To collect accommodation reservation requests as part of the online registration process, include the Accommodations section on a form (Plan > Forms > Setup).
For accommodations to be included on a form, accommodation blocks must first be set up on Plan > Accommodation > Blocks. (Accommodation blocks are pre-booked blocks of rooms at hotels set up on Accommodation > Hotels, using account-level room types set up on Plan > Accommodation > Room Types.) Accommodations cannot be included on a form if no accommodation blocks have been set up.
Overview
The accommodation reservation process can be divided into two steps.
- Accommodations Entry is an optional section normally included with other sections on the page immediately prior to the Accommodations Selection section.
The Accommodations Entry section asks the registrant if they need an accommodations reservation, how many rooms they need, and what their arrival and departure dates/times are.
The Accommodations Entry section is optional.
The Accommodations Entry section must be placed immediately prior to the Accommodations section.
If the Accommodations section is used without the Accommodations Entry section, the registrant is only able to request one room.
The Accommodations Entry section enables the registrant to request any number of rooms, up to a limit set by the meeting planner.
- Accommodation is the main section that collects the accommodation reservation information.
The Accommodation section collects the hotel, room type, guest names, payment guarantee, and other information.
Section Header – Accommodations Entry (Optional)
The Text Above Header, Header Text, and Text Below Header are displayed in that order at the top of the Accommodations Entry section.
Please see Section Header instructions for more information.
Accommodations Entry Setup
The main question asked on the Accommodations Entry section is the number of rooms that the registrant needs.
This question is normally asked in one of two ways.
- Select the number of rooms that you need:
{0|1|2|....|N} - Do you need a hotel room?
{Yes|No}
Use the following options to configure this question.
- Accommodations Needed Question is the text that appears on the registration form in the Accommodation Entry section.
Example text is "Do you need accommodations?"
- Include an empty option with the label: if this check box is selected, the form includes an empty option in the drop-down list.
You can optionally provide a label.
- Include an option to hide the Accommodations section when there is an existing room reservation. Label: if this check box is selected, the registrant can hide the Accommodations section if they already have a room reservation and do not need to edit it.
The label is the text the attendee sees.
- Label for 0 rooms is the text that represents 0 rooms.
Example values include "0", "No", or "None".
- Label for 1 room is the text that represents 1 room.
Example values include "1", "Yes", or "Yes, please make a reservation for me".
- Minimum # of rooms is the minimum number of rooms the registrant can request.
This value is usually 0.
- Maximum # of rooms is the maximum number of rooms the registrant can request.
This value is limited by the accommodation block inventory.
- Default answer is the answer pre-selected for a new registrant.
A preview of the question seen by the attendee is also shown.
- Collect arrival and departure dates on the accommodation entry section?: if selected, a planner collects the registrant's arrival and departure dates on the Accommodation Entry page of the form.
Arrival and departure dates are collected again in the Accommodations section of the form.
Arrival and Departure Dates
If Collect arrival and departure dates? is selected in the Accommodations Entry Setup section, the arrival and departure dates and times are collected on both the Accommodations Entry and the Accommodations sections.
The attendee can select different arrival and departure dates for each room in the Accommodations section.
If arrival and departure dates are not collected on the Accommodations Entry section, and a given room type does not have available rooms for the entire run of the event, then that room type is not available in the Room Type field in the Accommodations section.
If there are no room types with available rooms for the run of the event, then no room types are available for the registrant.
For that reason, if there is any possibility of selling out one or more nights of a particular room type, enable Collect arrival and departure dates on the accommodations entry section. Registrants then receive an alert that certain nights are not available. Registrants can select a different arrival or departure date on the Accommodations Entry section.
Gathering arrival and departure dates on the Accommodations Entry page is a good practice. This approach enables Certain to determine which room types are available for the registrant for the duration of their stay rather than assuming that the registrant desires accommodations for the entire event.
> Note: If an attendee edits their reservation and changes the arrival/departure dates on the Accommodation Entry section, the attendee's existing room is listed only if the room block still has inventory for all nights of the new dates.
- Arrival Label and Departure Label are the text shown in front of the arrival and departure select lists.
- Include an empty option with the label: if selected, includes an empty option in the date drop-down lists.
You can optionally provide a label.
- Arrivals Start and End dates are selections from the drop-down lists.
The Default date is pre-selected when the registrant first views this section.
- Departs Start and End dates are selections from the drop-down lists.
The Default date is pre-selected when the registrant first views this section.
Section Header – Accommodations Selection
The Instructions, Header Text, and Page HTML are displayed at the top of the Accommodations Selection section in the same manner as all other sections on the form.
Please see Section Header instructions for more information.
Accommodations List Setup
Accommodations available to the registrant are listed at the top of the Accommodations section.
- Display accommodations' images?: if selected, accommodations images, if any, are shown next to each accommodation option.
The accommodations displayed may depend upon both the accommodation block setup and the attendee's attendee type.
The displayed accommodations may also depend on answers to previous profiling questions and block inventory.
- Show accommodations address in confirmations
- Display for multiple accommodations options: if more than one accommodations option is available to the attendee, this text appears at the top of the accommodations list.
Provide additional instructions here for attendees who have a choice of accommodations.
Default text is "Select your accommodations".
- "No accommodations needed" option: if the Accommodations Entry section is not used, add an option in the accommodations list to represent "No accommodations needed."
Enter the text shown for that option.
Default text is "No accommodations needed."
- "No rooms available": if no rooms are available to the registrant, this text appears instead of the accommodations select list.
If the default text is removed, registrants see a blank accommodation page without feedback on how to correct the situation.
If there is uncertainty about how to use this section, leaving the default text in place is recommended.
Default text is:
"There are not enough rooms available in the accommodation block for your requested number of rooms and nights. You may use the Back button on your browser, and search for a different number of rooms or range of nights. Or you may complete the registration without accommodation, and contact customer service for further assistance."
Accommodations Payment Options
> Note: These options apply to payment guarantees for the hotel and do not apply to payment processing.
Use the following options.
- Collect payment guarantee information? selects one of three options.
- Optional enables registrants to use a credit card to guarantee a reservation in case of late arrival.
- No does not display the credit card collection fields.
- Require requires attendees to provide the information.
- Display on Confirmation is the label text shown on the registrant's confirmation.
Example text is "Payment method:"
- Guarantee instructions display above the guarantee options if collected.
Default text is:
"Credit Card guarantee is recommended in case of late arrival (after 6:00PM). Note: Your credit card will not be charged until you check out."
- Accommodations Guarantee Options are one or more credit card payment methods registrants can use to guarantee a reservation in case of late arrival.
Examples include Visa and MasterCard.
- Online payment processor account to use to generate token from accommodation guarantee payment is shown only if Enable Token Generation is selected for the Accommodation Module on Plan > Configure > Options.
Select the payment processor account set up to generate a token when an attendee enters their accommodation guarantee payment.
The token is used to generate a future payment.
> Note: The labels for the credit card fields can be customized on Forms > Payment in the 'Credit Card Payment Options section'. > The Financial module must be enabled for the event to see that section.
Text Labels for Accommodations Room List
Text entered in these fields is shown on the form to collect room reservation information and on the registration confirmation.
You can leave the labels for Non-Smoking and Smoking, or "Guest Requests", empty to avoid displaying those question fields on the registration form.
- Room #
- Guest Name(s)
- Room Options
- Accommodations
- Room Type
- Room Rate – if a label is provided, then the rate per night is displayed to the attendee on the form.
- Guest Requests – Default label is "Special Instructions"
- Number of Guest Names to Collect (per Room) determines the number of rows shown to collect guest names.
Custom Questions for Room and Guest Category
The form collects one question about each room and one question about each guest in that room.
Custom questions specific to accommodations do not count against the limit of 135 custom questions.
- Guest Category: click Add to create a custom question in a pop-up Questions window.
Common guest category questions include:
- Gender (M/F)
- Guest Type (Attendee | Guest | VIP | Staff)
- Room Category: click Add to create a custom question in a pop-up Questions window.
Common room category questions include:
- Number of beds (Single | Double) used with Run-of-House room types
- Payment classification (Guest pays all | Guest pays incidentals | Master account pays all)
After a question is created, use these options instead of Add.
- Change replaces the existing question with a new one.
- Delete removes the existing custom question.
Accommodations Edit Permissions
> Note: These settings apply only to editing an existing reservation.
- Allow registrants to edit: select the fields in an existing registration that a registrant can edit.
- Room type
- Arrival date
- Departure date.
- Allow registrants to cancel their room reservations: if selected, a registrant can cancel an existing reservation.
- Cancel option is the label shown if cancellations are permitted.
- Canceling warning is the warning message shown for a successful cancellation.
Roommate Options
> Note: Each of these text fields may include HTML tags. > You can also click the </> icon after each one to enter text using the HTML Editor.
- Room Sharing: make a selection from the drop-down list for room sharing / roommate matching options.
- No Room Sharing is the default setting for room sharing / roommate matching options.
- Optional: if selected, additional fields are displayed.
- Required (based on room type capacity): if selected, additional fields are displayed.
- Header Text is the text used as a header for the roommate matching section of the form.
Default is "Room Sharing".
- Room Sharing Instructions are instructions for the attendee.
- 'No' option is available only if Room Sharing = "Optional".
This option label is shown for the attendee option to say "No" to sharing the room.
Example label is "No, I do not want to share this room."
- 'Yes' option is available only if Room Sharing = "Optional".
This option label is shown for the attendee option to say "Yes" to sharing the room.
Example label is "Yes, I would like to try to share this room with roommate(s)."
- Matching Options are only the options selected as Roommate Matching Preferences on the Plan > Accommodation > Roommates page.
A form can remove options at the Form level.
A form cannot add any options that were not set up for the event.
If no options were selected on the Plan > Accommodation > Roommates page, the Matching Option(s) field is not displayed.
On the attendee view of the form, the drop-down list includes only roommates who match required data fields of the current registration.
- Select from a drop-down list: if selected, the following additional fields are dynamically displayed.
- Note:
- Label: if more than one Matching Option is selected, this is the label for the radio button that selects this option.
If this is the only option selected, it appears on the form.
- Select List Label replaces the label above when the page redisplays with the drop-down list.
- Include incomplete registrations in drop-down list: if selected, incomplete registrations (for example from a data import) appear in the drop-down list.
- 'No Roommates': if no matching roommates were found in the system, this text appears when the page redisplays.
- 'Selected': this option appears when the Include incomplete registrations... check box is selected.
If the current registration was selected by another registrant, the other registrant's name appears followed by the text entered here.
- Enter roommate request: if selected, additional fields are displayed.
- Label: if more than one Matching Option is selected, this is the label for the radio button that selects this option.
If this is the only option selected, it appears on the form.
- Default Value: if values are entered in this field, they appear as default text in the text field on the form.
Example value is "FirstName LastName".
- Planner will match: this option is hidden unless at least one other option is selected.
- Label: if more than one Matching Option is selected, this is the label for the radio button that selects this option.
Otherwise, the label text does not display on the form.
Example label is "I would like to have my roommate(s) chosen for me."
> Note: On the attendee view of the form, if the registrant selects a room type with capacity = 1, then roommate options do not appear regardless of the settings in this section. > Example: attendees first select their attendee type. > Managers get assigned to Single room type via Room Type to Attendee Type restrictions. > Single room types have a capacity of 1 and cannot be shared. > Participants get assigned to Double room types. > Double room types have a capacity of 2 and can be shared.
Text Labels for Error Messages
You can customize the following error messages when the defaults are not suitable. This is useful when translation is needed.
- "Credit Card Name Mismatch Error" – Default: "You must enter your name as it appears on card."
- "Credit Card Type Error" – Default: "Credit Card Type"
- "Invalid Credit Card Number Error" – Default: "The Credit Card Number you entered is invalid."
- "Credit Card Type Mismatch with Credit Card Number Error" – Default: "The Credit Card Type does not match the Credit Card Number you entered."
- "Credit Card Number Mismatch Error" – Default: ""
- "Credit Card Type Mismatch with Credit Card Number Extended Error" – Default: "Credit Card Type does not match the Credit Card Number you entered. The Type has been changed to agree with the Number entered."
- "Credit Card Type Required Error" – Default: "Credit Card Type is a required field. It has been changed based on the credit card number you entered."
- "Insufficient Inventory Error" – Default: "The selected Sub-Block does not have sufficient inventory in the selected Hotel and Roomtype for the selected dates."
- "Hotel and Room Type Required Error" – Default: "You must select a Hotel and Room Type."
- "Required Questions Error" – Default: "You must answer the required questions under"
- "Credit Card not Verified Error" – Default: "The credit you card you entered was unable to be verified for generation of a secure token with the message"
- "Double check Credit Card Information Error" – Default: "please double-check your card information."
Text Labels for Room Sharing and Roommate Matching
Enter text to customize labels for fields displayed in the Options section above.
You can customize the language for:
- Roommate Awards Number
- Roommate Rewards Program
- Smoking Preference
- Roommate Arrival
- Roommate Departure
- Show Roommate Choices
- Roommates
- Requested Roommates
- Sharing Room?
- Confirm Information
Accommodations Error Messages
Click the Advanced button to preview or customize error messages related to accommodation reservations and roommate matching.
- The selected room type is not available for the selected accommodations. Please select a accommodation and room type from the available options.
- The selected accommodations room type does not have room available for the requested nights. Please select another accommodation, room type, or range of nights.
- Please select the type of room that you want for each room requested.
- Please select an accommodation from the list of available accommodations.
- The arrival date or time is not valid. Please select another night.
- The departure date or time is not valid. Please select another night.
- The arrival date must be at least one day before the departure date. Please select valid arrival and departure dates.
- Please provide at least one guest name for each hotel room requested.
- The number of guest names provided exceeds the listed capacity for the selected room type. Please select a room with a larger capacity, or remove the extra guest names.
- Please select a guest category for each room.
- An accommodation reservation may not be modified after it has been cancelled.
- The credit card number you have entered is invalid.
- The credit card expiration date you have entered is invalid.
- The credit card number you have entered can contain only numbers, spaces, or dashes.
- An unknown accommodation reservation error has occurred.
- A database transaction error has occurred. Please submit your request again.
- There has been an internal system error (invalid varWhichTask). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1301]
- There has been an internal system error (unknown RSRM exception). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1302]
- Accommodation reservation information has NOT been saved! [warning RSRM1303]
- The system encountered this error of type [internal] when attempting to save to the database: [undefined] [error RSRM1304]
- There has been an internal system error (missing or incorrect required attributes). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1305]
- There has been an internal system error (invalid reg_id). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1306]
- There has been an internal system error (invalid ZERO hot_id). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1307]
- There has been an internal system error (invalid data to save). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1308]
- There has been an internal system error (invalid math result). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1309]
- There has been an internal system error (accommodation data save() returned with error code:[internal] but failed to return a valid strReturnVars.reg_hot_id). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1311]
- There has been an internal system error (accommodation data save() failed with error code:[internal]). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1312]
- There has been an internal system error (accommodation data delete() failed with error code:[internal]). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1313]
- There has been an internal system error (accommodation data delete() failed with error code:[internal]). Please try your action again. If you continue to get this message, contact your support provider with this error code: [error RSRM1314]
- To share this room you must provide the required room sharing information. [error RSRM1360]
- Invalid profile data was sent in to save. Please provide valid information. [error RSRM1361]
- Please choose a roommate from the list of available roommates below.
- You must agree to the privacy policy if you will be shown as a potential roommate to other registrants. [error RSRM1366]
- Your selected choice(s) for roommate(s) are no longer available. Please choose again. [error RSRM1367]
- You must select a roomsahre option if you will be sharing this room. [error RSRM1368]
- Your preferences no longer match your selected roommate. If you change your room sharing preferences (gender, smoking preference, etc...), you must also re-choose a room sharing option. (This is to insure that only roommates with compatible preferences are matched together.) [error RSRM1369]
- If you choose this room sharing option, you must provide the full name of the person you wish to share your room with. [error RSRM1372]
- You cannot share a room of this type. Please choose a different room type, or choose not to share this room. [error RSRM1373]
- An internal error occurred. [error RSRM1374] Please contact your support provider with the following error code: