This article works with a specific example to better illustrate how allocations work.
Feel free to adjust the settings for your purposes, however, we recommend you limit your changes to as few combinations as possible to avoid clashes in availability.
Prerequisites:
Allocations have been created in the Allocations tab.
None of the allocations are ‘Exclusive’.
📗 TIP
If you need guidance on creating allocations, read our article on How to Create New Allocations.
The product does not have assigned resources and resource groups.
📒 NOTE
Setting allocations on products using multiple resources may result in unwanted availability clashes and manifests and bookings may not display resource allocations correctly. If you are looking for more information on how to manage product availability using resources, read our article on Availability Management.
Select Product
In your Ventrata dashboard, go to Products > Products.
Select an existing product.
Set Parent Capacity
Press the pen and paper icon next to the product name.
Scroll to the middle of the product form or simply search for ‘Capacity’.
Review the total product capacity.
📗 TIP
This indicates how many tickets can be booked at a time. If you are limited by seat numbers, use the number of seats as an indication.
If you changed the capacity, press the Update Product button. If you did not change anything, simply close the form.
Cap Source
Go to the General Availability tab.
Select ‘Source’ on the vertical axis and keep ‘Weekday’ on the horizontal axis.
Select the DIRECT API source.
Enter the capacity for this source. In our example it is 80.
Set Allocations Capacity
Go to the Allocations tab.
Check the capacity for each allocation. Press the pen and paper icon to change the capacity.
📗 TIP
If you wish to override the allocation availability using any of the modifiers (tour, tour group, source, etc.), read the Override Availability section of our article on How to Create New Allocations.
Allocations in Practice
Overall Tour Capacity (Retail Capacity): 100
Direct API source (Parent Trade Capacity): 80
In our example we have assigned the following inventory for the allocations:
| Exact | Percentage (%) |
GoCity | 24 | 30 |
CityPASS | 8 | 10 |
OTAs (Viator, GYG + Expedia) | 56 | 70 |
What each allocation will see as available inventory for this event is shown in brackets above the allocation container [ ]. A line is drawn at the inventory limit across each allocation container. The source limit is drawn at the 80 line, which is how many tickets can be sold through all three channels together.
Starting Position
23 tickets are sold through Retail.
These tickets fill from the bottom of the Retail container and from the top of the other allocations.
Result:
Retail has 77 tickets left
Allocation capacities are unchanged
Retail Sell 23 Tickets
Next, GYG sells 40 tickets from the OTA allocation pot.
The OTAs container fills from the bottom.
Result:
GoCity’s limit has been reached. GoCity have 17 tickets left. 80 (parent channel capacity) - 63 ( 23 by Retail + 40 by OTA ) = 17
Retail’s limit has been reached. Retail has only 37 tickets left. 100 (total capacity) - 40 (GYG sale) = 60 (reduced capacity) - 23 (Retail sale) = 37
The other allocation capacities are unchanged
OTA Sell 40 Tickets
Next, CityPASS sell all 8 of their allocation.
Result:
GoCity’s limit has been reached. GoCity have 9 tickets left. 17 (reduced capacity) - 8 (CityPASS sale) = 9
CityPASS have no tickets left
OTAs’ limit has been reached. OTAs have 9 tickets left. 80 (parent channel capacity) - 31 ( 23 by Retail + 8 by CityPASS ) = 49 - 40 (OTA sale) = 9
Retail’s limit has been reached. Retail has only 29 tickets left. 60 (reduced capacity) - 8 (CityPASS sale) = 52 (reduced capacity) ** - 23** (Retail sale) = 29
CityPASS Sell 8 Tickets
Next, Viator sells 4 tickets from the OTA allocation pot.
Result:
GoCity’s limit has been reached. GoCity have 5 tickets left. 9 (reduced capacity) - 4 (Viator sale) = 5
OTAs have 5 tickets left
Retail’s limit has been reached. Retail has 25 tickets left. 52 (reduced capacity) - 4 (Viator sale) = 48 (reduced capacity) - 23 (Retail sale) = 25
Viator Sell 4 Tickets
Finally, GoCity sell the 5 remaining tickets from the overall trade allocation.
There are still 20 tickets left to sell, but only for Retail.
Result:
GoCity have no tickets left.
OTAs have no tickets left.
Retail’s limit has been reached. Retail has 20 tickets left. 48 (reduced capacity) - 5 (GoCity sale) = 43 (reduced capacity) - 23 (Retail sale) = 20
GoCity Sell 5 tickets
It is decided that Retail is not selling fast enough, so the parent trade allocation is raised from 80 to 90 (see Steps 3-7.) for this particular date/event.
See how the caps change:
| Exact | Percentage (%)* |
GoCity | 27 | 30 |
CityPASS | 9 | 10 |
OTAs (Viator, GYG + Expedia) | 63 | 70 |
*the percentage values have not been changed
GoCity’s limit has been reached. GoCity have 10 tickets left.
90 (new parent capacity) - 75 ( 23 by Retail + 40 by GYG + 8 by CityPASS + 4 by Viator ) = 15 (reduced capacity) - 5 (GoCity sale) = 10
CityPASS have 1 ticket left 9 (new capacity) - 8 (CitPass sale) = 1
OTAs’ limit has been reached. OTAs have 10 tickets left.
90 (new parent capacity) - 36 ( 23 by Retail + 8 by CityPASS + 5 by GoCity ) = 54 (reduced capacity) - 44 ( 40 by GYG + 4 by Viator ) = 10
Retail’s limit has been reached. Retail has 20 tickets left.
100 (total capacity) - 57 ( 40 by GYG + 8 by CityPASS + 4 by Viator + 5 by GoCity ) = 43 (reduced capacity) - 23 (Retail sale) = 20
Parent Trade Capacity Raised