To the point? You can now make lots of edits right on the booking card meaning you don't have to go into the full booking editor. We've also given you the option to set guest types to have a colour and icon to make scanning the cards easier.
We've always been focused on making BookingNinja incredibly easy to use, both for your customers and for you and your team. With that in mind, we've been taking a deep dive into the types of edits people make to bookings within the admin panel, and the steps we can take to make those edits faster. We know that any improvement to your operational speed has a direct knock-on effect on the quality of service you can provide. These changes are entirely optional, so if you'd prefer to work as you always have there's no impact at all, but we're confident that once you try them you'll wonder how you managed without them.
First, let's take a look at the breakdown of edits.
So with this in mind here are the quick actions you can now perform!
Internal Notes
It makes sense that adding internal notes is the most commonly made adjustment to a booking. They're a great way to pass information between team members and to keep track of anything relevant ahead of a visit. At the moment, adding a note requires opening the full booking editor, which is by no means slow, but with nearly 40% of all edits being this relatively simple action we felt we could do better. We've added a dedicated 'Add Note' button directly to the booking cards, and any booking that already has notes can be edited the same way.
Guest Count
Guest count is the next most commonly edited field, and it's easy to see why. Someone calls to add an extra guest, or to let you know that one of the party won't be making it, and you need to update the booking quickly. Because BookingNinja supports different guest types per session, this is slightly more involved to design well. Clicking the guest count will now show you the guest types applicable to the customer's session, along with simple +/- buttons to make your adjustments. If you need to change the session type at the same time, the full booking editor is still there for that, but since that combination accounts for less than 1% of all edits, we think this strikes the right balance between power and simplicity.
Adding & Removing Tags
If you've setup tags on your venue then you'll be able to assign these tags to bookings quickly. If you don't have tags yet then it might be worth looking into if they can make your life a bit easier!
Time Slot
The next quick edit covers time slot changes. Looking at the data, in nearly 90% of cases the time is shifted by less than half an hour and tends to be close to the original booking time, which reflects the familiar situation of a customer calling to say they're running a little late. Clicking the time on a booking card will now show you the available slots the booking can be moved to, with a tick indicating a free slot and a yellow triangle where there may be a conflict. We've kept custom time entry out of this view as it proved more error-prone in testing and adds a level of complexity that's better handled in the full editor. Even so, the vast majority of time changes can now be made in a matter of seconds.
Table Allocation
The final quick edit is table allocation. You'll notice it's absent from the usage table above as it operates through a different system, but it accounts for a significant proportion of common edits and is often one of the more time-consuming ones. When editing tables, you'll now see which tables are already in use during the booking's time slot, flagged with a warning triangle. From there you can click to add or remove tables with ease. In the Gantt view it's often simpler to drag the booking directly, but in the list view this change will make a real difference to your workflow.
Let Us Know What You Think
Features like these are shaped directly by the people who use BookingNinja every day, and your feedback genuinely makes a difference to where we focus our efforts next. Whether you have thoughts on how these quick edits are working for you, something you'd like to see improved, or just want to let us know you find them useful, we'd love to hear from you. You can leave a comment or a reaction at the bottom of this post, and we read every single one.