity set to 20 (their overall limit). When scheduling their repeating daycare bookings, they will assign both their half-day and full-day service bookings to their daycare room. This means that even though full-day daycare has a capacity of 20 and half-day has a capacity of 10, both services will show as full when the total between the two reaches 20 pets.
Since in this case the room is used only to manage the overall facility capacity, there is no need to include that information in the business' automated messaging. They will include only the {{booking_location_address}} or {{booking_facility_address}} in their messaging since the daycare services take place at their single brick-and-mortar location.
A training centre offering classes taking place at various external locations.
For this case, the business offers classes at their facility but also has options taking place at a local pet supply shop and a local park.
To set this up, they can create two custom locations, one with the address and name of the pet supply shop and the other with the address and name of the local park. When scheduling their classes, they will edit the Booking Location field, selecting the appropriate location for each session. Any classes taking place at the facility (i.e. not at an external location) can keep the default facility address for the location.
When configuring their automated messaging, they will include the {{booking_location_name}} and {{booking_location_address}} to ensure registered customers have both the name of the store/park and its address. There is no need to include any facility information in this case, since classes assigned to the pet supply store or the park are not taking place at the facility's address, and those classes taking place at the facility will have that address listed for the assigned location.
A daycare business with multiple centres serving different communities.
For this case, the business has multiple brick-and-mortar spaces throughout the city, each with a different address, and each serving a different group of customers. Though it is the same business owner running each venue, most of their team members work at one specific site, and the owner wants to be able to track the finances and bookings for specific locations separately.
To set this up, they can create a facility for each of their business addresses. This allows them to choose which services are offered at which facility (i.e. if only Facility A and Facility B have space for agility class, not Facility C) and track the facility at which each client has booked services.
When setting up their automated messaging, they can include either {{booking_location_name}} and {{booking_location_address}} or {{booking_facility_name}} and {{booking_facility_address}} to remind the client where their appointment is taking place. This will help ensure their customers go to the correct facility for their booking.
A pet care business offering in-home and virtual services.
For this case, the business offers not only services at their own facility, but also online and in the customer's home. To configure this, they do not need to create any additional locations or facilities.
For any of their group virtual services, they can set the booking location as "No Location" when scheduling. Likewise, when configuring their one-on-one virtual services, they can assign "No Location" directly to the service itself. That will ensure any appointments self-booked by clients will be assigned "No Location".
For any one-on-one services offered at the client's home, they can similarly assign "Client Address" to the service. That will assign the customer's address as the location for any self-booked appointments for that service, and will require clients registering for that service to enter/confirm their address before finalizing their booking. When scheduling an individual service booking manually, users can also assign "Client Address" as the location.