Guest Form

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This feature is currently in Beta and not yet available for all accounts. If you’re interested in trying it out, please contact our Support team (support@checkfront.com) for enablement.

 

The Guest Form add-on is an extension of your Booking Form and enables you, as a business, to collect the names and email addresses of all guests on a booking, not just the person who made it. This is great for maintaining customer records and updating your manifests and itineraries.

These insights not only provide data on who is attending your activities but enable you to understand individual guest needs and preferences. How else will you know that little Timmy is allergic to shellfish and has a fear of heights? The Guest Form add-on allows you to tie booking form responses to particular guests so you can make sure everyone is looked after and has what they need. 

 

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You will see a pop-up modal like the one in the screenshot above. From here, select the parameters which represent guests in your business. If, for example, you select adults and children as your parameters, these will be tied to your guest form. That way, if a customer makes a booking for 2 adults and 2 children, the system will provide 4 guest detail sections that can be filled out during the booking process.  

When you are happy with your selections, click the blue Activate button to complete the process.

 

 

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When creating a new field from scratch, or editing a field that already exists, there are various options you can configure that define the appearance and functionality of the field.

The field editor modal is divided into three tabs: General, Options & Advanced

The currently active tab will be highlighted with a blue line beneath it.

 

 

 

 

 

Type:

Common HTML input elements including text, select, radio buttons, and checkboxes.

Some of the fields require the input of additional options which can be chosen by the customer during checkout. An example would be a drop-down menu of choices. Choosing the Drop-down Select field will allow you to ask your customer a question and provide them with a list of possible answers to choose from. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depending on the type of field you select, the Options tab will update to enable further customization. In our example of a drop-down field, you will now be presented with a list of three options in the field's Options tab. These options can be edited to reflect your requirements. See below for more details on the options tab. 

 

Checkfront Tip: For more detailed information on the type of fields available and how to customize multiple choice questions, please review our support document on the Booking Form & Field Editor.

  

Label:

This is the label which will be displayed next to the field on your booking form and on your invoices. Examples of commonly used labels are Name, Email or Phone.

 

ID:

A unique ID - can be used in email notifications and CSS (alpha-numeric). 

The following fields are reserved by the system and therefore cannot be used as custom field IDs on the Guest Form. 

• guest_name
• guest_first_name
• guest_last_name
• guest_email
• guest_country
• guest_region
• guest_phone
• guest_city
• guest_address
• guest_postal_zip

 

Report Label:

Field name to be displayed on internal reports.

 

Tip:

This is an optional, short description that is displayed underneath the field. Use this to provide your customers with instructions on how you want them to fill out the field.

 

 

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Customer/Staff Only Fields:

You can choose whether or not to show certain fields to your customers on the booking form and/or invoice. You can also decide whether these fields are visible to staff members too. You may want your staff to collect information when taking bookings over the phone, but not want those fields visible on the public booking form. Set that up here. 

Below is an example of how a customer/staff only field can be identified in your Booking Manager.

 

 

 

 

You can also control whether or not a field is required. 

 

Checkfront Tip: When a staff member edits a booking, they will see fields that are normally hidden to staff. This gives staff the power to edit a customer only booking field.

 

 

 

 

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Guest Type Specific:

The Guest Type Specific switch enables you to select only certain parameters to which the guest field should apply. For example, you may wish to ask a question of your adult guests, which simply doesn't apply to children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In such a scenario, you would turn on the Guest Type Specific switch to reveal your list of linked parameters and then check the adult parameter, leaving children unchecked.

Below is an example of how a guest specific field can be identified in your Booking Manager.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have a large number of parameters, you can quickly select or unselect all of them by clicking on the buttons provided. These are labeled Select All and Select None.

 

Checkfront Tip: If the Guest Type Specific switch is left turned off, the system will assume you wish all parameters be applied to the guest field you are creating/editing. Therefore, if you only wish to apply the field to certain parameters, you must activate the switch and select the appropriate parameters from the options provided. Leaving the switch turned off does not mean that the field is inactive. For more detailed information on parameters, please view this support document.

 

 

Item Specific:

Similar to Guest Type Specific, you can select certain categories or individual items to which the field you are creating/editing should be applied. For instance, if you are an accommodation provider, you may wish to ask your guests a question related to staying in a particular type of room. By selecting the room(s) after activating the switch, you are ensuring that this question will only be shown to guests who are part of a booking on those items. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That field will now only appear during the checkout process when the item(s) is added to a booking. Item-specific fields can be identified in your Booking Manager by the label shown in the screenshot below.

 

 

 

Checkfront Tip: If the Item Specific switch is left turned off, the system will assume you wish all items be applied to the guest field you are creating/editing. Therefore, if you only wish to apply the field to certain items, you must activate the switch and select the appropriate items from the options provided. Leaving the switch turned off does not mean that the field is inactive.

 

 

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If you wish to change the order in which your fields are presented to the customer, simply hover your mouse over the field you wish to move, hold down your left mouse button, drag the field into its new position, and release!

 

 

 

 

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If you no longer wish to use a field on your guest form, you have the option to archive it. In doing so, you will remove the field from the booking form, reports, and invoices. Using our earlier example, let's now archive the field we made based on a guest's smoking preference.

 

 

 

 

You'll notice an Archive button to the right of any fields you created yourself. System fields, such as name and email address cannot be archived and so the button does not appear next to them.

Click on the button to archive the field and remove it from your guest form.

 

Restoring an Archived Field

In the Archived Fields section of the Guest Form edit page, you will see an arrow icon over on the right side. Click on this to slide out below a list of your archived fields. As you can see in the screenshot beneath, our smoking preference field is now living here.

 

 

 

 

Clicking the Restore button to the right of the field will immediately return the field back to your guest form.

 

Checkfront Tip: Archiving a field does not delete it or any of the data collected via that field from the system. Archiving simply removes the field from the booking form, keeping your data intact.

 

 

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Now that your guest form is ready for use, it's time to see how it fits into the booking flow.

In terms of the booking process, everything is much as it was before.

 

Booking Flow with Guest Form Add-on The customer visits your website or Checkfront reserve page and selects the items they wish to add to their booking. When ready, they will fill out the booking form and make a payment via your payment gateway. Upon a successful payment, the Guest Details screen will be displayed (see below).

 

 

 

 

This screen displays a list of the items booked and a link to add individual guest information to the booking.

To the left of each item in the Item List is a small arrow (highlighted in the screenshot above). Clicking on this will reveal a breakdown of how the guest parameters are divided up. This particular booking is made up of 2 adults and 2 children. If you remember back to earlier in this document, we added both adults and children as parameters to be recognized by the guest form.

 

 

 

 

In the screenshot above, the number of guests on the booking is represented by the number on the right. The number on the left depicts the number of guests that have already been added to the form. In this case, there are 4 people in the booking and no guests have been added to the form yet.

So, with that in mind, we should probably add some guests to this booking!

 

 

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To begin adding guests to a booking, the customer must click on the green Add Guest link below the item list.

 

 

 

 

Over on the right side, you will now see a section for entering guest information. This is split into 3 sections.

 

Select Items

The customer must select the items to which this guest should be applied. In some cases, there may be add-on items attached to parent items, such as a paddle or helmet, but these don't need to be added if it's not necessary to keep track of who has what.

 

 

 

 

 

Once an item has been selected, the customer will check off a radio button to tell the system which parameter the guest belongs to. In our case, that's either an adult or a child.

Click Continue.

 

Guest Information

Next, the customer will fill out the fields for guest information. This will include the 3 system fields (first name, last name, and email address), plus any additional fields you created earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

In a situation where the customer doesn't know the details required for the guest they are adding, they have the option to email that guest a link to the form so they can fill it out themselves.

A link labeled send a link can be found just above the First Name field in the Guest Information section. 

 

 

 

 

Clicking on that link will adjust the view to display an email field. The customer will enter the guest's email address in this field and click continue.

See the Guest Invite Link section below for further details on what happens when the guest receives the email from Checkfront.

If the customer changes their mind, they can simply click the return to the form link to revert back to their previous view.

 

 

 

 

 

After clicking continue to send the guest email, the customer will no longer be able to edit the guest fields in the right sidebar for that particular guest. Rather, they will see a message stating that the Guest Information and Documents fields are waiting for guest to complete information. 

The guest will also be added to the main guest list in pending status.

 

 

 

 

 

If the customer filled out the guest information themselves, they would now click Continue.

Once step 2 is complete, the guest is created and cannot be further edited by the customer.

 

Documents

Finally, if any documents or waivers are attached to the item(s) booked, they will appear in the Documents section. Notice also, now that we're on step 3, the word Guest at the top of the column has now been replaced by the customer's name.

 

 

 

 

If there is a document to fill out, the customer must click on the button labeled Fill out Document.

Once the customer has completed the document/waiver, they will be returned to the Guest List for the booking.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, Tim has been added to the booking as a guest and the status updated to Complete.

In this case, Tim is the customer and filled out the guest information for himself. If the guest was somebody else, however, and the attached document required a signature, Tim could complete step 2 on the other guest's behalf and then email them a link to the document which they can then sign themselves. 

To do so, the customer simply clicks on the email address link in the Documents section, as shown below. This is a private link and can only be accessed by the guest it was intended for.

 

 

 

 

 

This will trigger an email to the guest from which they can fill out/sign the document/waiver.

The guest list will update to show a pending status for the guest with a notification that we are waiting for guest to complete information.

See the Guest Invite Link section below for further details on what happens when the guest receives the email from Checkfront.

 

Add Another Guest

To add the next guest, the customer must click on the + Add Guest button and repeat the process.

Notice in the screenshot below that once a parameter has been used up it turns grey and cannot be selected again.

 

 

 

 

Remember, this is a booking for 2 adults and 2 children. Since 2 adults have been added to the booking so far, only 2 children can be added from this point.

When all guest slots have been filled out, the Empty Slots label at the top will be replaced by All Slots Full.

 

 

 

 

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On occasion, the primary booker may not have access to the information requested by your guest form for all guests in the booking. In addition to the individual invite links we looked at earlier, the primary booker can obtain a share this link from the top of the guest details screen and forward this to the other participants. This is a public link and can be accessed by anyone who has it.

 

 

 

 

After clicking the link, the customer (primary booker) will see a small pop-up bubble containing a private URL for sharing. 

 

 

 

 

Clicking the Copy button will copy the URL to the customer's clipboard which they can then share with the other guests on the booking.

When a guest clicks on the link in their email they will be presented with a private web page where they can fill out their guest information and submit.

 

 

 

 

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When finished with the share link, or if they simply don't wish to use it as described above, the customer can click on the continue to your receipt link at the top of the page to complete the booking process.

 

 

 

 

And that's it for the customer booking. At this point, customers do not have the ability to view or edit the information on the guest form.

 

 

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As a staff member, you will notice a new tab in the customer invoice view labeled Guests.

 

 

 

 

Clicking on this tab will open the guest view for the booking.

 

 

 

 

Displayed is the Item List and Guest List, similar in view to what the customer saw during the booking process.

Staff, however, have additional functionality in that they can edit the guest details provided by the customer during booking.

 

 

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If a waiver/document has been filled out through your public document directory and not during the booking process, it's possible to go ahead and manually attribute that waiver/document to one of the guests in a booking.

 

Steps to Manually Attach a Guest Document Navigate to the invoice in your Booking Manager and select the Guests tab. From the Guest List, select the guest you wish to attach the document to. In the right sidebar, click on the Attach Document button. From the pop-up modal, select a public document from the drop-down menu. Click the blue Attach button.

 

 

 

 

After clicking on the Attach Document button, select the public document from the drop-down menu and click the blue Attach button.

 

 

 

 

The guest will now be updated with the attached document.

 

 

 

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To edit a guest on the list simply click on their entry to reveal their details on the right.

 

 

 

Locate the section you wish to edit and click on the blue Edit link.

 

 

 

 

Update the information as required and click Submit. If you've changed your mind, click Cancel. or, if you wish to remove the guest from the list altogether, click Delete. This will remove the guest and open up a slot to add another.

Same as before, click + Add Guest to add another person.