Online booking for events and church services

To configure online booking, proceed as follows:

First, create the form for online bookings. To do this, use the Add content menu (magic wand) to drag a new form onto any page.    

Open the form in the form editor and first create the basic configuration of the Form page, the Input fields, and the Email configuration in the corresponding tabs.

Now switch to the Database Configuration tab and activate the entry of the same name by clicking on the plus symbol on the right-hand side of the screen.

The first fields in this tab allow you to specify the permissions for accessing the online booking database.

User: This determines which rights are used to write to the database. By default, the user who created the form is entered here. This should usually not be changed.

Group: This determines which users  - in addition to the user specified above - will be allowed to manage the online booking database later. Select a suitable group for this purpose.

Content folder: An entry here is usually not necessary. OpenCms uses a suitable default. Otherwise, online bookings are stored in OpenCms in the folder specified here.

Use the following fields to specify which defaults should apply to the number of seats in online bookings. The defaults from the form can be overwritten later in the individual events. Therefore, you do not necessarily have to enter any information here.

Available datasets: Determines how many places are available for an event.

Length of the waiting list: If the regular places are used up, a waiting list of additional interested parties can be kept here. In practice, a person who initially accepted may later decline. Then the first place on the waiting list automatically moves up.

Registrations added otherwise (reduces the available datasets): This entry reduces the number of available places without requiring online bookings to be made. A practical example: Suppose you have 20 available places in an event. Now you receive a call and someone wants to book 3 places for their family but cannot do so online for some reason. In this case, you can manually note the personal details of this “external” booking and reduce the number of regular records by 3 using this field.

The following field determines the names by which the data sets will later be displayed.

Title property of the data sets: The data sets are stored in the database with this name and are also displayed as such in the overview later on. It makes sense to use macros here in order to see as much information as possible directly in the overview. 

An entry in the following form has proven useful for this field:

%(Firstname) %(Lastname) (%(Email))

To do this, you must create fields with the names Firstname, Lastname, and Email in the form's input field configuration. These will then be displayed in the booking overview, allowing you to easily distinguish and assign them at a glance.

In addition, you can specify how many days after the end of the event the stored data records should be automatically deleted.

Delete registrations after event (days): Number of days after the end of the event after which registrations should be deleted. This option is described in detail here (de).

Finally, group booking can be activated as an option to enable booking an event for multiple participants with a single booking.

Input Field Group Size: The input field in the form where the group size is specified. A text field or a select box has to be used. The selected field automatically gets error messages and validation rules; in the case of the select box, the selectable values are also set automatically.

Max. Group Size: The maximum permitted group size per booking is specified here. This is limited to 99 participants.

Note: Group bookings are not permitted for waiting list places.

Create an event (or a church service). If you display the events in a list, you can create a new one directly in the list using the plus symbol. Otherwise, you can drag a new event to any page using the Add content menu (magic wand).

Open the event in the editor and enter the event details in the first two tabs.

Now switch to the Bookability tab and activate the Online booking entry by clicking on the plus symbol on the right-hand side of the screen.

Registration form: Use this field to link the event to a form. This must be configured according to the instructions above.

Individual note or designation: An individual note or description for this event. The entry can be shown in the form configuration in the text and subject line of the generated emails using the placeholder %(event.note). This allows the entry to be used, for example, to better distinguish between events that have been removed from series and all have the same title in the sent emails.

The next fields determine who is the sender of the emails sent during the booking process. You will find these values in the form under the Email configuration tab. If these fields are set, they will override the values specified in the form.

Email sending address: The address from which the confirmation email is sent. For example, online-booking@mysite.com. Overrides the value of the same name from the form.

Email sending name: The name under which the confirmation email is sent. For example, Teo Testperson. Overwrites the value of the same name from the form.

Administrative email recipient: The address to which the administrative emails for the bookings for this event are sent. Overwrites the value Administrative email recipient from the form.

Use the following fields to determine how many places are available for the event. You will find these values in the form under the Database configuration tab.

Total available spots: Determines how many places are available for the event in total. Overwrites the Available datasets value from the form.

Length of waiting list: Overwrites the value from the form.

Registrations added otherwise (reduces the available spots): Overwrites the value from the form.

In addition, you can specify how many days after the end of the event the recorded records should be automatically deleted.

Delete registrations after event (days): Overwrites the value from the form.

Finally, you can set the maximum group size for group bookings.

Max. Group Size: Overwrites the value from the form.

It can be specified that online booking is only available to a certain date.

Final registration date: Bookings for this event are only possible until the end of the specified day. After that, the message “Unfortunately, you can no longer register. The registration deadline has already passed” is displayed instead of the booking form.

For display in a list, you can specify for most teaser types if the number of available places or the registration deadline date is displayed. This is controlled via the element setting Show booking state in the list. If the registration deadline has been reached, this is also displayed in the list.

Here follows an example of an event with online booking. Above, you will see an event in the teaser view and below it the linked form for online booking.

If you follow the Read more link in the event, you will be taken to the detail page, which automatically displays the booking form for the event.

On the detail page, under Show list of submissions, you will find an overview of the places booked so far.

The following event was linked to the online booking form shown below in the editor under the Bookability tab. In the element settings, the Show information about the number of free places option was selected for the Show booking state setting.

The following form is used for online booking of the above event. In addition to the standard configuration of the fields and email, additional information on creating the database was entered in the editor under the Database configuration tab.

Note: The form is shown here as part of the example. However, online booking is only possible on the detail page of an event.

You can access registration management by opening an event in the page editor and clicking on the yellow link “Show list of submissions”. The yellow link is only visible to logged-in users who have administrative rights for an event.

Person lists

Three different booking lists are displayed in submission management:

Participants: List of bookings for people who have successfully registered via the registration form or bookings for people who have moved up from the waiting list.

Waiting list: Bookings for people who have registered for the waiting list via the registration form. This applies if the event was already fully booked at the time of registration but there were still places available on the waiting list.

Cancelled submissions: List of bookings that have been cancelled by the administrator.

Registered persons do not automatically move from the waiting list to the participants. As soon as a place becomes available, e.g., due to a cancellation, the administrator can manually move a waiting list candidate up. Likewise, persons cannot cancel their registration themselves or change the group size. A registration is always adjusted by the administrator.

For the process of moving up and canceling, as well as for changing the group size, there are buttons that will be visible when you open the detail view of a registration.  

Automatic email notifications are sent when the status of a registration changes:

Confirmation email: The email is sent when a registration is received. If there are still places available, the interested party receives an email in the form of a registration confirmation. If, on the other hand, there are only places on the waiting list, a confirmation email with a waiting list note is sent.

Move up email: The email is sent after the administrator has clicked the Move up button for a candidate on the waiting list.

Cancellation email: The email is sent after the administrator has clicked the Cancel button for a participant.

Notification of change in group size: The email is sent after the size of the registered group has been changed.

All four email notifications can be enabled or disabled. By default, the emails are disabled. To enable them, the option “Enable confirmation email” must be selected in the form content in the Email configuration tab under Confirmation emails for the user.

While the text of the first confirmation email can be freely configured by the administrator in the form content, a standard email with predefined text content is sent by the system in the event of replacement, cancellation, or change of group size.