This page lists the most common questions we get asked by our venues, and the actual checklist we go through on customer support to try and diagnose the problem.
If you've run through all the bullet points for your particular issue, please get in touch and we'll help you sort it out.
Booking Problems
Why are one or more of my days marked as grey when I expected to be open?
Make sure your normal opening times have a session applied to that day. If a day has no sessions at all, we'll assume the venue is closed.
Check venue closures dates and times:
Keep in mind all dates are inclusive, so if you wanted to set just the 1st to be closed, make sure it's set as the 1st, not 1st-2nd, which would also close the 2nd
Check any days where you've set midnight at a time and not accidentally selected midnight the previous day
Check special opening times:
Keep in mind all dates are inclusive, so if you wanted to set just the 1st to be closed, make sure it's set as the 1st, not 1st-2nd, which would also close the 2nd
Check the days of the week in your special opening times match up correctly. It can easy to make a mistake if your special opening times start on a different day than Monday.
Check for any exclusive events:
If you're running an all day event that's marked as exclusive, this would shut down the entire day automatically.
Why are one or more of my time slots marked red when I expect it to be green?
Use debug to determine and resolve the problem:
It's mostly likely because of a limit in your session or a global limit
The second most likely problem is yield - do you have all the right tables selected, with the right sizes? Don't forget to check your table chains if you use them.
The system is overbooking my time slots or events, why?
Use debug to see what limits the form is using right now
If you use guest types, head to the guest types page and make sure that the correct guest types are marked as "factored" (counted towards all limits) or "unfactored" (not counted).
Check your session and global limits carefully. Make sure you haven't entered a max bookings limits instead of a max covers limit anywhere on these pages.
The system is underbooking my time slots or events, why?
Use debug to determine and resolve the problem:
It's mostly likely because of a limit in your session or a global limit
The second most likely problem is yield - do you have all the right tables selected, with the right sizes? Don't forget to check your table chains if you use them.
If you use guest types, head to the guest types page and make sure that the correct guest types are marked as "factored" (counted towards all limits) or "unfactored" (not counted).
Check your session and global limits carefully. Make sure you haven't entered a max cover limit instead of a max booking limit anywhere on these pages.
Opening and Closing
Why can't I set a special opening time?
You can't have two days with the same special time, so you probably already have a date range that includes the day you are trying to add.
To fix this, edit your date ranges as described here.
How do I set the amount of people who can be book online?
Your global limits and session limits control how many people can book in a single booking.
However, you may also need to tweak your form itself in the look & feel settings to change how many guest buttons appear at once.
How do I turn off / close a time slot?
You cannot set a particular time slot to be "closed", the system will close a slot automatically based on your global and session limits.
However, you can shut down specific time periods and sessions using venue closures.
You can also simply add a fake booking to reach your max limit for that session. However, if you're having to manually do this often it's more likely your setup could be tweaked to avoid having to do manual work, so we'd recommend getting in touch.
How do I set a session with irregular opening times, like 30, 60, then 30?
Use the same session, but set different opening and closing times within the same day on that, as described here.
Emails
Why is my customer saying they haven't received an email?
This is the email equivalent of "turn it off and on again," but it's one of those things that just nearly always the case: Have they checked thier spam folder?
If the customer still can't find an email, get in touch, and we can have a look and make sure it's not a bug on our side. We can trace when we sent out emails and their status, as long as you get in touch within 7 days of the email going out
How do I send different emails for different events and sessions?
In your main email template, you can use the <if-session-####></if> tags. Anything within these tags will send only for that session. Replace #### with the ID of the session, which you can find in the main sessions page.
Where can I edit the no-show and feedback emails?
You currently can't edit these emails. We'll be adding more options for this in the future.
Other Issues
I've had customers reporting they can't book, but I can't see any problems?
Have a read of why customers tend to report issues, and try to gather as much information as you can as it will help us diagnose the problem.
If you're having multiple customers with problems though, please get in touch:
In the first case, we'll have a quick look through your settings
Beyond that, we can turn on a "help" button on your form that will come straight through to our CS team to help work out the issues for you with minimum disruption.
Why am I seeing an error with a monkey on the public form?
This is an error related to a payment problem that we don't want to make obvious to your customers.
If that you have a guest type used in your session that does not have an associated price, so make sure if you are charging per guest type, every guest type has a price, even if its 0.00 for free tickets.
Check to make sure your Stripe account is functioning correctly. Account State should be "Active" and both charges and payouts enabled should say "Yes":
Make sure you have the right Stripe account connected to BookingNinja, if it's wrong you can revoke access and add another.
Login to Stripe and check their help guides and customer support.