When dealing with resources with seating, such as a coach or a boat, you might want to have a seating plan ready. Not only will you have a visualised overview of your visitors' seating, but your guests also know their allocated seat at the time of booking.
Create a Seated Resource
In the Ventrata Dashboard, go to Products > Resources.
Press the + New Resource button.
Enter resource name.
📗 TIPYou may include type, reference code, location of the resource or number of available seats to easily differentiate your resources, especially if you are managing a large amount of resources.
Check the 'Multi-destination' box if the resource is shared across multiple destinations.
Check the 'Seating' box.
Check the 'Open' box to keep the resource open for booking.
📗 TIPIf the resource is closed, products with the assigned resource group of the resource will not be bookable.
Enter the capacity of the resource.
📗 TIP
If you plan to use resources with your products/options, we recommend setting the capacity on the resource (if applicable) rather than on the products/options.Enter the cost of the resource and select the currency (optional).
📒 NOTECost is provided for the tour. For example, a bus with 10 seats costs 200 EUR for a tour. The price of each seat will be then included in the booking, so the price of a booking for 4 persons will be higher by 40 EUR (10 EUR for each of the 4 seats). You may opt to leave the field empty and include the cost of the resource in the price of the product.
Press the Create Resource button.
📗 TIP
To assign a resource to a product, you need to create a resource group. If you need guidance on how to create a resource group, read our article on How to Use Resources and Resource Groups.
Assign Seating One by One
Open a seated resource.
Press the Seating button at the bottom of the resource form.
Press the '+' icon to create a seat.
Enter seat name (for example, 1A).
Check the 'Prefer odd' box if you wish to seat odd-numbered parties in seats flagged this way.
Override row/column position of the seat.
📗 TIP
Seating is viewed from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner. To specify new seat position use the number of the row and the number of the column.Press the Create Seat button.
This is how your new seat is represented on the seating chart:
Bulk Add Seat
Open a seated resource.
Press the Seating button at the bottom of the resource form.
Press the Bulk Add Seat button.
Create a map of seats available for booking.
📗 TIP
Enter the row and column numbers where your seats begin in the 'From row' and 'From column' fields. Then enter the row and column numbers where your seats end in the 'To row' and 'To column'.
Check 'Prefer odd' box if you wish to seat odd-numbered parties in seats flagged this way.
Press the Create Seats button.
A seating chart may look something like this:
Prioritise Seat Selection
When a booking is made, seats are automatically selected from top left to bottom right. You may require certain seats to be assigned with priority. To do that,
Open a seated resource.
Press the Seating button at the bottom of the resource form.
Press the Prioritise Seat Selection button.
Press the three lines next to the seat you wish to prioritise and drag it to the top of the list.
Repeat for all priority seats.
Press the Save button.
Change Seats in Manifest
You can manually change the seating of individual visitors from the manifest.
📗 TIP
If you need guidance on how to create a manifest, read our article How to Create a Manifest.
Go to Calendar > Select manifest.
In the column filter of the manifest options, select 'Resource Group'.
📗 TIP
This is important because you are about to change the seating on a specific resource with its own seating chart.
Press the refresh button.
Select the desired tour date and time.
Press the Seat Allocations button of the tour manifest.
Press the three lines next to the seat you wish to change and drag it to its new position.
View Booked Seats
When a product with the assigned seated resource is booked, seats are automatically allocated to the booking based on the criteria you specified earlier.
You can view the specific seats by selecting the specific booking in Bookings > Bookings.
Seats are visible also from the manifest, where each booking made for that specific tour is shown with the allocated seats.
