How to set up resources

To create a new resource:

1. Go to the Items section of your Dashboard.
2. Select the Resources tab.
3. Click New resource.
4. Enter a name for your resource and click Create.

Next, you will be taken to a page where you can update the resource’s settings.

Max Uses

This is the maximum number of the resource that can be used at one time. Some examples:

• If you have 30 lifejackets, max uses will be 30.
• If you have 1 bus with 55 seats, max uses will be 55.
• If you have 2 instructors who can teach 5 students at a time, and each instructor is considered a separate resource, max uses for each instructor will be 5.

If you leave the max uses field blank, it means the resource has unlimited uses.

Use Creation

Here you can customize whether or not the resource use is actually created upon booking, and what Dashboard users and online users see when overusing resources.

• Create uses, check overuse (default): Creates the resource use, warns Dashboard user when overusing resources (if the user has permission to overbook), doesn’t allow online users to overuse resources.

• Create uses, don’t check overuse: Creates the resource use, doesn’t warn Dashboard users when overusing resources, allows online users to book even when overusing resources.

  This option can be employed when you want a certain customer type or item to be able to overuse resources, and once that customer type or item has been booked, all other options using the same resource will be unavailable.

• Don’t create uses, check overuse: Doesn’t create the resource use, warns Dashboard user when overusing resources (if the user has permission to overbook), doesn’t allow online users to overuse resources.

  This option can be used in child requiring adult scenarios. In these cases, we don’t care how many resource uses are being created; we just want to make sure that children can’t be booked until at least one adult has been selected.

Granularity/Resource Restrictions

Once a resource has been booked for a time period, you can tell the system to only allow the rest of the resources to be used for the same item, availability, or booking during that time period.

• None: Select this option if the resource can be used by any item, availability, or booking during the same time period. Bike rentals is an example. Another less common example is boat seats that are shared across different items (e.g. everyone goes out on the same boat, but scuba diving and snorkeling are displayed as two separate items).

• Same item: Not very common, but comes in handy if you have location-specific items like an East Island Tour and a West Island Tour. This way, once one of those items has been booked, the other item becomes unavailable, so that you only have to worry about operating on one island.

• Same availability: This is the most common option when it comes to resources that can’t be split up, like a boat or a tour bus. Once one use of a resource has been booked, the rest of the uses (seats, etc.) will only be available for the same availability.

• Same booking: Not used too often; more for situations where we have to hack a solution, or for a private charter.

You can come back and edit these settings at any time by navigating to Items > Resources, then clicking on the resource name and going to its settings.

Next, add the resource to an item and set up its requirement rules.

Add a resource requirement group

Similar to a whole booking field group, a resource requirement group is created in an item’s Options & Prices, then assigned to one or more availabilities.

An item can have multiple different requirement groups, which can be switched out depending on the situation (summer group vs. winter group, weekend group vs. weekday group).

To add a resource requirement group:

1. Go to the Items section of your Dashboard.
2. Select the item you’d like to add a resource to.
3. Select Options & Prices.
4. Select the Resource requirements tab.
5. Click Add resource requirements and enter a name for your requirement group.
6. Click Add.

Set capacity settings

Once the requirement group has been added, click the edit icon to specify whether the resource requirements in the group should affect remaining capacity. Learn more about this setting.

Add a requirement

Within each requirement group, you’ll need to set at least one requirement and requirement option. This is how you determine the booking rules for your resource.

1. Click Add requirement.

   

2. Select whether the resource is required per customer or for the whole booking
   • Per customer: Most common. For example, boat seats, instructors, guides, bikes.
   • For whole booking: For example, a parking pass. If you select this option, skip ahead to step 5.

3. Select which customer types need these resource options in order to be booked. For instance, adults and children must have a seat, but not infants.

   

4. Select whether to allow split parties. When this box is checked, it means that customers on the same booking can be assigned different resource options. Learn more and see examples..
5. Click Add.

Add a requirement option

This tells the system which resource(s) to require and for how long.

1. Click Add requirement option.

2. Choose what resource to require, and how many are needed per customer or booking.

   

3. Next, determine how long the resource needs to be available. This can be a certain amount of time before/after the availability, or a set number of hours long. Some examples:

   1. Length of the availability (0 hours before availability start time to 0 hours after end of availability)
   2. Length of availability + prep/cleanup time (0.5 hours before availability start time to 0.5 hours after end of availability)
   3. X hours long (use this option for 0-length availabilities or if you need to make the resource use a set number of hours)

   

4. Click Add.

Advanced options

• Custom restrictions: If needed, you can override the resource’s main settings at the item level. Whichever rule is more restrictive will be used.

  

• Visibility: Every once in a while, you may need to change a resource requirement’s visibility to Hidden, meaning that the resource will not be required when using that price sheet. For example, maybe you have two online booking portals: one for the public and one for season pass holders. Public users have to buy both a camping spot and a parking pass, but season pass holders only need to buy a camping spot. In this case, you could hide the “parking pass” requirement on the sheet used for season pass holders.

Adding multiple requirement options/groups

You can add multiple requirement options (a.k.a. a “cascade” or “waterfall” setup), allowing the system to check the availability of each resource in order to determine which one to use. If the first resource is not available, it will check the next, and so on. These can be reordered to determine which resources are checked first.

Below, there are two requirement options: the 50 pax bus and 25 pax bus.

You can also have multiple requirements, which means that each requirement must be available in order for someone to be able to book. For example, in the the kayaker resource requirement group below, a lifejacket and kayak is needed for every customer. Each requirement is marked by a different shade of grey.

You can also add multiple requirement groups. This allows you to create different sets of rules that can then be applied to individual availabilities.

Allowing split parties

When split parties are allowed, it means that customers on the same booking can be assigned different resource options. This is only applicable if you’re setting up a requirement with multiple options.

Examples of when you might use split parties:

• A company has multiple buses that take customers to the same location
• A company has several different party boats tied to the same dock, and customers can move freely between them
• A group activity requires 1 guide for every 4 people, but it doesn’t matter which guide is assigned to which specific individuals (here’s an example booking; note that the last 2 customers use a different guide than the first 4)

Once you’ve created one or more resource requirement group(s), add them to availabilities so that resources can be tracked as bookings are made.

If you’re creating a new availability, or updating a single availability, add a requirement group under the Advanced settings.

If you’re using the availability updater, select Resource requirements in Step 1. Determine which availabilities to update in Step 2, then select the resource requirement group in Step 3.

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After you’ve added your resource to availabilities, test out the booking flow to make sure resources are working the way you’d expect them to.

You can also check out the Resources on Resources section below for practice setups and examples of live companies using resources.

Adding resources to the Bookings calendar

Likely, the client will want to be able to track their resource uses. You can set this up for them by creating a custom calendar showing resource uses. See Using the resources timeline for more info.

More info: Lessonly

In addition to the pages in this internal Resources section and the external section on resources, you can also check out the Lessonly course for an interactive lesson on resources. If you don’t have access to Lessonly, get in touch with @kaitlin.vaillancourt-fareharbor.com on Slack.

Live Dashboards using resources

Next, check out some Dashboards that have resources in action. We will keep adding to this as we find more good examples.

• Dig This: Las Vegas bulldozer/car crush company, where resources are bulldozers/excavators with 1 max use each. Customer types are bulldozers/excavators that each take up one use of a resource.

• Painted Ladies Tour Company: SF tours, where resources are VW buses and max uses are # of seats. Standard customer types – each customer takes up one use of a bus.

• The Cabins at Crabtree Falls: Cabin rentals, where resources are cabins and customer types are rental periods. Depending on the number of nights booked, that item (cabin) becomes unavailable for the following days. Good way to visualize multi-day rentals using the Bookings section. Note the red lock on the Bookings calendar indicating that availabilities are unbookable due to resources.

• Royalty Exotic Car Rentals: Items/resources are cars, customer types/availabilities are rental periods. Another way of visualizing how subsequent availabilities become unbookable based on rental time.

• Na Pali Experience: Resources are captains but function similar to boat seats (i.e. for every 6 guests, use 1 captain). Resource requirements make use of both ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ logic.

• Maui Surfer Girls: Uses instructors and ‘max students’ as resources. Group surf lessons take advantage of quarter uses. Every customer uses 0.25 of instructors, and 1 of ‘max students.’

• Piiholo Zipline: Uses negative resources to “open” afternoon tours once a certain number of people have been booked on morning tours.