Defining Facilities and Parks for Reservation

 

 

When facilities are set up to be available for reservation, Sportsman uses the term Defining Facilities.  This introductory document will walk you through a step by step process on how to define your parks, fields and facilities and make them available for reservation.  This could include setting up a community room, park pavilion, or ball field.  There are multiple ways to set-up your parks in Sportsman, and this document with highlight a few tips including the best practices and organization techniques that will make it easy.   You can associate your facilities with activities later – such as associating (we use the term “linking”) league games with specific fields or a swimming event with part or all of a pool.  Of course, some facilities, such as community room rentals might not be associate with a program or activity and may only be provided for reservations by patrons.  

 

Facilities can be defined in several ways including pre-defined timeslots where one reservation is allowed for each defined slot – these are typical for small meeting rooms where 10, one hour slots may be defined for reservation on daily basis.   The second method is free form in which a facility such as a picnic pavilion is available say for the entire day (say 6pm thru 10pm) but can be reserved for any time frame  desired within that available time that meets the parameters (say 2pm to 6pm). Parameter such as  minimum reservation time and buffers between reservations can be established.

 

Many facility reservations are made in ‘time slots’ – specific blocks of time which might be for 1 hour slots for a meeting room, to full day slots for a picnic pavilion.   ‘Timeslots’ is an important term in Sportsman and more advance actions can be taken with them such as providing QR codes to your patrons for admission at the appointed ‘timeslot’ day/time.     

 

Before getting started consider how you would like to organize your facility hierarchies - think about how your patrons might search for categories and subcategories and also consider your internal reporting needs.    The following are a few examples of hierarchies. 

                                                                                      

 

The general process is to establish the top one or two tiers of the hierarchy, (those larger facility categories such as Ball Parks, Willow Field, Resource Rooms, Senior Center) with basic settings.  If these tiers will not be made available for reservations in their entirety you will not need to define specific reservation availability and pricing.

 

When you start to define facilities at the level you would make available for reservations or for assignment with activities (WP North Soccer Field, JP Baseball Field 3, Meeting Room 1, Yoga Room) then you will enter more detail such as days/times available, pricing, restrictions and more. 

 

You can add photos and directions at any and all levels and include icons to further design what is presented to your staff and patrons when they make reservations.

 

Prerequisites:  Make sure you have Sportsman user rights to activity definition before you start.

 

Other Resources:

Multisite/Multiday Facility Reservations (Campgrounds)

Using QR Codes for Activity or Facility Reservations

 

This Document will cover:

ü Adding a New Facility Category and Sub-Categories

•      Defining Time Slot Availability and Pricing

•      Defining Free-Form Availability and Pricing

 

Adding a New Facility Category and Sub-Categories

 

To start navigate to Define>Facilities/Parks

 

When defining your parks, you will need to start with adding a top-level main category which will be the highest level in your hierarchy.  Examples could include: Pavilions, Playing Fields, Resource Rooms, Pools etc.

From the ‘Add Edit Facility/Park Resources’ screen click on the [Add Top-Level Facility/Park] Button.  This will help you set up the highest/broadest category in your hierarchy.

 

 

 

On the next screen, on the General tab, fill in the name of the header (e.g. Ball Parks).   Check the Available for Activity/Scheduling check box in the restriction section as shown below. You will need to choose a GL account as well.

 

 

If you want patrons to be allowed to reserve the parks on your ActivityReg registration website, then click on the ‘Internet’ tab and select the Show on Internet and Allow Internet Reservations.  Some Sportsman users only want facilities to be reserved by park staff. Other options include Show Availability where patrons could see availability on your ActivityReg website but would need to call or visit your center to reserve.

 

 

Next, click on the ‘Pricing and Availability’ tab near the top.

 

 

On the pricing and availability screen you only need to select Resource then click [OK] to return the prior screen.  The term “resource” generally means this is a category of similar facilities or locations. You will be adding additional setting and descriptions in your ‘child’ or ‘under’ resources in your hierarchy, so there is generally no need to provide additional settings and detail at the Top Level.

 

 

After creating a top category, you have the option to define the sub-category facilities.   These will be the second tier to the main level you just created. We refer to these in Sportsman as “Unders”.   Examples include:  specific parks or locations of groups of ball fields such as North Fields, Willow Park Fields etc., a subcategory of rooms such as Meeting Rooms, Multipurpose Rooms,  or a subcategory of pools such as Indoor Pool, Outdoor Pool, Kiddie Pool.

 

Highlight the top level you created above (in this example “Ball Parks”) and click on [Add New Under Selected Item].

 

Next fill in the name of the facility sub-category and location. In the example below we are naming our sub-category “Willow Park” and adding its location as “Northside”.  

 

 

 

In the restriction section you will need to mark Available for Activity Scheduling  then select the GL account. If you want patrons to be allowed to reserve the parks online, then click on the [Internet] tab and select the Show on Internet and Allow Internet Reservations options.  Even if you will not be making this entire resource available for reservations, these settings are established so that any ‘Unders’ will be able to be viewed, if allowed, on your ActivityReg website. 

 

Notice that under the Features, Direction and Photos tabs you can add lists of amenities, add directions and even post a picture of the park to your ActivityReg page.  On the upper left, under the Location you can even add an icon to add more color and design to show patrons on your ActivityReg page.

 

 

Next, like we did for the top category, click on the pricing and ‘Pricing and Availability’ tab.

 

 

At this point you can move to the next steps if you are planning to allow reservations at this level of the hierarchy (Willow Park in its entirety).  If you are not, you will want to again select the Resource option on the ‘Pricing and Availability’ screen (as was done for your Top tier) and click [OK].

 

You may want to return to the above steps and define additional 2^nd level “Under” resource facilities, or you may want to add a 3^rd level of  “Under” facilities (specific ball fields or resource rooms) under your 2^nd level.  

 

Before proceeding you need to determine whether you want to set up pre-defined time slots for your facility or want to make your facility available during open hours and allow your patrons and activities to determine the length of the reservation (referred to as free-form reservations.   

 

Defining Time Slot Availability and Pricing

 

The following steps are for facilities at the level that will be reserved by patrons or activities.  In our example it is unlikely that you would allow a reservation for the entire “Ball Fields” top level or even reservations for your 2^nd level “Willow Park” or “Jonah Park”.   It is only at the 3^rd level in our examples above (specific fields and rooms) where you may want to establish the specific availability times, pricing, and restrictions to define the reservation parameters.

 

This section will help you establish pre-defined time slots for reservations by patrons and activities.  In the next step you will set all the parameters.    

 

Select the Predefined Time Slots radio button. Then click [New].                 

                                     

 

 

This will populate the ‘Add/Modify Park Time Slots’ screen.  Here you have to the option to select the Single Slot or Multiple Slots options. If you will only be making 1 reservation per day for this facility (which may be the case for a picnic pavilion), then select Single Slot.  If you need to add more than one time slot in a day (which maybe the case for ball fields and yoga rooms) the click on the Multiple Slots option.

 

If you select the Single Slot option, you will then add the time and day the facility is available to reserve and click [OK].

 

 

If you selected the Multiple Slots option, you will then add the earliest start time and the latest along with the increment of each slot.  (E.g. If your field is available from 5:00PM -11:00PM and in 60 minute increments, then you would put the time in as shown below.)

This is how you will reserve ball parks for your leagues as well, so make sure you include the days and times these facilities need to be available for the games.     

Click [OK] to save.

 

 

 

Once you return to the ‘Pricing and Availability’ tab you can do many things including:

·       Add a buffer between reservations on the left

·       Require more than 1 slot as a minimum for the reservation

·       Add scheduling restrictions in the top right of the screen.

·       Add pricing in the lower left of the panel,

·       Add exceptions in the lower right

·       Configure damage deposit setting toward the lower left.

Clidk [OK] when you have fully defined all your pricing and availability.

 

 

 

Defining Free-Form Availability and Pricing

 

Facilities can be defined in several ways including pre-defined timeslots where one reservation is allowed for each slot or Free form in which a facility is available say for the entire day but can be reserved for any block that meets the parameters (such as minimum reservation time and buffers). 

 

From the ‘Add or Edit Facility/Park Definitions’ screen click on the ‘Pricing and Availability’ tab.

 

Complete the availability time window, buffers and minimum time along with pricing on the left panel.   On the right you can enter Scheduling Restrictions and exceptions.  You can also add damage deposits and send QR codes for entry in the bottom left.   Click [OK] when you have completed your set up.

 

SM:DFR:B:Oct20