How to Get Started:

1. If you do not already have existing “Facilities”, you should set these up first using the Facilities feature on the menu. Create categories for “Tennis Courts” or “Clubhouse”, etc. depending on what facilities will be reserved.
2. Establish your “Resources”. Do this by clicking on the “Reservations” feature on the menu and clicking on “Add, Edit, Delete Resources”
3. Establish the Availability for each of your Resources. Do this by clicking on the “Reservations” feature on the menu and clicking on “Add, Edit and Delete Resources”. Then highlight and click on “Edit” for a particular resource and finally, click on “Add, Edit, Delete Availability for this Resource”
4. Finally, add any needed Attributes for each particular Resource. This is done with the “Add, Edit, Delete Attributes for this Resource” link on the Resource Edit screen
5. If you have more similar or identical Resources to create, use the “Clone” feature on the Resource Edit screen to quickly make copies of this first Resource.

Reservation Terms Explained:

• RESERVATION - A reservation is an approved or pending request by a specific person to hold a specific date/time slot for a specific resource within the community. For example, Joe Smith has an approved reservation for Tennis Court 1 from 3:30 to 4:30 on Monday, January 23, 2006.
• RESOURCE – A resource is what gets reserved. Examples would be Court 1 or Meeting Room 3. Multiple related resources are grouped together under a Facility.
• FACILITY – A grouping of one or more resources. For example, the Tennis facility is a group of multiple individual Tennis Courts and the Clubhouse may contain several available meeting rooms. Grouping resources into facilities allows for easy viewing of available times across multiple resources when making reservations.
• AVAILABILITY – Days and times that resources are open to be reserved. One tennis court may be open from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM but because of lighting another court may be open until 9:00 PM.
• ATTRIBUTES – Attributes are features of resources that make them unique from one another. Some tennis courts may have a clay surface and others may have grass. Some rooms hold 40 people and others hold 10. These are all attributes.
• SHORTEST RESERVATION (minutes) – The shortest time for which a resident can reserve a resource. If there is no minimum then use zero.
• LONGEST RESERVATION (minutes) – This is the longest time a single reservation can last for a particular resource. If there is no maximum some large number must be used, such as 999.
• SHORTEST ADVANCED BOOKING (hours) – The shortest time in advance that a resident can make a reservation. Often communities establish that a reservation must be made at least 1 or 2 hours in advance.
• LONGEST ADVANCED BOOKING (hours) – The longest time in advance that a resident can make a reservation. If you can only reserve a Tennis Court no more than 2 days in advance you would set this value to 48 hours.
• RESERVATION INCREMENT (minutes) – This indicates the minimum increment of time in which a reservation can occur. Often set to 30 or 60 minutes.
• MAXIMUM RESERVATIONS PER DAY – Determines how many times in a particular day a particular resident can reserve a particular resource. Note that this does not preclude a resident from reserving another, similar resource for additional times.
• CONTACT PERSON – This is the person that will be able to approve and decline reservation requests on resources that require approval.
• CLONE – This is used to make one or more copies of an existing Resource under different names. The purpose is to make the setup of a number of similar or identical resources quicker and easier. Before using this make sure you have the initial Resource just the way you want it, including creating the proper Availability and Attributes.