Availability defines when and how many visitors can book your products, which is influenced by product settings such as:
allocated resources,
capacity settings,
and opening hours of the product or tour times.
Beyond product settings, there are other factors influencing a product's availability:
planned closures,
seasonal changes of availability ,
operational changes,
whitelisting and blacklisting the product in related sections (resellers, bands, sources).
In this article you will learn which settings are necessary to set a product's availability.
Prerequisites:
Resources and Resource Groups are set up in the Ventrata Dashboard.
In the Ventrata Dashboard, go to Products > Products.
Products
Select an existing product.
Assign Resource Groups
Press the pen and paper button next to the product name.
Edit Product
Scroll to the middle of the product form or simply search for 'Resource Groups'.
Resource Groups
Select the desired resource group.
Check the ‘Reassign resources’ box to automatically assign resources in the most efficient way on any given date/tour time.
Reassign Resources
📒 NOTE
When 'Reassign resources' is enabled, any manual change is overwritten with the next new booking.
Define Product Capacity
📒 NOTE
If the product is a package (contains other products), you will not be able to set capacity on the product. Instead, set capacity on the products included in the package.
📒 NOTE
If you are assigning resources, we recommend you set the capacity directly on the resource. Learn more in our article How to Use Resources and Resource Groups.
Scroll to the middle of the product form or simply search for ‘Capacity’.
Capacity
Enter the desired 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.
Make sure the ‘Open’ checkbox is checked, otherwise the product will not be possible to book.
Open Capacity
Scroll to the bottom of the product form.
Press the Update Product button.
Update Product
Add Opening Hours
Configure opening hours so that the product is bookable.
Select the Opening Hours tab on the product page.
Opening Hours
Press the + NEW OPENING HOUR button.
New Opening Hours
Deselect weekdays and/or months from the lists.
Weekdays & Months
📗 TIP
All weekdays and months are preselected by default.
Press the + ADD DATE RANGE button to specify for which dates the opening hours apply.
Add Date Range
Add the opening hours in the ‘From’ field and the closing hours in the ‘To’ field.
From-To Opening Hours
Depending on your product, you can also add frequency of service in Minutes, Hours or Days (if applicable).
Frequency
Press the Create Opening Hour button.
Create Opening Hour
📗 TIP
You can create different opening hours for different days of the week or months.
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
General Availability
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 availability modifier.
Availability Modifiers
📗 TIP
This modifier 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.
Limit
Press the Save button.
Save
📘 EXAMPLE 1
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.
Limit Availability
📘 EXAMPLE 2
CLOSING A SPECIFIC TOUR DATE
If you want to close availability for a specific tour at a specific time and date (e.g., to accommodate a holiday):
On the Product Page, scroll to the General Availability section.
Change the settings:
Modify the option from Weekday to Date.
Adjust Any Tour to the specific tour you wish to modify.
Select the desired date for the availability change.
Untick the Open checkbox to close availability for that time slot.
RESULT: No bookings can be made for the selected tour during the specified time frame.