Topics: Function diary | Function room groups | Viewing and modifying booking event details | Moving, modifying, and creating booking events | Viewing availability for multiple properties

Availability: Guestrooms and function space

A good part of your day is probably spent checking for available space. For example, your client is looking for 20 rooms for three nights with a breakfast and meeting each day. You can quickly determine which guestrooms and function rooms are available for those dates from one central location, the Availability page. To open the Availability page, click the Availability tab.

After you open the Availability page, enter the client's arrival date in the Date field and press the Enter key, or click the Calendar button and select the date then click Go. The page will update to display inventory for that day.

The Availability page is divided into three sections:

If you need more room to work, click the Open in New Window button in the top left corner. If you leave the Availability page open most of the day, you may want to click the Refresh button occasionally to ensure that you have the most up-to-date data.

If you don’t want to view a section, you can hide it and display it again later. For example, to view the entire Function Diary, you can hide the daily information and guestroom bookings sections using the blue buttons at the top left. Your viewing selections will be saved for the next time you open the Availability page.

Function diary

All of your function space has been entered into the system and is displayed in the Function diary in an easy-to-read format.

Function rooms are listed on the left with the date and time across the top. Booking events are color coded by status: red is prospect, blue is tentative, and green is definite.

You can quickly change your view to a varying number of days or weeks using the buttons at the top of the page. Use the 1 Day view when you need exact times. The 2 Week and 4 Week views are convenient when a group needs a particular room for five consecutive days or the bride is looking for any available Saturday night in June.

Function room groups

When you first open the function diary it automatically displays all function rooms. For small single property hotels this is ideal. However, if you sell function space at multiple properties or if your property has a lot of function space, it can be time consuming and cumbersome to search hundreds of rooms. To filter your view, use the Function Room Groups picklist. Select the check box next to each function room group you want to view and click Go.

The following example displays meeting rooms for Newmarket Plaza and The City Hotel. To clear the function room group filter, click the X next to the Function Room Groups picklist. This clears all filters on the Diary.

Viewing and modifying booking event details

Moving, modifying, and creating booking events

You can move, modify, and create new events directly from the Function Diary. Later in this course we'll review how to create booking events in more detail—this is just a preview!

You can delete an event by right-clicking it in the Function Diary and clicking Delete.

Viewing availability for multiple properties

If you book a cluster of hotels and you need to see which one has the space you need on a certain date, remember this time saver. Using the Properties picklist, you can switch between properties if you want to see them one at a time, or you can view all of them together for comparison.

If you book business at multiple properties, you can set up your Availability page to display inventory for those properties. Select two or more properties in the Properties picklist selection window, then click Go to quickly see which one has availability for your group.

Quiz time

1. You just added a Breakfast event to your booking and want to add the breakfast buffet menu. What's the quickest way to add the menu?
   
   • Click the Add Menus button at the top of the Availability page.
   • Close the Function Diary. Open the booking and click the Add Menu icon.
   • Right-click the event and select Manage Menus and Items. You can then search for the menu you want to add.

   The right-click options in the Function Diary make it easy for you to quickly access the Manage Menus and Items page where you can detail the BEO.

2. Based on the following image, Salon AB is available on the evening of Tuesday, April 24th.
   
   
   
   • True
   • False

   In this example, the Function Diary is set to display three days at a time. You can see that on the evening of Tuesday, April 24th, there are no events scheduled in Salon AB. If you had a question about the current event in that room, you could point to the event and view the event type, time, and other details. For the most detailed information, you can change your view to 1 Day.

Summary

The Availability page provides the most complete view of your property's inventory. Although there are other ways to check space, the Availability page is the one that provides the most information in one convenient view.

Continue to the next lesson to learn how to how to create and manage inquiries. You'll be pleased to learn how easy it is to add and manage inquiries and convert them to bookings.

Next Topic > Inquiries