Tips & Tricks for Setting Up Your iVvy Venue Booking Engine - blog header image

 

Tips & Tricks for Setting Up Your iVvy Venue Booking Engine

Posted on 29 April 2025

Venue Management

       

Are you using your iVvy booking engine to its full potential? Unlock its complete functionality with these tips.

An effective venue booking engine can transform how you manage venue space reservations, offering greater convenience to event clients and better efficiency for your team. iVvy’s online booking engine is designed to meet these needs and more.  

 
Check out the following tips and tricks to help set up your online booking engine with iVvy. This will save you, your team, and potential event clients hours of manual admin and back-and-forth enquiry time. 

Optimising Your iVvy Venue Booking Engine  

 
Online Booking Settings: A Step-by-Step Guide 

Setting up your online booking settings is crucial for managing how opportunities and bookings from the iVvy Marketplace and your online booking engine behave. The following is a simple guide to help you configure these settings effectively: 


Key Settings to Adjust


Fine-tune these settings for a smoother and more efficient venue booking process, catering to business needs and client expectations. 

 

• Event Duration

  • Single-Day Events: Choose to allow enquiries for 1-day events. 
  • Multi-Day Events: Enable enquiries for multi-day events. If you usually accept live bookings, you can force these enquiries through a Request for Proposal (RFP). 

Purchase Order Number 
  • Choose whether to allow customers to enter a purchase order number when making a venue enquiry.
 
Meeting Booker Module 
  • If you use the Meeting Booker module, you can allow instant confirmation for live bookings with no value.
 
Setup and Pack Down Times 
  • Set default set-up and pack-down times for your function spaces to ensure a buffer between venue bookings.
    Note: Specific times set for individual function spaces will override these defaults.
 
Escalation Emails 
  • Respond to all online venue enquiries by setting up escalation emails. These can be sent 24 and 36 hours after an enquiry is received. For enquiries through iVvy Marketplace, a no-reply email will be sent to the customer after 48 hours, allowing them to enquire with a different venue if needed.

Setting Your Booking Rules 

 

Whether you’re managing venue enquiries through your Marketplace or iVvy online booking engine form, booking rules play a crucial role. They determine whether a venue enquiry is accepted as a live booking or pushed as a Request for Proposal (RFP). Here’s a breakdown of the three main rules you can apply: 

1. RFP Only 

With this rule, the booking form will only allow customers to request a proposal. No live bookings are accepted.

2. Not Available 

If this rule is applied, your venue space will be shown as unavailable, preventing any form of booking or enquiry. 

3. RFP Rules 

This flexible rule allows for live bookings with certain conditions. If the following conditions are met, the enquiry will be pushed as an RFP instead: 

  • When it is less than X days before the event
    Example: If you set this to 7 days, any booking for a date within the next 7 days cannot be booked live and will require an RFP. Bookings for dates beyond 7 days can be processed live.

  • When it is more than X days before the event
    Example: If you set this to 90 days, any enquiry for a date more than 90 days away will require an RFP. 

  • When the estimated value of the booking exceeds $X
    Example: Based on the values set in the Default Opportunity Rules, if the booking value is too high, the form will force an RFP. This ensures that smaller functions can be booked live, while larger, more valuable enquiries are handled by your sales team. 

 

Allocating Opportunities 

 

By configuring opportunity allocation rules in the iVvy online booking engine, you can make sure all venue sales opportunities are efficiently allocated to the right team members, improving response times and conversion potential. This streamlined process helps your sales team focus on what they do best – closing deals and forming strong client relationships. 

Getting Started with Opportunity Allocation Rules 


Why Set Up Rules?
Without allocation rules, all enquiries fall under Sales > Unassigned Opportunities, requiring manual assignment. This can be time-consuming and lead to delays. 

Setting Up Your Default Rule 
  • Navigate to: Setup > Online Bookings > Opportunity Allocation Rules > Edit Default Rule 
  • Notifications: Add email addresses of team members who should be notified of new opportunities. 
  • Assignment: Decide whether to assign opportunities to a specific user or randomly among all users. 

Adding Additional Rules
 

To further streamline the process, you can add rules based on specific criteria: 

  • Event Type: Automatically assign opportunities based on the type of event. 
  • Opportunity Value: Set rules to allocate based on the value of the opportunity, percentage of budget, or apply to all opportunities regardless of value. 

Options for Assignment
 
  • Unassigned Opportunities: Default option where enquiries need manual assignment. 
  • Random User: Randomly distribute opportunities among selected sales users. 
  • Specific User: Assign each opportunity to a designated team member. 

Enhance Your Process with Additional Notifications
 
  • Email Notifications: Ensure all relevant team members are informed by adding their email addresses. 
  • Opportunity Quality: Assign quality ratings to opportunities under Global Settings > CRM > Quality to prioritise follow-ups. 

 

Unlock the Full Potential of Your iVvy Online Booking Engine 

 

Optimising your iVvy online booking engine with these tips and tricks can significantly enhance your venue’s efficiency and customer satisfaction. By implementing effective allocation rules and automated processes, you create a seamless booking experience that allows your sales team to focus on what they do best. Embrace these strategies to ensure your venue stands out and your booking enquiries continue to flow. 

 

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