You control the combination of options that implement your advance court reservation policy. There are two places in the software that you control court reservation rules.
Reservation Restrictions specify how far in advance a
player may book a court (Basic Settings | Tennis Court Scheduler |
Option # 3 - Reservation Restrictions).
Player Access determines other privileges (Basic
Settings | Tennis Court Scheduler | Option # 6 - Player Access) such as
what players can see about other reservations, how many future dated
reservations a player may hold at any given point in time, and maximum
reservation duration for singles and for doubles.
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Player Access (Basic
Settings | Tennis Court Scheduler | Option # 6 - Player Access) rules are by member type. Please make sure you complete a "rule" for each member type even if the member type does not have court reservation privileges - please complete a rule to indicate that.
Do not allow same day reservations
This option will override the reservation restrictions by preventing "same day" reservations to be made online (by players, staff always has the ability to make same day reservations and adjustments). This was implemented for tennis facilities that want to run the "current day" on paper. A typical scenario is for the front desk to print the court schedule in the morning and then make notes at check-in, often turning the court sheets in to the business office at the end of the day (to record fees collected / not collected, no-shows, etc).
Allow non-logged in visitors to view the court scheduler
Check this box to allow a "guest view" (non logged in or anonymous web site visitor) of the court scheduler. NOTE: If you allow this option you should create a "guest view preface" which will be presented when a guest chooses to view the court schedule. See Basic Settings | Tennis Court Scheduler | Option # 13 - Guest View Preface). You should also consider hiding the players names (from other players / web site guests).
Show Scheduler in the site for members
Shows the Court Scheduler menu link for logged in members (should be turned on if you are using the tennis court scheduler). NOTE: If you need to take the scheduler offline for any reason (example: power out at the tennis facility) you can uncheck this box and also turn the scheduler off at Basic Settings | Web Site Settings | Option # 8 - Navigation Settings.
Hide players name on ALL reservations
Masks the player's name from other players. Reservation will appear as "BOOKED" for consumers. Staff will still see player names.
TIP: This is common for tennis facilities showing the guest view (mostly public parks). Private clubs tend not to show the guest view and tend to show players names to other players so that each player knows who they are following on to the courts, who is playing on the adjacent courts, etc.
Hide players name on lesson reservations
Masks the players name on lessons. Staff will still see the player name.
Show the SCHEDULE button in court scheduler for members
Enables the "Schedule" button for logged in members. This feature is only turned "off" if you are using express reservations and want to force all players to always use express reservations rather than seeing the court scheduler in the day view. The feature was implemented to address a response time situation for a tennis facility with 48 courts and a slow Internet connection. The "Schedule" function presents all available courts, all time slots, which for 48 courts open 14 hours is 1,344 time slots that need to be "painted" for each day. The Express Reservation feature was developed in order to prevent the customers from experiencing slow response times.
Send confirmation email when changing a reservation
Instructs the system to send an email to a player when their court reservation is changed. This feature was implemented based on feedback from several clubs who "reserve the right to change court assignment" and did not want to bother the player with change notifications as the club staff moved the reservation to a different court.
Future Reservation Restrictions
This is an abuse prevention control that works "in addition to" Reservation Restrictions (how far in advance you can book a court). Enforce N number of reservations in X number of days prevents abuse by limiting the number of future dated reservations a player may hold at any given point in time.
Max Singles and Doubles Reservation
Check the box and set the time limits if applicable. This is another abuse prevention control to prevent a player from booking more than the allotted time in your policy.
Exceptions and Notes - things to control at check-in
We have been able to accommodate almost all court reservation policies, with a few exceptions. No software program is going to be able to police every rule, and anyone wanting to circumvent a system will find a way. Here are some requests and discussion points that may help answer questions about why we do what we do.
1) TennisConnect does not support 15 minute increments. This is a showstopper. There is no way around this. If you require 15 minute increments the Tennis Court Scheduler will not work for you.
2) TennisConnect does not have an "inside" booking horizon. Reservation Restrictions set the "outside" time / day(s) that you can book a tennis court in advance, but we do not have a "not within X hours / days" other than to prevent "same day" reservations.
3) TennisConnect can control the advance booking horizon and the number of reservations that a player can hold at any given time, but we do not track "per day" usage. If your policy is that a player can play once a day then you can still use TennisConnect but the software is not going to enforce this aspect of your policy.
We can use TennisConnect successfully by continuing to use your existing manual policy enforcement tools. For some clubs where this is an issue, they use member tokens (or cards) and mark the card at check-in.
4) Member Types and Court Groups work great for facilities with different types of members and courts, and TennisConnect can enforce different advance court booking rules by member type and court group, BUT there is one example we do not support: Once a member type has advance court booking privleges - they are the same privileges for any eligible court group (the situation we do not support is for a club with indoor courts and outdoor courts and a policy allowing members to book 7 days in advance on the outdoor courts but only 3 days in advance on the indoor courts).
5) TennisConnect does not require "all four player names" to make a reservation. We implemented this before and everyone hated it. For front desk staff it was too time consuming and error prone. For players there was no way to control "ghosting" and tying up somebody else's reservation allocation (plugging the player names with another member). You CAN require that a person making a reservation enter the "other" names in the comments section.
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Tennis Court Reservation - how far in advance
Article ID: 124, Created On: 4/23/2010, Modified: 4/23/2010