IBIS makes it easy to manage your departure timetable, whether it's setting up a whole departure schedule in bulk or making ad-hoc scheduling changes. It is very quick to set up your departure schedule months or years in advance. Once a schedule is set up, you can make adjustments to your timetable as needed following the processes outlined in this article.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Setup a template day type

IBIS uses templates that allow you to define your standard operational schedule so you can update your timetable in bulk. A template day type is where you define the names and colours used for those templates. The best way to configure your template day types is to define your different seasons or operational day types. E.g. the most common day types are either seasonal - i.e. Summer, Winter, Shoulder OR relate to specific day types - i.e. Weekends, Midweek, Public holidays. To create your template day types, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Setup template day screen.
  2. Click the Edit day Type button in the bottom left to open the Day Types screen.
  3. Click on the green + icon at the top of the grid to add a new day type row.
  4. Enter in the Day Type name (this is the day type name that you will select when configuring your calendar)
  5. Type in a meaningful Description to help others identify exactly which day type this refers to.
  6. Select a Colour, this colour will represent the day type on your calendar.
  7. Save your changes by clicking OK.


Setup a standard departure template

Once your template day types are set up, you can then define your standard operating schedule for each template. Each template would consist of all of your service's default departure times, along with their online policies and the max places associated with each departure. To set up a new template day follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Products and Services, Setup template day screen.
  2. From the Day type drop-down list at the top of the screen, choose the template day that you are working with.
  3. Click the Add new row button at the top of the grid.
  4. Enter the service Start time column, then select the Service from the droplist in the column.
  5. In the Places column, specify the maximum number of places available on the service.
  6. If you need a minimum number of bookings to confirm the product departure, enter the minimum number in the Confirm column.
  7. In the Policy column, set the online policy of the service accordingly.
  8. Enter the Duration (only required for customers using the appointment scheduler).
  9. The Group field can be used if you have a lot of services and want to group these when viewing departures in the Specific Availability screen.
  10. Repeat for each service and note that you can make use of the grid functions for bulk actions.
  11. Once you have finished setting up your template day, click Save.

    Tip: Once you have a template day set up, you can use the copy day function to make setting up new template days faster.


Apply departures to your service calendar

The service calendar is where you can update your departure template in bulk over several months or years. When you apply your template to the Service Calendar, all of the departures on your template can be managed in the Specific Availability screen. The number of services you are applying in a template and the date range you are applying it for can mean it takes several minutes to apply a template change. We don't recommend you apply large templates (containing 20+ departures) in stretches longer than 4-6 months. To apply your templates:

  1. Open the Service Calendar screen under the Products & Services menu.
  2. Set the Start month as needed to view the months you would like to apply services to.
  3. Highlight the days that you want to apply the departures to.
  4. Right-click anywhere in the highlighted area, then select Apply template day.
  5. From the popup select the template day that you want to apply.
  6. When promoted with Set processed days as built, say No. We have deprecated this function and now all services are built automatically. Choosing Yes displays a B on all days after you have applied the template but it does not change the behaviour.
  7. When a blue line displays down the right-hand side of the screen, the system has finished applying the template days. The service calendar will now display the colour of the template applied.
  8. Click Save.
  9. All the services from that template will be inserted into the Specific Availability screen for the date range selected.


Re-apply departure templates to your Service Calendar

If you want to add new services to your departure timetable, you will often find yourself in a situation where you need to re-apply templates to the Service Calendar. You can apply templates on top of existing templates, but it's really important to be aware that the Service Calendar only displays one colour so if you apply lots of different templates over top of each other, it makes it impossible to see at a glance what schedule you are operating.

Here are some best practice tips showing how we would recommend you manage these types of changes:

  • If you need to add new services to an existing template then reapply this template to your Service Calendar, only the NEW departures will be added to the Specific Availability screen. It won't double up on existing departures so this is normally the simplest way to add new services to the system in bulk.

  • If you edit any existing services on a template (i.e. max places, online policy, etc) and re-apply this template to your Service Calendar, this will NOT change any existing departures on the template. You can only modify existing departures by making changes to the Specific Availability screen.

  • If you have deleted a lot of services from your Specific Availability screen and do not want to reapply the old template, you can create a new template day called "Adhoc" or "Fixups" which you can use to only add specific services. Remember if you add new stuff in an ad-hoc manner, it is a good rule of thumb to keep your default 'standard' templates up to date with any changes so they are ready to go when you next reapply them.

  • There is no limit to how many 'day types' you can set up, but if you create new ones every year (e.g. Summer 2017, Winter 2018 etc), then you will find that the list of templates gets ridiculously long. You can edit and reuse old templates if you need to. Just use the scissor icon to remove any unnecessary departures and re-save your changes.


Add a departure for a specific day

If you need to add a departure to a specific day, you do not need to apply a new template day. You can simply add a new departure in the Specific Availability screen, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Specific Availability screen.
  2. Select the date that you want to add the departure for
  3. Click the Functions button, then Add Service 
  4. In the popup, select the Service from the drop-down list
  5. Enter in the time of the service in the format HH:MM AM/PM
  6. Add the Max Places field for the maximum number of places this service can have.
  7. Click OK
  8. Once the service has been added, modify any online policies as needed in the Specific Availability screen.
  9. Check that departure appears as you would expect in the Departures screen.


Delete all empty services

If there are no bookings (cancelled or otherwise) on a service, you can delete all empty services. 

  1. Open the Specific Availability screen.
  2. Select the date, filter for the Service then specify the number of days to display and click Refresh.
  3. When you have all the services showing you would like to delete, click the Functions button, then Delete all empty services.
  4. Click Save, then OK to confirm the changes when prompted.
  5. Any services which remain due to bookings being attached can have the policy set to inactive. You must re-save your changes. 
    All active bookings must be rescheduled to active departure times!


Delete selected services

If you only want to delete a specific service time, and there are no bookings (cancelled or otherwise) on a service, you can delete selected services. It is helpful when deleting selected services if you are familiar with how the grid tools work in the IBIS application - knowing how to use filters and row selection tools can save a lot of time.

  1. Open the Specific Availability screen.
  2. Select the date, filter for the Service and specify the number of days to display.
  3. Select the specific services you wish to delete, and ensure the Taken column is showing 0 places.
  4. Click the scissors icon on the top right of the grid to delete specific rows.
  5. Click Save, then OK to confirm the changes when prompted.

    Tip: If you get an error after you try to delete selected services, it is because the services have cancelled bookings attached and cannot be deleted. It is important to note that your changes have NOT been saved. The only option is to Refresh the screen, re-select your services and change the policy of the service to Inactive, then re-save.


Clear the service calendar

When you apply a template day to the Service Calendar, it automatically adds all of the services to the Specific Availability screen. You must delete the services from Specific Availability BEFORE you clear the Service Calendar:

  1. Delete all empty services as described above from the Specific Availability screen
  2. Open the Service Calendar screen, and highlight the selected days to clear
  3. Right-click on the highlighted area, then select Clear day
  4. Click Save
  5. The Service Calendar will show the cleared days in white. 


Change the departure time of an existing service

If you need to make a change to the time of an existing departure and there are NO bookings on it: 

  1. Open the Specific Availability screen under the Products and Services menu.
  2. Find the service you wish to modify the time for, then click the > row indicator at the left of the departure row
  3. The following popup will appear, modify the departure time as needed, then click OK
  4. Click Save, then OK to confirm your changes.

If you need to change the time of an existing departure WITH EXISTING BOOKINGS on it:

  1. If you have a single-component product, follow the steps using IBIS Online.
  2. If you have a multi-component product (i.e. there is more than one service used to operate this product), you cannot change the existing service time. Change the policy of the existing service to inactive, then add the new service and reschedule the existing bookings.

Don't forget you may need to contact customers to advise them of the schedule change!


Finding services with bookings attached

If you need to make changes to your departure timetable but there are already bookings made on those departures, you may need to cancel or reschedule existing bookings. You can see which bookings are associated with an individual departure by clicking the row indicator at the left of each departure row. If you are modifying a lot of records, it is easiest to run the Option Analysis report in IBIS Online in List view, then filter for the selected service/time/date range as necessary. 


Check for booking on existing departures


How to block a service

A service can be temporarily blocked from your Departures screen by using one or more of the following methods:

  • Deleting the service 
  • Changing the departure policy to inactive
  • Setting the max places 0 - this will show the departure as Full to anyone viewing the product online


Change max places of existing departures

If you have already applied a template to your service calendar and now wish to make changes to the max places on existing departures, you can do it directly in the Specific Availability screen. Reapplying a template on top of existing departures does not modify any of the availability of existing departures, it only applies new departures. 


  1. Open Specific Availability and select the date you want to adjust max places from.
  2. Ensure you filter for the specific service, then set the days to display. It's faster if you do smaller chunks. E.g. 1 month or 90 days.
  3. If needed, you can sort the max places numerically (this would only be necessary if you had a mix of varying max places because you had applied a new template on top of an existing template). 
  4.  Change the first number in the list, then click and drag all the subsequent columns with your mouse to highlight all the rows you wish to change. 
  5. Right-click, then select fill down to update all highlighted rows to the first column highlighted.
  6. Save your changes.


Sometimes you may wish to only update the max places for a specific time within a date range. Apply the filter tool and then filter for only a specific time in the list to only update those departures. See working with legacy grid screens for help.