Working with system booking form fields

Learn what system fields are and how they are used in the Booking Form and Guest Form, including editing fields.

New to the Booking Form? Read the first article in this series for an introduction to the Booking Form.

Accessing the features mentioned in this article

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

Manage > Layout > Booking Form

What more do I need to use this feature?

Admin permissions to manage your account.

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic items, classic products, or both?

This feature is available in both our classic version using classic items (Inventory > Items) and our classic version using classic products (Inventory > Products). → Learn more about products

Working with system fields

Checkfront has a set of pre-defined Booking Form and Guest Form fields called system fields. These are used to populate information in your database and serve specific roles in the system.

Booking Form field IDs identify Booking Form fields, including system fields. Knowing the IDs of system fields and where to find the ID can be necessary, for example, if you want to include the associated information in an email notification sent to Customers.

Learn more about email notifications and how they can be populated with Booking Form IDs here:

Introduction to email notifications

Important!

If you choose to remove pre-defined system fields from your Booking Form, then please note that certain functionality could be lost, for example:

customer_email. The matching field is required to send email Notifications to Customers.
customer_country and customer_region. The matching fields are pre-filled using GeoIP detection, custom field substitutions would not be.
customer_postal_zip. The matching field is automatically changed based on the selected country; custom field substitutions would not be.

It's recommended that you do not replace these options. You may, however, archive them if not required. First, make sure that your Payment Provider does not require the fields.

Additionally, we do not recommend using all of the Customer name fields together, e.g. customer_name along with customer_first_name and customer_last_name, as this may lead to Payment Providers not processing payments successfully.

Please note that the system fields currently support English language strings only.

Working with booking form fields

Booking Form Fields

You can access and view the Booking Form field IDs by clicking on Edit next to the matching Booking Form field (Manage > Layout > Booking Form > Booking Details).

Edit Form Field

The Booking Form field ID is listed within the General tab of the Edit Form Field modal. If the Booking Form field is a system field, then the ID is read-only.

Below is a list of the standard Booking Form field IDs that match the default booking fields that come with your Checkfront account.

Use All Lowercase for Booking ID Fields

All Booking Form field IDs must be entered in lowercase letters to capture the resulting data in reports. For example...

X Incorrect: Customer_name or Customer_Name
✓ Correct: customer_name

Value	Description	Additional Details
customer_prefix	Prefix to the Customer's Name.	Comes with Mr, Mrs, & Miss by default, but more can be added if required.
customer_name	Full name (first & last) of the Customer. This is the default field for collecting this information.	You can replace this with both customer_first_name and customer_last_name, if needed. Past booking information is retained and reportable.
customer_first_name	First name of the Customer.
customer_last_name	Last name of the Customer.
customer_email	Customer e-mail address.
customer_phone	Phone number of Customer.
customer_address	Street address of the Customer.
customer_city	Customer city of residence.
customer_country	Customer country code.	Dropdown with detected country auto-selected.
customer_region	Customer state or province.	Dropdown with detected region auto-selected. For the regions to appear in the dropdown, you must also use the customer_country field. If you do not, the field does not populate properly.
customer_postal_zip	Postal or zip code.	The label of the matching Booking Form field automatically changes based on the selected country; custom field substitutions do not.
note	Note that can be created at the time of booking.
customer_email_optin	The Stay up-to-date on our newsletter field only displays when the Mailchimp or Constant Contact integrations are activated.
booking_language	The language of the booking. This special field only appears on the booking form if you have activated additional languages in your system. It is visible to Staff members only.	This enables your Staff to change the language of the notification sent to the Customer when a booking is complete. Only the currently active languages display in the dropdown menu.

Working with guest form fields

Guest Form Fields

You can access and view the Guest Form field IDs by clicking Edit next to the matching Guest Form field (Manage > Layout > Guest Form > Booking Details).

Guest Form Field ID

The Guest Form field ID is listed within the General tab of the Edit Form Field modal. The ID is read-only if the Guest Form field is a system field.

The system reserves the following fields and cannot be used as IDs on the Guest Form.

Value	Description	Additional Details
guest_name	Full name (first & last) of the Guest. This is the default field for collecting this information.	You can replace this with both guest_first_name and guest_last_name, if needed. Past booking information is retained and reportable.
guest_first_name	First name of the Guest.
guest_last_name	Last name of the Guest.
guest_email	Guest e-mail address.
guest_phone	Phone number of Guest.
guest_address	Street address of the Guest.
guest_city	Guest city of residence.
guest_country	Guest country code.	Dropdown with detected country auto-selected.
guest_region	Guest state or province.	Dropdown with detected region auto-selected. For the regions to appear in the dropdown, you must also use the guest_country field. If you do not, then the field does not populate properly.
guest_postal_zip	Postal or zip code.	The label of the matching Booking Form field automatically changes based on the selected country; custom field substitutions do not.

In the following article, we look at archiving booking form fields.

< Configuring advanced booking form fields | Translating booking form fields >

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