Creating an Instant Book and Pay Sign Up - Activities/Clubs/ECAs

Instant Book and Pay Events are a great option if you want to give parents/members the option of signing up. The sign-up option is perfect for After School Clubs, Holiday Camps, and events that are not a preference based sign up.

This article will teach you how you create an instant book pay to sign up for After School Clubs.

Phase 1: Creating the Container

1. Click the Activities and Clubs tab on the Home page
2. Select the Instant Book & Pay module (Click on the three bars on the top left corner to see the menus).
3. Click the +Add tab to create a new container, and fill in the correct details for the program.
4. Sign Up Title: Title of the Activity program 
5. Description: Description of the program 
6. Allow booking cancellation: Switch off for an after-school activity program.  (This feature is only applicable to one-day events, and does not apply for activities that repeat weekly, parents will need to contact you for cancellation in this case).
7. Block Clash: Switch on if booking is not allowed for students who already have events with clashing date/time in their diary.
8. Maximum Bookable events per group: Leave this as 0 if there is no limit to how many events they can book.
   
9. Activities start/end dates: Set the dates for when you want the activities to occur between, in this case for the whole term.  
10. Activity default start/end time: The default start/end time for the activities. (You are able to set different time for each activity later, this is only a default). 
11. Responsibility for confirmation: Select which user type can make bookings according to your School’s preferences.
12. Sign up opens/closes: Set the open window for parents to make bookings. This could be the whole term if you allow students to join activities any time. 
13. Show select all button: This enables the parent/student to select all activities in one go. Please leave this option disabled, unless your activities are not weekly repeating and parents can book all activities at the same time.
14. Use organisation block dates?: This defaults to on so the system skips the block dates that have been set at an organisational level.  Only disable this option if you are running activities during school/public holiday.
15. Accept Voucher Payments: This is only for UK schools. Only select this if childcare vouchers will be accepted. If you select this option, you will have the choice to be able to limit which group can pay by childcare vouchers (please see this article about Restricting the use of Childcare Vouchers.)
16. Send New Booking Alerts: This option is defaulted off. Only Enable this option if you wish to receive emails for each booking made by parents.
    
17. Terms & Conditions: You can enter any terms & conditions that apply to all activities. 
18. T&C's additional info (URL): If you have your school terms & conditions hosted on a website for example, you can add the link to it here.
19. Booking Data Form: We can create a form for you to collect any other information you require of the student at the time of booking.
20. When the correct details have been entered, select the green Save tab.
    

Phase 2: Creating Groups

Once the container has been created, click on Manage to go into the container

1. From the Groups tab, click the blue '+ Add' button in the top right.
2. Click on +Add on the right-hand side, and fill in the correct details for an activity.
   
3. Title: Title of an Activity/Group. 
4. Description: A brief description of the Group.
5. Available to/Prerequisite/Unavailable to: Click on each option, a pop-up box will appear on the screen. This will determine who can sign up for this activity.
   a. Available to: This defines the Years/Groups/Classes that are eligible for this activity.
   b. Prerequisite: This even narrows down the availability (more used for sports teams, eg Advanced swimming will be a prerequisite to Basic swimming).
   c. Unavailable to: If you wish to prevent students from joining the same activity as last term, you can set the group from last term as unavailable (more used for very popular activities).
6. Use the drop-down box and search bar to search for the Years/Groups/Classes. 
7. When the correct Year/Group/Class has been found, select the ‘Add’ 
8. Continue
   
9. Gender: Select the gender eligible for this activity.
10. Lead Staff Member: Which Staff Member will be the organiser of the group
11. Activity: Select the relevant activity type. This is only shown in the reports, and does not affect sign-up. Please contact help@schoolsbuddy.com if you wish to customize the list.
12. Default Location: Location of the activity.
13. Group/Billing Code (Optional): Fill in the relevant code for the activity.
14. When the correct details have been entered, select the green Save tab. 
    
    

Phase 3: Creating Events

1. Once groups are created, head down to the Create Events tab on the left hand side menu.
2. Click +Add New to create new events, and fill in the following information.
   
3. Title: Give the event a title E.g. 'ECA' or 'After School Activity', you don't need to repeat the activity name.
4. Vital Information: Any vital information regarding this event. This information will be shown in the parents' diary on the day of the event.
5. Additional Information: Any additional information for the event.
6. Booking Options: Please select one of the options carefully  
   • Individual: Each week's event needs to be booked separately; this means students can pick and choose which days they attend, and not necessarily join the activity every week.
   • Block bookings: The events for each week are linked as a block; this means students are booking the entire series of the activity with a single booking.
     
7. Allow joining part way through series: Enable if you allow students to join the activity after the first week.
8. Number of places: Maximum number of places for this activity.
9. Create for groups: Select the group you are creating an event for. 
10. Location: This can just be the default location that was set in Phase 2, or specified differently.
11. Event type: Select the event type (In this example it will be After School Clubs).
12. Cost Type: This can either be free or chargeable.
13. Always charge full price: Enable this option if full price is charged for an activity,  even if a student joins part-way through the series.
14. Price per session: Enter the price per session/event, not the price per term.
    Note: if you are doing a block booking, the system will charge students pro-rated if they join the activity part-way through the series.
15. Percentage to pay at the time of booking/Deposit (%): Enter the percentage required to pay upon booking. (Leave 100% if you require payment upfront; 0% if parents don't make payments at the point of booking).
16. Includes Tax: Toggle on the box if the price includes tax. This field is only a column in the reports.
17. Payment Method: Select "Default - Create Fees (and allow online payments if applicable)"
18. Frequency: Select Multiple Days if this activity repeats weekly during a date range; or repeats on more than one day of the week.
19. Activities Start Date/End Date: The date range for this activity.
20. Days of the week: Select which day(s) of the week this activity takes place on.
21. Start Time/End Time: The time of day this activity takes place.
22. Sign up opens/closes in advance: Set specific sign-up open & close times for this event (Leave blank to use container open and close dates).
23. When the correct details have been entered, click the Create Rule tab.
    

Phase 4: Publishing Events
Before events are published, parents are not able to make bookings, and teachers are not able to see the registers in their diaries.

1. To publish the events, select the Publish Events tab. 
2. When selected, a summary of the events created in phase 3 will be listed. Toggle on the events you are ready to publish, or use Select All to toggle all events at the same time.
3. Click the I confirm tick box
4. Click the Publish tab. 

Once the events are published, and the sign up is open, parents/students will be able to sign up for the events.

Please note that if you change the location of a Group after events have been created, this will not change the location of those events. This must be completed as well but the location can be bulk changed for all future events at once.

Please read the Editing part of this article for more information about how to do this: Editing, Deleting or Cancelling an event