Overview
Schedule Profiles are the key component in the system that link the method of scheduling, pricing, and availability to items and/or categories. We recommend contacting Technical Support for any assistance with schedule profiles because of the overall complexity involved.
These profiles are essentially the "middle men" that link everything together and govern how items are rented. This information is provided for those interested in learning and hoping for a better understanding of the software.
In this tutorial:
Field Descriptions:
The Fields below with an asterisk (*) have more information below in this tutorial.
Any Item or Category with a Schedule Profile attached to it is modified by these fields as follows:
| Name | For internal use. Names must be unique. |
| Mode* | Determines how customers will schedule your product/service. |
| Earliest Time | Sets the start time of a rental window. |
| Latest Time | Sets the end time of a rental window. |
| Time Span Increment | The increment determines the amount of time between the Earliest Time and Latest Time whens scheduling. |
| Day Settings* | These fields are used to override default times on specific days or days of the week, or set default times for the mode "Time Slots". |
| Price Rules | Attaches a ruleset from Admin > Rules > Price Rulesets that determines how the cost calculates. |
| Time-in-Time* | Normally, all items are subject to the scheduled date and time of the order. Enabling this setting allows Items/Categories to be scheduled independently of each other. |
| Availability Rules | Attaches a ruleset from Admin > Rules > Availability Rulesets that can add restrictions or limitations to how/when Items/Categories are rented. |
| Suggested Addons | Automatically attaches a Suggested Add-on to any Items/Categories for upselling. |
| Additional Reminders | Adds a Reminder(s) as a required checkbox during the checkout process. |
| Price Display | Any text entered in this field will display next to the Cost/Price of an item in the Store. |
| Order/Event Schedule | Deprecated functionality, but still in use on legacy accounts. |
| Billing Schedule |
When a "Billing Schedule" is selected, a "Duration" box will appear below this field. Both are used to configure the Recurring Scheduling feature. |
| Override Padding | The default padding is replaced by any use of this field. "Padding" adds time before and/or after an order/event as a buffer between other orders/events. Values may be in hours or minutes, such as: "30 minutes" or "2 hours". |
| Require a Guest | (FEC Primarily) Prompts an online customer to enter in a guest's name during checkout. |
| Alternate Schedule Profiles | Switches to a different Schedule Profile based on a specific Order Option and selection. |
| Register Printers | (FEC Only) Allows Items/Categories to designate a specific printer for printing. |
| Allow Customer Level Pricing | Turns on/off the Custom/Special Pricing for any Items/Categories with the attached Schedule Profile. |
Naming Tip: A clear naming convention helps keep the configuration understandable. For example, if you're setting up special pricing and rental options for a piece of equipment (An "Excavator"); name the Schedule Profile and Price Rules to be "Excavator" and "Excavator Pricing", respectively. This isn't necessary but helps everyone understand how things are linked together.
Schedule Profile Modes:
The "Mode" determines how an item is rented online. The options are below with more information following:
- Time Span
- Time Slots
- Day Span
- Single Day
- Open Ended (Day Starts)
1. Time Span: Items can be booked from the Earliest Time to the Latest Time broken down the by
Time Span Increment setting. A customer can choose exactly when the order begins and ends based on how the business configures those settings.
- Example an Earliest Time of 9:00am, Latest Time of 5:00pm, with a Time Span Increment of "30 minutes" would let a customer choose 9:00am, 9:30am, 10:30am, etc.
- There are optional "Overnight" and "Multi-day" buttons that can be enabled/disabled with settings for orders that exceed a day:
- Admin > Order Config > Misc Order Settings > "Enable Multi Day Selector"
- Admin > Order Config > Misc Order Settings > "Enable Overnight Selector"
- By default, the Year is not included in the rental time, but it can be shown by enabling the setting "Date/Time Span Always Include Year" in Admin > General Config > Misc Settings.
2. Time Slots: This mode allows booking for pre-determined chunks of time. The times can be manually set using a Default, by Day of the Week, and by a Specific Date. Please see Day Settings for more information.
- Earliest Time and Latest Time are not required to configure Time Slots.
- Time Slots have an additional Availability Rule to set a "Max Orders Per Slot". This would allow (up to the maximum) multiple customers to schedule the same slot.
- Time Slots will automatically show the number of available slots remaining, if more than one is available.
- Under Admin > Order Config > Misc Order Settings is a setting for "Order by timeslot". If selected and the first Schedule Profile of the list of profiles is set to Time Slots, customers are shown all available time slots as opposed to a calendar first.
Customer view after selecting a calendar date:
3. Day Span: For selecting a specific Start Date and End Date without a time selection. The time selection is skipped. Delivery Time will reflect the Earliest Time and the Pickup is the Latest Time in the Schedule Profile. The option below of Click Here For One Day Rental is a setting called "Allow Single Day Rental for Dayspan Selector" in Admin > Order Config > Misc Order Settings. If this setting is disabled, customers are required to choose a minimum order length of 2 days.
- By default, the Year is not included in the rental time, but it can be shown by enabling the setting "Date/Time Span Always Include Year" in Admin > General Config > Misc Settings.
- The Order Times can be hidden to only show dates by enabling the setting, "Hide Time". Please contact Technical Support for this change. Times are hidden by default on all DRS accounts.
4. Single Day: Used to book an item for the entire day. The time selection is skipped, and times will reflect the Earliest Time to the Latest Time in the Schedule Profile.
- The Order Times can be hidden to only show dates by enabling the setting, "Hide Time". Please contact Technical Support for this change. Times are hidden by default on all DRS accounts.
5. Open Ended: Used to select a day for the Delivery of an Open-Ended Order. The time selection is skipped, and the Delivery Time will reflect the Earliest Time in the Schedule Profile. The End Date is not selected. Any orders using this schedule profile with default with an end of "TBD" (i.e. "Thu, 8/4/2022 5:00 pm - TBD").
- The Order Times can be hidden to only show dates by enabling the setting, "Hide Time". Please contact Technical Support for this change. Times are hidden by default on all DRS accounts.
Day Settings:
Day Settings are primarily used for a Schedule Profile Mode using "Time Slots", but you can set closures for specific dates for any Items/Categories using this schedule profile.
Note: A "closure" in a Schedule Profile will block the customer from ordering at the end of the checkout process. It is preferred to add any full business closures in the Availability Rules, which will gray out the calendar when adding an item to the Cart.
There are 3 options for use in the "Day" field:
- "Default" (the standard selection for any calendar day)
- A Day of the Week (i.e. "Monday")
- A Specific Date (formatted either as "12/25/2022" or "2022-12-25")
Day specificity is as follows: Default < Day of the Week < Specific Date. For example, a Specific Date will override the Day of the Week and Default settings.
Example: Several two hour slots are offered at various times but only Friday - Sunday. The specific dates at the bottom override the time slots available normally on the Friday - Sunday schedule.
Example 2: The following setup would create morning and afternoon chunks of 4 hours for customers to select every day, except on Sundays. This example works, however, we strongly would recommend doing a full day closure in the Availability Rules unless Sunday is only unavailable for this particular item/category.
Options for use in the "Slots" field:
- "Closed" (to stop orders)
- Specific time slots available in the following format (this example shows 1-hour time slots from 8am to 6pm):
-
8:00am - 9:00am, 9:00am - 10:00am, 10:00am - 11:00am, 11:00am - 12:00pm, 12:00pm - 1:00pm, 1:00pm - 2:00pm, 2:00pm - 3:00pm, 3:00pm - 4:00pm, 4:00pm - 5:00pm, 5:00pm - 6:00pm
-
- A multiple day time slot selection with, or without, the word "auto" (see below)
Multiple Day Time Slot Booking Example
0 day before 10:00am - 3 days after 7:00pm auto
- In this example, "0" indicates the day of the rental with a start time of "10:00am". It will schedule "3" days out with an end time of "7:00pm".
- The word "auto" is preferred to prevent any confusion from customers during the online checkout process as it will automatically select a time slot if there is only one slot available.
- If I clicked on a Tuesday (0 day) at 10:00am, then the rental would end on Friday (3 days).
- Feel free to copy/paste the above string and modify, as needed.
Below is a commonly requested configuration to allow a customer to book an item all weekend without having to select the dates. The customer can only select Fridays on the calendar. Once clicked, the end date will automatically be Monday:
Time-in-Time
This setting is primarily used for Event Rental Systems but may have applications for Dumpster Rental Systems. Please do not modify this setting on any of your Schedule Profiles unless you are fully aware of what you are changing. It could cause confusion with your customers and problems with reporting revenue. Technical Support is always happy to help.
The default for "Time-in-Time" is set to "No". All items on an order are scheduled for the exact date and time of the order.
The "Time-in-Time" setting can be enabled/disabled for each individual Schedule Profile. If enabled for a particular category, for example, your customer would have to select a date and time for every individual item ordered from that category. This is normally not ideal and can cause confusion for customers.
The best example is using a party. Imagine you are throwing a party from 5pm to 11pm. You rent the venue during these times but you would also like a DJ. However, the DJ doesn't need to be there at 5pm. Turning on Time-in-Time would allow you to schedule a venue from 5:00pm - 11:00pm, but schedule the DJ from 8:00pm - 11:00pm on the same order.
"Time-in-Time" is generally used to hire entertainers or contractors within the scope, or time, of another event or order, respectively. Here is an example of a Bounce House rental for a party with a Face Painter hired as an entertainer. If "Time-in-Time" we disabled, then the Face Painter would be scheduled from 2:00pm - 7:00pm, which could not be modified.
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