Seating troubleshooting cheat sheet

• If moved/duplicated seats are not appearing in the right place in the seat map builder, this usually has to do with the way the existing seats are ordered in the builder. By default, the seat that’s highest in the list will be placed where you click your cursor (regardless of whether it was the first seat you selected during multi-select).

• If a zone isn’t showing up under the resource requirement option’s seating settings, check the resource settings to ensure all bookable zones are selected. If a new zone was recently added to the seat map, it won’t be automatically checked in the resource settings, and won’t get reflected in the requirement option settings.

  

Seat maps aren’t showing up in the book form or the Dashboard

• When in doubt, refresh. Seating settings may have changed since the user first landed on the page, or bookings may have been made that caused some seats to be unavailable.

• Check for hidden customer types or hidden resource requirements. If customer types or resources are hidden on the current price sheet, the related seat maps will not be shown.

Seat map is showing up multiple times

• Check the resource requirements on the availability for different time ranges. In order to accommodate out-and-back trips and other activities that use seatable resources for multiple time ranges, the seat map viewer will display every possible time range when rendering seat maps, according to the resource requirement group that’s been added to the availability.

  • This means if one resource requirement option has a different length than the others, it will be reflected as another time range in the viewer, and the seat map will be shown again for that time range.

• Check to see if one or more booking is using outdated resource requirements. If resource requirements have changed since a booking was created, and the new requirements use a different time range, the old time range will still be shown in the seat map viewer in the Dashboard. To get bookings up to date with new resource requirements, use the auto-assign option from the availability or manifest seating tool.

• A summary of this information is also in the FAQs section on the client-facing page about managing seat assignments. Feel free to direct clients to that section if needed.

Parts of the seat map aren’t bookable as expected

• When in doubt, refresh. Seating settings may have changed since the user first landed on the page, or bookings may have been made that caused some seats to be unavailable.

• Check for hidden customer types or hidden resource requirements. If customer types or resources are hidden on the current price sheet, the related areas on the map will not be bookable.

• Check the resource settings to ensure all bookable zones are selected. If a new zone was recently added to the seat map, it won’t be automatically checked in the resource settings, and won’t get reflected in requirements where customers can be seated in “all zones on resource”.

Capacity is higher than expected

• Check the related resource’s auto-assignment settings. Certain seating-specific rules, like exclusive groups and zone restrictions, can only be reflected in capacity when auto-assignment is on.

Capacity is lower than expected

• Check the resource requirements for any restrictive settings, such as exclusive groups or split parties not allowed.

• Check the resource requirements to make sure zones are mapped to customer types correctly. If an Adult customer type is only mapped to Section A when in fact they should be mapped to Section A, B, and C, capacity numbers will take that into account.

• Check for other types of capacity that might have been set for that particular date or availability (resource overrides, availability capacity, customer type capacity, customer type min/max, etc.)

Seats are auto-assigned into unexpected location

• If unexpected auto-assignment behavior is happening while making a booking, try using the Auto-assign button (located in the Seating section at the top of the book form).

  • Sometimes, parties can get unexpectedly split up if the user manually chooses one or more seats from the seat map, then adds additional customers using the dropdowns. The additional customers will be auto-assigned while the originally selected seats remain in place. Using the Auto-assign button should fix this.

• Check the resource requirements for any restrictive settings, such as exclusive groups or split parties not allowed.

  • “Don’t allow split parties across seat groups” means that seats were assigned in the first available group that could fit the entire party.
  • “Make seat groups exclusive” means that seats were assigned in the first available empty group.

• If dealing with resource requirements that use more than 1 seat resource per customer (for example, a Family Pass setup) and a user selects a single seat on the map, the rest of the seats for that customer type will be auto-assigned into the first available seats in the same group.

  • This means that the rest of the seats required for the Family Pass may not always be assigned immediately next to the manually selected seat, if the manually selected seat is not ordered at the top of the seat group. Using the Auto-assign button should re-assign all the seats together.

• If dealing with cascading resource requirements, check the resource requirements to ensure that requirement options are in the correct order, and whether or not split parties are allowed across resources.

  • Note that resource requirements may be set at the item level or company level. In the availability’s settings, use the blue jump link next to the requirements dropdown to go directly to the requirement group.

• Check the seat map layout and ensure that seats and groups are ordered as expected.

A summary of this information is also in the FAQs section on the client-facing page about auto-assignment. Feel free to direct clients to that section if needed.

Seats are unassigned after a booking is created

In less common scenarios, it’s possible for seats to be auto-assigned or selected when creating the booking, then unassigned after the booking is created. This can happen when:

• The customer type selections become outdated before the booking is made.
  • Example: A reservationist selects 6 adults on the direct book form, then another booking is made somewhere else that causes the remaining seats in the seat map to be filled, then the reservationist completes the booking for 6 adults. In this scenario, if the reservationist has permission to overuse resources, they are still allowed to complete the booking, but no warning is shown that seats will be overused.
  • This same behavior exists with availability capacity, customer type capacity, etc.
• Resource max uses are changed or a resource override is created before the booking is made.
  • Example: a reservationist selects 6 adults on the direct book form, then another user creates a resource override for the same day. When the reservationist completes the booking, resources are now overused and seats are not assigned.

A summary of this information is also in the FAQs section on the client-facing page about auto-assignment. Feel free to direct clients to that section if needed.

See the section below for additional warnings and error messages a user might see while creating a direct booking.

“X unassigned seats”

• Check that the correct resource is being used for each customer. To do this, open the resource summary on the book form (located below the “unassigned seats” warning).

  • If the correct resources are being used, check that auto-assignment is enabled in each resource’s settings. If auto-assignment is disabled and it should be enabled, enable it and then retry booking.
  • If the correct resource is not being used, double check that the correct resource requirement group is added to the availability, and ensure that requirements in the requirement group are set up correctly. If any changes need to be made, be sure to refresh the book form before trying again.

• Check for split party rules in the resource requirements.

  • Example: The largest party that can fit at a single table is 8, and splitting parties across tables is not allowed. If a reservationist with permission to overbook tries to create a booking for 10 people, they will be warned that they are overusing resources, but still allowed to create the booking. In this instance, seats will be unassigned to ensure the party is manually placed where the company wants them, and resource capacity will still be used to prevent online overbooking.

“Overusing exclusive seat groups”

This message will be shown in the resource summary (located below the availability date and time) when exclusive groups are enabled and any of the following are true:

• An exclusive group is already in use by another party and the user is attempting to book a new party into that group
• All exclusive groups are filled but a seat has been auto-assigned into one of them (this is still possible if the user decides to override the exclusive group limitation using the dropdowns)

“(Resource name) does not have enough available seats”

This message will be shown in the resource summary (located below the availability date and time) when either of the following are true:

• The resource’s max uses are being exceeded
• The number of bookable seats on the seat map is being exceeded

Usually, resource max uses and the number of bookable seats on the seat map should be equal, but in the event they are not, we will still display this message when either one is being overused.

“Invalid time range”

If you see this message when trying to assign seats for an existing booking, it’s usually due to a resource requirement mismatch (for example, the booking was made with one set of requirements, and those requirements have since changed).

The solution is usually reapplying resources to “sync up” with the latest requirements which will allow you to assign seats as needed. Instead of having to go to the booking itself to reapply resources, you can click the “auto-assign” button, which both reapplies resources and auto-assigns seats based on the new requirements.

“One or more of your selections are no longer available…” message

There are several scenarios that may cause an online customer’s selected seats to become unavailable while they’re booking. If this happens, the customer will see this message when they try to continue in the booking process. Invalid seats will be automatically updated (either be auto-assigned or unassigned based on the Dashboard settings). The customer can then choose new seats or complete their booking with the automatically updated seats.

Note: If the company has online cart enabled and this message is triggered when they’re trying to complete the cart order, invalid seats won’t be automatically updated until the customer returns to the specific booking.

Causes for an online customer’s selected seats to become unavailable before they complete their booking:

• Another booking is created at the same time, using the same seats
• Another booking is updated at the same time, moving existing customers into the selected seats
• One or more selected seats are blocked off for that time range
• One or more selected seats are removed from the seat map

Other less common causes for a customer’s seats to become invalid or change unexpectedly:

• Auto-assignment settings are changed while the customer is booking
• Resource requirements are changed while the customer is booking (for example, swapping out the requirement group or removing the requirement for a specific customer type)
• Seating-specific resource requirements are changed while the customer is booking (for example, changing which zones a customer type can be booked into, or making seat groups exclusive)

“Sorry, there are no available options for this seat”

If a user is seeing this message when choosing from the map, it’s usually because the related customer type has a per-booking minimum and the seat capacity is 1. In this case, the customer type can only be selected from the dropdowns, not from the seat map.

Customer type is disabled or not visible when choosing from the map

This can happen when:

• The customer type is not mapped to a zone on the seat map. If the resource requirements don’t include seating requirements for a specific customer type, that customer type will not be available when choosing from the map.
• The company uses customer type openers/closers. These work the same way they do for regular bookings. For example, the “Child” customer type will be greyed out and not available until at least one Adult has been assigned a seat.

Seating information isn’t appearing as expected on emails or receipts

• If you don’t see seating information in the customer breakdown on emails or receipts, check the “Starting party size for summarized receipts” setting in advanced company settings. When the customer table is summarized, custom fields and seating assignments will not be shown.
• Note that the way seating information is displayed on emails varies depending on the email type. On confirmation, reminder, and rebooked emails, a summary of all customers’ seats (including seating notes) is shown at the top of the booking, and again in the customer breakdown. On message emails, seats are only shown in the customer breakdown.

Seating information is not showing up on Boca tickets

• Make sure the correct ticket layout is selected when printing. If a company has more than one ticket layout and only certain layouts include seating information, it’s possible they’ve accidentally chosen the wrong layout.

  

• Verify that the ticket layout has seating added to it.
  • Note that Boca tickets are managed separately from other forms of customer communication. Even if “Display seating assignments on emails, confirmations, and receipts” is enabled in an item’s settings, seating won’t be shown on tickets unless the ticket layout includes seating.
  • See this section for steps on how to add seating to Boca tickets.
• Note that seating information is not included on whole party tickets, only individual tickets.