You can sell your reservation products on the IBIS E-Commerce website or to agents using IBIS Ticketing or Agent Login.  


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Manage online security for your reservation products

When you sell your reservation products online, you can control how much of the system is visible outside of your organisation. IBIS has developed online policies to control how much information you share. 


Online policies are configured for every account (agent) in the Accounts screen. The following policies can be attributed to each account:


Internal onlyThe most secure option. This policy level can see all products, price options, pickups, and departures within your system. It is reserved for your direct accounts only.
Agent trustedCan see products, price options, pickups, and departures with a policy of Agent Trusted, Agent General, or FIT Web. They can also view products that have the "Direct only' setting enabled.
Agent generalCan see products, price options, pickups, and departures with a policy of Agent General or FIT Web.
FIT WebCan only see products, price options, pickups, and departures with a policy of FIT Web.
Direct onlyThis is a set against a product and restricts it to only display on the IBIS E-Commerce website or to Agents with the Online policy set to 'Agent Trusted'.
InactiveAn account with an inactive online policy cannot book your products online.


Visibility over your system can be controlled as follows:


ProductsThe Operator products screen allows you to determine the online policy level for each of your products. You can also specify if you want to make products ONLY available on your website, and not for your general agents by enabling the direct-only tick box setting. If you set an agent's account to Agent Trusted or FITWeb, they will be able to see your direct-only products as well.

Departure availability

You can configure specific departures to appear online. This is ideal if you prefer to fill up a few trips before you open additional departures. We recommend you set up your preferred online departure in the Setup template day screen before applying it to your Service calendar. To manage changes daily, adjust the security policy for each departure in the Specific availability screen.

If your products contain more than one service, ensure all departures for all services are available online.
Price optionsThe Price option screen allows you to determine which prices will appear online (e.g. "Adult" and "Child" would show online, whereas an option called "10% Discount" should probably be set to internal only).
Pickup locationsYou can determine specific pickups to show online in the Pickup locations screen. Droplists are ordered alphabetically on your website so if you have a pickup you want to appear at the top of the list, enter the name with an underscore in front e.g. "_City Centre Bus Shelter"
Country of origin If you want to collect marketing information from your customers, you can configure a list of countries to appear online under the Marketing info screen.
Extra infoThis field is typically used to ask your customers how they heard about you. You can customise this list and choose which options to make available online in the Marketing info screen.


Display product descriptions online

When you set up your Operator reservation products to sell online, we recommend you create a description that will display on both the E-Commerce website and to agents booking your products through Online Exchange. This description is useful for advising customers of any specific details about your products such as duration, what to bring/wear, what is included, etc.


You can display product descriptions as follows: 



Online description at system level

You can have a generic online description for all products, also known as upselling points, displayed by default for your products.  These can be configured in the Online display settings screen.  If you are operating multiple business units, this setting can be found in the Business unit setting screen.


Online description at product group level

You can also have a description display when an online product group is selected. This description is configured in the Online product groups screen. If a customer navigates to your page using a link to a product group, or if the product group is selected from the optional product droplist, the product group description will display. A product group description would override the default system-level description if selected.



Online descriptions at the product level

Lastly, a product-specific description can be configured so that once the product is selected this information will display on the E-. This can be configured in the Operator products screen, under the Online description field. If a product-specific book now link is used to navigate to your website or if a product is selected from the optional product droplist, this description would override both the product group description and the system-defined upselling points on the departures page.



You must enter online product descriptions using HTML formatting. This can be tricky if you are unfamiliar but there are free Word to HTML converter tools that can help or send an email to help@ibis.co.nz for assistance.


Set up cutoff times to close online bookings

Operators can specify when to close online bookings. A closed booking means your products will no longer be able to be booked online and will display a customisable 'closed trip' message (System setting). 


There are 3 different closed offset cutoff types: 

Set the system-level cutoff time

A system-level closed time offset controls all online bookings. This displays a "Closed" message once the cutoff time has passed. To set a closed trip cutoff time for ALL products in your system, follow these steps:

  1. Open the System settings screen under the System menu (if you operate one or more business units and need to manage this differently for each, use the Business unit settings screen if this has been enabled for you).
  2. Under the Website section, specify the Closed trip offset time in minutes before departure (e.g. 60 if 1hr before departure)
  3. Update the Closed trip message text - keep it short as it will display in a small area on your website. E.g. Call 0800 555 1234 for last-minute availability.
  4. Save your changes.


Set a product level cutoff time

The product level cutoff hides the departure so it can no longer be booked online.  


If your product-specific cutoff time is less than your system cutoff, make the system cutoff 0 and only use the product-specific cutoff times for all products. If the product-specific cutoffs are greater than the system cutoff, you can use both. 

If you are using our latest version of E-Commerce, the product level cutoff time can be set to whatever you choose.
  1. Open the Online product rules screen from under the Setup > Online Sales menu.
  2. Select the product from the list, then click Add policy
  3. Specify the Online cutoff (in minutes) BEFORE departure as follows: 
    • Increase places - an edit with the addition of pax or create a new booking
    • Decrease places - an edit to decrease pax or cancel a booking
    • Edit places - an edit of non-operational importance such as a name change, voucher # or notes. The edit time cannot be less than the minimum specified for the increase or decrease time!
  4. Save your changes.


Set an account-level cutoff time

You can set agent-specific cut-off times. This displays a 'closed' message for agents booking through the agent portal or via API (the latter will just not return any departure times).


Agent specific API cut off times can only be greater than the closed time offset specified in System settings - E-commerce Reservations.
  1. In the Accounts screen, select the account you wish to set a cutoff time for.
  2. In the details panel on the right, drill into the Online properties. 
  3. Specify the API cutoff time in hours (h) or days (d). E.g. 1d for 24h). 


Configure online product groups for activity products

Online product groups are used on both the E-Commerce website and for agents booking your products via Online Exchange. The purpose of an online product group is to make it easier for your customers or agents to narrow down the selection process for choosing products on your website. To set up an online product group, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Product groups screen under the Online group section in the System menu.
  2. Click Create new, then fill in the details as prompted, then click Save.
  3. Once your online group is added, click Edit.
  4.  To associate items with the online group, tick the selection box to include the product in the online group
  5. Save when you're finished.
  6. If this online product group will be used on your E-Commerce website, we recommend you upload an image to display on the group tile.


Adjust the departure screen display settings

Open the System settings screen and scroll to the Website section to update the following settings:

  • Maximum available spaces = displays only this number and a + sign if more than this number is available
  • Number of days to display = if you don't have many departures, you can decide to display multiple days worth of availability
  • Rollover time = the time of day to start displaying availability for the next day (e.g. the time your last trip of the day is closed) DEPRECATED, replaced by automatically rolling over when no departures are left for the product/group selected
  • Show departed trips = whether or not to display trips that are past the departure time
  • Show full departures = whether or not to display trips that are fully booked


Charge booking fees

You can now add booking fees to your IBIS E-Commerce reservation products to help recoup your costs for online transaction/credit card fees. 

  1. Open the Retail items screen, then click Add
  2. Enter a name for your item, e.g. "booking fee", set the item type to non-stock and leave the price set at $0.
  3. Tick the sell online setting for the item (found under the Online properties grouping).
  4. Save and confirm your change and make a note of the PLU code for the item.
  5. Open the System settings screen in IBIS Online, then scroll to the E-Commerce Reservations group (if you don't have access, please contact IBIS support for assistance).
  6. Enter the item PLU into the Booking fee setting using the following format:
    • For a percentage fee, enter the PLU code|% e.g. 1254|3%. The fee is calculated over any reservation-type item. 
    • For dollar value, enter PLU code|$. E.g. 1254|$5. The fee will be added once to your cart, irrespective of the value or number of bookings added to the cart.
  7. Save your changes. You have now successfully set up a booking fee!

    We recommend that you include information in your product descriptions and terms & conditions if you will be adding a Booking fee so it is clear to the customer before they get to the cart.



Charge a deposit only

You can take deposit payments for reservations on your IBIS E-Commerce website. When a deposit is paid online, there will be a balance outstanding on the booking screen that should be paid before or on the day of travel. 

  1. Open the Operator products screen.
  2. Add the Deposit rule column to your grid (or find the field under the Online section on the right-hand panel). 
  3. Add your deposit value in one of the following formats. As soon as the keyword is added, the deposit tickbox will be visible on the IBIS E-Commerce website.
    • X% = where X is the percentage of the pax booking value (excludes add-ons).
    • $X = where X is a fixed dollar amount per booking
    • $Xpp = where X is a fee per person in the booking (excludes add-ons)
  4. If your email confirmation does not include the balance for a booking, you might want to ask us to add this on for you, so that it's clear to the customer that they still need to pay. 


Secure a booking with a credit card (deferred payment)

If your operation is weather-dependent or you sell combo products that cannot be confirmed right away, you may decide it's better to not charge the customer's credit card until you can confirm the booking. IBIS has a store credit card function designed to allow this.


A stored credit card is a two-step payment process where an 'authorisation' transaction verifies that a card is valid and has sufficient funds. If approved, the authorised amount is held until the transaction is completed, or an expiry time is reached, which is usually 7 days for Visa and MasterCard and 14 days for American Express transactions.


IBIS only stores a payment token that allows you to charge the customers credit card via the Windcave PxPay 2.0 payment gateway at Point of sale. We do not store any credit cards numbers in IBIS. You will need to contact Windcave to enable some specific functions, see: Integrated PxPay at Point of sale.


To set up the stored card trigger for your online bookings, follow these steps:

  1. To enable products sold online to trigger the stored credit card option, enable the setting in the Reservation items screen. You can use the default reservations item to enable the function on all products or click Add to create a new item for use with specific products.

  2. To specify which products should trigger the stored credit card prompt, open the Operator products screen and enter the PLU code of the reservation item(s) you set up against the products, then click Save. N.B. If the stored credit card setting was enabled on your default reservation item PLU, you don't need to specify the PLU codes for the individual products.  

    If these products should NOT be booked by agents or integrated booking partners, enable the direct only setting under the Online group at this time.

  3. When customers purchase any products sold via the E-Commerce site and the sale contains a product using the stored card-enabled PLU code, they will be informed the reservation is subject to confirmation.
  4. Once the booking is completed online, your team will be notified when a BCC email is received for the confirmation request. Your staff should action anything required to complete the booking (e.g. if this is a combo booking, confirm the combo portion of the activity).  

    There may be instances where your customer purchases other items online that need to be paid instantly such as gift vouchers, retail items or admission tickets in conjunction with a stored card product. In these scenarios, you will receive an email, to alert you to the booking and any additional items purchased. These additional items will appear in your Find sale screen (POS) under Held Sales. Process the payment following the steps below.


  5. To charge the stored card, take the booking to Point of sale and select the payment type Eftpos online, then Use this card to complete the payment.


Set up online booking notification emails

When reservations are booked online, IBIS can send optional notification emails to alert you each time a booking is created or amended. This is particularly useful if an agent is making changes or cancellations to a booking through Online Exchange. 

To configure:

  1. Open the System settings screen in IBIS online.
  2. Under the E-Commerce Notification section, select your preference under the Booking change notification email setting. Choose to always send a notification email or only send a notification email if a note is added or a booking is edited.
  3. Specify an email address in the Online booking notification email address setting. If you want to send to different emails, separate each with a comma. 
  4. Save your changes.