To be able to book tables several times, two settings are pivotal:
- First, tables can only be occupied multiple times if the available seats for reservations are not made available for the entire shift, but the length of stay is limited.
- Second, capacity should be variably controlled for this purpose so that guests do not book reservations in the middle of the evening.
Setting the stay duration
- Go to "Settings" -> "Shifts".
- Select one of your shifts (or create a new shift if necessary).
- Go to the editing mode in "Advanced capacity settings":
- Set the «Duration of reservation»
If you set 30min as time slots, you can select the capacity for each half hour separately, e.g. how many guests you would want to welcome between 18:00 / 6:00 pm and 18:30 / 6:30 pm.
So the time slots are considered as a balancing tool for how you want to manage the flow of your guests. An overbooking cannot be created on this page, the system only refers to the seats in your restaurant of which are bookable online as well as the duration for an online booking. - Now determine the "capacity" per time slot. For each time slot, you can define the maximum number of guests to be accepted by online bookings:
Setting the duration
- Stay in the "Advanced capacity settings"
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A different length of stay can be created depending on the guest category. For example, the duration option for an online booking can be longer than for walk-in guests:
Please note: It is essential to inform your guests when seats are only available for a limited period of time, e.g. in the automatic response e-mail for online reservations, in the condition text or by means of additional prompts in the shift settings.
Example: Practical setup for double seating
Let's say your restaurant has 60 seats. The kitchen is open from 13:00 / 1:00 pm to 16:00 / 4:00 pm. In order to be able to book tables twice, you must first limit the length of the guests stay, e.g. to 60 mins. This makes it possible for the first guests to get a table from 13:30 / 1:30 pm to 14:30 / 2:30 pm, the table can then be reassigned from 14:30 / 2:30 pm resp. the capacity appears in the system as bookable again. You may check on that in your booqIn (time slots are occupied with 3 PAX until the duration ends):
Secondly, the capacity per time slot should be variably controlled. So that a table can be double occupied, the first guests should arrive early, the other guests rather late.
If you allow reservations for 13:45 / 1:45 or 19:30 / 7:30 pm in your dinner shift, you won't be able to "sell" those seats again either before or after.
Let's take your dinner shift: For a double occupancy you should therefore select the "variable capacity" settings as follows:
- For the first time unit - 18:00 / 6:00 pm - you enter 40 guests
- for the second time unit - 18:30 / 6:30 pm - 20 guests
- For the time units 19:00 / 7:00 pm and 19:30 / 7:30 pm, however, you disable the possibility for reservations, the "variable capacity" is set to "0"
- For the time units 20:00 / 8:00 pm, 20:30 / 8:30 and 21:00 / 9:00 pm you may again specify the maximum number of guests you're able to welcome simultaneously, e.g. 40 guests.
- Graphically, the guest flow or capacity per time slot is represented like this:
Perfect: With these settings you can ensure that not all guests will book their stay at the same time; this makes things much easier to organize for your service and your kitchen. On the other hand, the tables can be reoccupied from 20:00 / 8:00 or 20:30 / 8:30 pm.
On the other hand, multiple occupancy would not be possible if you allowed many reservations for the time units 19:00 / 7:00 or 19:30 / 7:30 pm.