Product availability encompasses a set of modifiers (capacity, resource groups, opening hours, tour times) that are taken into account when a booking takes place. Resource availability is typically an automated process where the distribution and sum of all available resources is taken into account depending on product and resource capacity, date and time specification and so forth.
📒 NOTE
This article focuses on product availability using resources. If you are looking for more information on how to cap product availability for resellers, read our article on Allocations.
📗 TIP
Read our articles on How to Set Product Availability and How to Use Resources and Resource Groups before you continue.
Product and resource availability management closely affect one another in that
you may share multiple resources for one product
and have the same resources assigned across multiple products.
📒 NOTE
Options settings, ‘Options’ being underlying elements to your products, may require resources and affect the overall resource allocation and product availability during booking. Consider these factors when setting up both your products and resources.
Prerequisites:
Capacity is defined for the product.
Manifests are set up in your Calendar.
📗 TIP
If you need help creating manifests, read our article on How to Create a Manifest.
Availability Management on the Product
Product availability is derived from a set of settings. This includes the product’s opening hours, assigned resources or capacity restrictions.
In the Ventrata Dashboard, go to Products > Products.
Select the desired product.
Assign Resources to the Product
Press the pen and paper icon next to the product name.
Scroll to the middle of the product form or simply search for ‘Capacity’.
Press the + ADD RESOURCE AND GUIDE ASSIGNMENT button.
Select a resource, a guide and/or a driver (if available) from the new fields from left to right.
📗 TIP
If no resource group is added to the product, you can assign individual guides or drivers.
Scroll to the bottom of the product form.
Press the Update Product button.
Manage General Product Availability
Select the General Availability tab.
Use the drop-down menu on the vertical and/or horizontal axis to view and manage availability for the selected combination.
Press the number (or infinity symbol) in a field to change the capacity setup for that combination.
Press the + ADD RESOURCE AND GUIDE ASSIGNMENT button.
Select a resource, a guide and/or a driver (if available) from the new fields from left to right.
📗 TIP
If no resource group is added to the product, you can assign individual guides or drivers.
If a resource is already available, assign the remaining fields as appropriate.
📒 NOTE
If two capacity restrictions are given, for example, one on the product and one on the resource, the capacity with the lower value takes over. Make sure to provide only one capacity restriction to avoid issues with availability during bookings.
Press the Save button to save your changes.
📘 EXAMPLE 1
Select ‘Weekday’ on one axis and ‘Month’ on the other. Select Sunday in January and change the capacity from 47 to 40.
RESULT: The sum of tickets for Sunday bookings throughout January can not exceed 40. Once the capacity is reached, no more bookings for Sunday in January can be made.
📘 EXAMPLE 2
Select the ‘Date’ view. You can select specific dates and change capacity and resource allocation for that day, or press the BULK CHANGE button to change product availability changing multiple modifiers at a time. Learn more about Using Bulk Changes.
📒 NOTE
Each modifier combination (Weekday-Month, Tour-Month, Source-Weekday, Date) is unique to that pair (in the case of Date it is a month-year pair) and will not be reflected using the other combinations. It is therefore good practice to make as few changes to availability as possible to keep track of your settings.
Limit Product Availability
While capacity is always shared across modifiers, limits are not. You can limit how many spots are sold in one booking using select modifiers (options, sources, tours or tour groups, etc.) or a combination of modifiers. During booking, the system looks for all bookings that have those modifiers.
📒 NOTE
You can use limits along with allocations, however, limits override exclusive allocations.
Select the General Availability tab
Use the drop-down menu on the vertical and/or horizontal axis to select the required modifiers.
📗 TIP
Further specify your use case by selecting any additional modifiers below the grid.
Select a specific parameter.
📗 TIP
This parameter binds the limit to a specific booking configuration, i.e. option, tour time, month, source, etc. as selected in General Availability.
📒 NOTE
Do not select the number (or infinity symbol) at the cross section of two modifiers, as that will only limit the booking size but not the product availability, i.e. the product will be still bookable at the original capacity, except not all at once.
In the ‘Limit’ field, enter the maximum number of spots which can be sold under the selected booking configuration.
Press the Save button.
📘 EXAMPLE:
On the product detail, set 10 capacity. On the General Availability tab, select the ‘Option’ modifier and select ‘Couples’ and select the ‘Sunset’ tour group. Set the limit to 4.
RESULT: There are 10 spots available for sale for all ‘Individual’ tour groups. There are 10 spots available for sale for all but the ‘Sunset’ tour group under the ‘Couples’ option. Only 4 spots are available for sale for the ‘Sunset’ tour group of the ‘Couples’ option.
Availability Management Using Manifests
Manifests offer an overview of product and resource availability based on selected criteria. The page takes into account at minimum capacity and resource settings on the product level, available resources assigned to the manifest and bookings.
Depending on your manifest settings, you may first see the availabilities of your product(s) and then resource groups assigned to the manifest.
Product Availability
Go to Calendar > Select your manifest.
Review the availability of the product.
To view or change availability and resource allocation of a specific tour, select the field at the desired date and tour time intersection in the calendar.
📗 TIP
Resources are automatically assigned if they have been assigned on the product detail page. If you make any changes to these settings, they will be applied to bookings made since the change. Changes are not applied retrospectively.
Review tour bookings and resources.
If there are no resources assigned, press the + ADD RESOURCE AND GUIDE/DRIVER ASSIGNMENT button.
Select a resource, a guide and/or a driver (if available) from the new fields from left to right.
If ‘Reassign resources’ was allowed on the product, you can change or remove the assigned resources.
Press the Save button to save your changes.
Resource Groups
Go to Calendar > [select-your-manifest].
Review the capacity of each resource.
To change the capacity of the resource, press the number at the crossing of the desired date and resource.
Change the number in the ‘Capacity’ field.
Untick the ‘Open’ checkbox if desired.
Add notes (optional).
Press the Save button to save the availability of the resource for the given day.
Using Bulk Changes
📒 NOTE
It is recommended to perform changes to availability through the General Availability tab by applying modifiers you require to achieve your end goal. The Bulk Change functionality allows for an easier but by no means master solution to make wider-scale ad hoc changes and should not replace other means of availability management, such as seasons or closures which are designed to help you organise product availability.
Bulk changes help you allocate a resource in bulk by re-defining any of the following parameters:
Date range
Sources
Months and Weekdays
Tour Groups and Tours
Capacity
Bulk changes can be applied up to 3 months ahead.
Clear Calendar
📒 NOTE
Before you make a bulk change, make sure no resources are assigned to the product for the period you are about to change. Otherwise the changes will not take over.
If multiple changes have been made on the product’s availability, you risk inconsistencies in the expected availability by doing a bulk change. It is recommended to apply changes to a clear calendar which you can achieve by deleting all availability for the entire year or by manually removing individual changes for the required time period.
Delete All Changes
Go to Products > Products.
Select your product.
Go to the General Availability tab.
Press the DELETE ALL button to clear your calendar.
📒 NOTE
This will clear all changes made in the General Availability tab for the entire year.
Manual Cleanup
Changes to general availability are indicated by a blue value. To remove these changes, you need to select the same modifiers used during the initial change.
Go to Products > Products.
Select your product.
Go to the General Availability tab.
Apply modifiers, which were used to make the change in general availability.
Select the highlighted value.
Remove the change, which in this case was the assignment of a resource for every Sunday for both tour groups.
Press the Save button.
Bulk Change
On the General Availability tab, select the ‘DATE’ modifier in the drop-down menu.
Press the BULK CHANGE button.
Enter your desired date range.
📗 TIP
Bulk changes can be applied up to 3 months ahead.
Select a resource.
Press the Save button
Bulk change can be also performed on the manifest level, where you can also re-define the resource.