Locations

To get started with Locations, you will first need to add a primary Company location. This is the company location used to autofill certain information when customers are booking online and on invoices and payment receipts. To add a primary company location:

1. Go to the Settings section of your Dashboard, then select Locations from the settings menu (located under Communication).
2. Click New Location.

3. Add a name for your location.

   Optional: Add Instructions for your customers if they might need additional information to know where to go.

4. Enter the location address, latitude, and longitude.

   Optional: Check the box “Use coordinates instead of address for Google directions link” if you want to direct customers to your exact latitude/longitude in Google Maps.

5. Add your Google Place ID. This ID is used to uniquely identify your business in Google Places, Google Maps, and show your Google ratings during the online booking process. . When searching for a Google Place ID, search for the name of the location, and not the address. For example, search for “ABC Tour Company” or “Center Square Monument”, rather than “123 Main Street.” Find your Google Place ID or read more about why using a Google Place ID is important).

6. Click Create location.
7. Navigate to the Settings tab.
8. Select the location you have created from the dropdown under Company Location, then select Save changes.

You can create another location to use as your “Item primary location”, which is the primary location that will be used for all of your items by default. To create an Item primary location, follow the same instructions above, and for the final step, under “Item primary location”, select the location you would like as the default location when creating Items, then select Save changes.

You can also change a specific item’s primary location in the item’s settings. Read more about managing item locations for steps on how to customize this.

Adding new locations

You can always add more locations if you have more than one address that you want to be able to share with customers. To add more locations, follow the first five steps above.

Editing locations

Click Edit » next to a location to edit its settings. At the top of this page, you can also see how many items are currently using the location. Click on an item to go to its settings.

Deleting a location

1. Go to the Settings section of your Dashboard.
2. Select Locations from the settings menu (located under Communication).
3. Click Edit » next to the location you want to delete.
4. Scroll down and click the Delete location button.

Keep in mind that customers who received emails before the location was deleted may still see that location in their emails, if it was previously associated with an item they booked. In this case, you may want to send an updated email noting the location change. Learn more about emailing customers.

Once you’ve added one or more locations, you can determine how they’re used by going to Settings > Locations and clicking the Settings tab. You can customize locations to use before your activities, at the start of your activities, and more.

Location Headings act as the text displayed above the location address in customer emails. There are four different location types, each with their own default heading:

• Pre-activity: “Before we begin:”
• Start: “Please meet us at:”
• Primary: “We’re headed to:”
• End: “We will end at:”

If desired, you can customize these default headings by typing your own text into the box and saving your changes. If no text has been added, the default headings will be used instead.

For each item in your Dashboard, you can set a pre-activity, start, primary, and/or end location. Each of these settings is optional, and you can always remove one or more locations if you decide you do not want to use them for that item.

• Pre-activity location: Where customers should go before the activity (for example: parking, gear rental, will-call tickets, etc.)
• Start location: Where to meet at the start of the activity
• Primary location: By default, your item primary location will be used, but you can choose a custom location for the item by selecting from the dropdown.
• End location: Where the activity will end (if different from the start)

To update an item’s locations, go to the item’s settings and navigate to Info & Policies > Notes & Policies.

Here’s an example of a confirmation email containing a pre-activity location and a primary location:

How do locations and confirmation notes interact?

Confirmation notes are always included in confirmation and reminder emails to your customers. If one or more location is set for an item, location information will be displayed in customer emails in addition to your confirmation notes, by default.

If you don’t want to display location informations for an item, you can remove all locations from that item by following these steps. Or, if you still want to associate a location with an item but do not want it to be visible to customers, contact FareHarbor Support.

How do locations and transportation interact?

If you have transportation enabled in FareHarbor, the information your customers see in their confirmation emails will depend on whether or not they’ve booked an item with transportation.

Whenever the transportation custom field has been filled out on a booking, transportation details (pickup or self-transportation information) will be shown in customer emails instead of location information.

If the transportation custom field has not been filled out on a booking, the location information for that item will be shown instead. To avoid customers receiving conflicting information about how to get to your activity, we will only ever display transportation details or location details, never both.

What if I don’t want to show locations for one of my items?

If you do not want to display an item’s location(s) in your customer emails, go to the item’s settings and make sure that all locations are set to “None selected.”

1. Go to the Items section of your Dashboard and select the item you want to update.
2. Go to Info & Policies > Notes & Policies.
3. Scroll down and ensure that all locations are set to None selected.
4. Save your changes.

Once these steps are completed, all future emails for that item will be sent without location information.

What does ‘Company default (None selected)’ mean?

By default, the primary location for all items in your Dashboard is determined by the Item Primary Location in your main location settings. If no Item Primary Location has been set, then all items will have Company default (None selected) as their primary location by default.

Why is a Google Place ID important and how do I look it up?

Using a Google Place ID for a location is the preferred way to communicate a location to your customers. Not only does it allow you to connect your Dashboard to Google Things to Do and Google Ratings, but also ensures the location that you share is accurate and exact.

To ensure that the location is as accurate as possible, it is best to use an establishment or landmark-specific Place ID. Avoid using addresses or Google maps links as this may not send an accurate location or impede on functionality for Google Ratings and Google Things to do.

If you’re trying to input your company location by searching for a Google Place ID, try inputting the name of your tour company instead of your address (for example, use “ABC Tour Company” instead of “123 Main Street”). If you’re trying to input a meeting location, search for the name of the meeting place (for example, “Center Square Monument”).

If you cannot find a Google Place ID by searching, then it is best to use an address-based Place ID.

In general, using a Google Place ID (even if it is an address-based Place ID) is always better than using just the address because a Place ID is more accurate. When rendering the location, Google uses the Place ID to determine where the activity location is. If the Place ID is establishment or landmark-based, it is guaranteed that Google will link directly to the true location. If we send just an address, Google will make an educated guess of the nearest establishment, which may not be accurate.

• Structured location data makes it easier for us to gather and analyze information about our clients and bookings
• Allows us to connect with more APIs (especially in Europe)
• Allows clients to take advantage of FareHarbor’s growing number of location-related features
• Determines whether we can collect booking fees on gift cards for states that allow it (US only)

A default company location is required for all Dashboards, regardless of whether the company has a consistent physical location that is used for all items.

All fields of the Company Location address must be completed.

Companies like walking tours or any other company that doesn’t have consistent meeting points will still need a default company address. You can simply uncheck Show this location to customers in the location settings to make sure customers cannot see that default location.

The Location instructions field should include relevant information, such as directions, and details such as important landmarks, parking information, etc. It should not include item-specific information such as arrival time, since this information varies per item and the location instructions will be displayed on all the items using that location. They should not contain links to external maps, either, since the location feature itself will already generate the Google Maps link.

This option is visible to FareHarbor Admins only, and determines whether or not a location is shown in customer emails and “Add to calendar” links. In some cases, a company may want to associate a location with an item but not show that location to customers.

To ensure a location is never displayed to end customers, go to Settings > Locations, then click Edit next to the location you want to update. Then uncheck the ‘Show this location to customers’ box and save your changes.

• Retail items: Locations will not be shown to customers on retail items.
• Transportation: Locations will not be shown in confirmation emails if the transportation custom field has been filled out on the booking, even if the customer selected self-transportation.
• Confirmation notes: Locations will be shown along with confirmation notes in confirmation and reminder emails. Moving forward, we should avoid putting addresses, maps, directions, etc. in confirmation notes so that they don’t conflict with the location information that’s already being pulled.
• Tripadvisor Review Express: Review Express locations are set up under Locations, but assigned to items separately. Regular locations will be shown in confirmation and reminder emails, while Review Express locations will be shown in automated follow-up emails sent by Tripadvisor.
• Google Things to do: Our Google Things to Do integration uses an item’s Place ID to determine where that product will be returned in Google search results. For more information about how to set up locations to properly interact with Google Things to do, see this help page.

The company’s physical address (located under Settings > Info & Policies > Logo & Contact) will still be used for the following purposes:

• Payment receipts (Boca format only)
• EMV receipts
• Invoices (unless overridden by billing address)
• Determining gift card booking fees
• Auto Google Calendar events (if enabled)

In most cases, a company probably won’t have all four location types set on an item, but if they do, they will be displayed in this order, with the following logic and default headings:

• Pre-activity (“Before we begin:”)
• Start (“Please meet us at:”)
• Primary (“We’re headed to:”)
  • If Start location is not being used, the Primary location heading will be “Please meet us at:”
  • If Start and Primary are pulling the same location, hide the Primary location
• End (“We will end at:”)

Users can customize these headings in their location settings. See the section “Managing company location and headings” on the client-facing part of this page.

Here’s an example of all four location types being used at once:

Our goal is to have as many of our clients set up to take advantage of Google Things to do. Clients that do not operate from any fixed location or only offer custom transportation/pick-up options should not be affected.

We send locations to Google per item following this logic:

1. Item starting point
2. Item primary location
3. Company location

Only one piece of location information is sent per item. If there is no starting point or item primary location set, then the Company location information is sent (even if the item is not set to inherit that location). Because of this, it’s a good idea to have the Google ID set to the company location as backup whenever possible.

Click here to view and download the diagram (PDF) showing when you should use locations, transportation or Custom Fields.

To learn more about Custom Field email Notes click here.