Using “search by date” for online booking
Last updated: March 22, 2023
Heads up! You may not have the necessary permissions to use this feature. If you do not see this option in your Dashboard, contact FareHarbor Support.
Depending on travelers’ schedules or preferences, certain online booking flows may provide a better customer experience than others. For example, if a customer knows what date they want to book an activity, they may find it easier to browse available options by day instead of viewing a calendar for each activity individually.
Using the search by date view for online booking lets your customers choose a date from the calendar and see a preview of all activities offered that day:
How it works
When booking online, your customers will see the same display of items they normally would, with a new Search by date option instead of the Calendar of availability option.
Selecting Search by date will open a small calendar that a customer can use to choose a specific date.
Once a date is selected, the customer will see all activities that are bookable online for that date. Item descriptions can be viewed by clicking “Details”. At any time, the customer can select “Browse activities” to go back to your item grid view.
Once an activity and time have been selected, the customer will be taken to the checkout page to complete their booking as usual.
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Enabling search by date
To turn on this feature, go to advanced company settings and enable the “search by date” view for online booking (located under “View”).
Note: Profile pages must be disabled before search by date can be enabled. Read more about why we’re deprecating profile pages.
Other design changes to online booking
With the launch of this feature, certain parts of the online booking process will be updated for all companies, regardless of whether or not they use search by date.
Slideshows will display the first photo by default, with a preview of the rest of the photos below (select a photo to view a larger version). Photos will no longer auto-advance.
These updates were made to improve accessibility, making slideshows more usable for end customers who use keyboard or other assistive tools to navigate through the booking process.
Navigation breadcrumbs will use a
button instead of a back button.
Other important notes
When search by date is enabled, the booking flow header will include the company logo. If no logo has been uploaded, the company’s name will be displayed in text.
When browsing by date, end customers can either select Search by date to choose from a calendar, or click the magnifying glass icon to be taken to the next available date with availabilities.
The calendar in the search by date dropdown is not color-coded based on availability. Once the user is focused on a specific date, the small calendar will be color-coded based on availability, as usual.
When setting up booking flows, the “Include calendar” option in Page Settings will be replaced with “Include search by date”:
Search by date enabled versus when it’s not enabled:
