Deprecation of FareHarbor profile pages
Last updated: July 28, 2020
The Product Team is currently working on deprecating FareHarbor profile pages. Details on this decision and process can be found below.
What are profile pages?
“Profile pages” refer to the profile created for every company within fareharbor.com (for example, fareharbor.com/sailingcat), which includes custom images, activity descriptions, social media links, and a complete booking process. You may also hear them referred to as company pages, shortname pages, or a company’s FareHarbor Profile.
In the past, a profile was created for every company by default, so even if the company used their own website for online bookings, the profile would operate as a “backup” location for customers to book online.
Read about how FareHarbor Profiles used to work ›
Why get rid of them?
From a Product perspective, we have committed to making the Lightframe our primary method for online booking, making continued improvements to accessibility and user experience. Some of these improvements cannot or will not be carried over to the profile pages, resulting in a less-than-optimal experience for end users.
From an Engineering perspective, maintaining the profile pages and ensuring that every product update or feature supports them takes up valuable engineering time and resources, and can potentially slow down the release of new features.
From an Onboarding perspective, setting up a profile page for every new company, regardless of whether they’re using it or not, takes up valuable onboarding time and resources, and slows down the go-live process for new companies.
What does this mean for live companies?
The majority of companies onboarded after 2018 will soon have their profile pages disabled and should not be affected. Any booking URL accessed through the profile page (for example, fareharbor.com/raleightester/items/?flow=144) will be automatically directed to its related embed page: fareharbor.com/embeds/book/raleightester/items/?flow=144&full-items=yes
Companies whose websites were integrated with FareHarbor before 2018 and still use the profile page as their primary source of online booking will be able to keep using their profile pages for now. However, keep in mind that we plan on eventually deprecating profile pages for all companies.
Other changes to the Dashboard
Some minor adjustments have been made to profile pages and the Dashboard in the short term, with the intention of speeding up the onboarding process and improving how content is displayed on the profile homepage.
The homepage intro and slideshow photos are now optional, and the Directions URL field has been removed.
If no intro/slideshow photos exist, the entire box will be hidden from the profile homepage (previously, it was still displayed, but its contents were empty).
You will not be able to enter content for the About or FAQ pages for companies that don’t currently have them.
Regardless of whether profile pages are enabled or disabled, the Preview button in item settings will link to the related item embed page instead of the profile page (logged-in users will be prompted to log out). To preview without logging out, right-click and open the link in an Incognito or private window.
Deprecation plan
The Product Team will be rolling out these changes in several phases. Starting March 16, 2020, FareHarbor Admins can disable profile pages for any company by following the steps below.
As of April 30, 2020 all newly created dashboard have the profile pages disabled by default.
In the coming months, we will automatically disable profile pages for all companies onboarded after 2018. Eventually, we will plan to disable profile pages for all companies and deprecate them completely.
Disabling profile pages
You can disable a company’s profile pages by going to advanced settings and checking the box for “Disable profile (shortname) pages”, located under View.
When profile pages are disabled:
All Dashboard settings related to profile pages will be hidden.
Any booking URL accessed through the profile page (for example, fareharbor.com/raleightester/items/?flow=144) will be automatically directed to its related embed page: fareharbor.com/embeds/book/raleightester/items/?flow=144&full-items=yes
The
fareharbor.com/shortname/URL will automatically redirect to the company’s Dashboard.- If the company previously relied on their
fareharbor.com/shortname/URL for online booking, check the box for “Redirect /shortname/ to Lightframe” to redirect online customers to the Lightframe. Otherwise, this box should be left unchecked.
- If the company previously relied on their
All social media accounts that have been entered will be included in follow-up emails (the “include in follow-up email” checkbox will be ignored).
Creating a company’s FareHarbor Profile
A FareHarbor Profile is a profile that can be created for a fareharbor.com company (for example, fareharbor.com/sailingcat). It includes custom images, activity descriptions, social media links, and a complete booking process. A FareHarbor Profile is not created for every company by default, and all new Dashboards will have this feature automatically disabled. A FareHarbor profile can operate as a “backup” location for customers to book online even if the company uses their own website for online bookings.
In certain cases where online customers need to be redirected from the Lightframe, they will either be taken to a simple fallback page (default for all new integrations) or to the FareHarbor Profile (default for websites integrated before 2017). Since redirects have a significant impact on conversation rate, it’s important to make the profile look as similar to the client’s website as possible to maintain customers’ trust. Here are some tips on creating a clean and effective FareHarbor Profile.
Header
The profile header is made of three separate components: background photo, logo, and tagline.
Background Photo
A profile’s background photo should always be a large, high-resolution image to avoid any stretching or distortion. Usually a good background photo can be found on the client’s website, but looking through their Facebook and other social media accounts is also helpful.
To upload a background photo, go to Settings > FareHarbor Profile > Style. Here you can upload a photo or input a six-digit HTML color code.
You can use a background color if you can’t find a good photo of the appropriate size or resolution. The best practice is to use a color that is prominently featured on the client’s website. You can find multiple color-matching programs and websites online, like this one for basic HTML color codes.
Whether you use a photo or a color code, you should always check the profile after adding either in order to make sure it looks perfect. Tweak the color code by a few digits or crop the photo by a few pixels until it looks exactly as it should.
Logo
The logo will appear centered on top of the background photo that you have added to the profile. Logos can almost always be ripped from a client’s website.
However, not all logos are created equal. Logos that are basic .jpg files aren’t ideal, because you’ll often see unwanted white space around the logo when it’s placed over the background image.
When you are searching a client’s website and social media accounts for a good logo file, look for a .png file with a transparent background (generally indicated by a light gray-and-white checker pattern behind the image). Logos like this look much more natural on top of a background image.
Once you’ve located a good logo file, go to Settings > Logo & Contact to upload the logo.
Here you’ll see two options: Primary Logo and Profile Logo. In many cases, you’ll only need to upload a primary logo. However, keep in mind that the primary logo will need to look good on a white background (such as receipts) whereas the profile logo may be designed to look better on a darker background.
Tagline
The last element of most profile headers is the tagline: a simple phrase that will appear below the logo in the header.
If the client’s business has a slogan or catchphrase, this is what should be used as the tagline. However, many companies include their slogan or catchphrase in the logo itself, in which case adding a tagline is unnecessary.
To add a tagline, go to Settings > FareHarbor Profile > General and enter the tagline in the first field.
Profile Body
Below the header you’ll see the main body of the FareHarbor Profile, which features several key elements: social media links, homepage content and slideshow, and a directions link.
You can fill out the location, directions URL, and homepage content under Settings > FareHarbor Profile > General (the homepage slideshow has its own tab).
Location/Directions Link
Though seemingly minor, the directions link is a nice touch. In the example above, the Key West, FL link will take you to a Google Map of Fury’s location.
Add the text of the link in the Location field. This should be the city or municipality in which the client is located.
To generate the Directions URL, follow the below steps.
- Google the address of the business
Find and click the “Get directions” option at the top of the Google search results
Click the “Menu” icon (the three horizontal lines in the top-left of the directions field)
Select “Share or embed map,” which will prompt a field with the embed link
Select the “Short URL” checkbox and copy the shortened link
Go back to the client’s Dashboard and paste the URL into the “Directions URL” field
This allows customers to click the Directions link, enter their own address as the starting point, and get directions right to our client’s doorstep.
Homepage Content
The text that appears beside the slideshow is the Homepage Content. This is generally a short description of the company and will either be provided in the onboarding doc, or can be ripped from the company’s website (the Homepage or About Me sections are generally good for finding this type of content).
You may have to improvise something, but be careful not to go too far off script. Only describe the company using language that the company uses to describe itself.
Homepage Slideshow
The homepage slideshow is the main feature of the body of the profile and should ideally feature three to five excellent-quality photos from the client’s website (you can also check Facebook, TripAdvisor or Yelp).
For best results, we recommend choosing landscape-oriented photos (or photos that can be cropped into a landscape format), with a width of 700 pixels or more.
Upload images for this slideshow from the Homepage Slideshow tab. Like with the header, choosing images of the right proportion is important for making this look good.
After adding an image, click Edit and crop it to within the parameters provided to have a better idea of what it will look like on the homepage. You may need to make subtle tweaks in order to ensure that the slideshow looks as good as possible.
Social Media URLs
This is a nice touch and an important feature because it allows FareHarbor to drive more traffic to a company’s other web presences, exposing customers to even more of what our clients have to offer.
Enter the company’s social media URLs under Settings > Info & Policies > Social Media. Each account that is added will appear as an icon on the profile.
Pages
The About, FAQ, and Company Policies pages are optional, but can be useful. Use information from the company’s website to fill in this content.