Add Special Dates - Highlight/Block Checkins/Checkout and Block all Bookings for Specific Date Ranges

Special Dates can be used for a variety of purposes. Here are a few examples:

• Block Checkins/Checkouts on certain days - e.g. if you don't want customers turning up on Christmas Day, you can block checkins/checkouts for 25/12.
• Block certain pens - e.g. You wish to perform maintenance on a block or a single pen - in this case you could Block all bookings for those pens for a certain date range
• Highlight dates - You wish to highlight in a different background colour on the scheduler a certain date range - e.g. You have a special event you wish to make your staff aware of on the scheduler.

Let's take a look at adding a Special Date into the system.

Go to Settings > Customization and select Special Dates from the left navigation menu.

From here you have two options to Add - Bulk Special Days and Add Special Date

The primary button you will want to click here is Add Special Date. Bulk Special Days is not used much anymore as opening hours can usually achieve what you wish now. We will still cover its usage below.

Add Special Date

From here you can provide a name for the Special Date - e.g. Christmas 2024

Add a Start and End date for the period you wish to block. e.g. for Christmas 2024: 25/12/2024-25/12/2024

For the Method - you have 3 options

1. All - Block all areas and pens for the selected dates
2. Area Types - Block only a certain area type - e.g. daycare or boarding
3. Items - Block a certain pen or collection of pens (usually used where you wish to perform maintenance on certain pens or only block certain pens)

For Special Date Type - you have 3 options. These are for your reference and are not shown to your customers: Closed, Maintenance, Public Holiday.

For Special Date Block Type - you have 3 options

1. Block All Bookings - make a block that no booking can cross. This is utilised where you wish to prevent bookings across a certain date range. e.g. Where you are going on holidays and closing the facility
2. Block Checkins/Checkout - only prevent checkins/checkouts on the selected date range. Utilised where you don't want to allow checkins/checkout on those dates but still want to allow bookings to cross those dates. e.g. Christmas Day
3. Block Taxi - this is only useful if you are utilising the Taxi functionality. This allows you to prevent taxi services across the selected date range. e.g. If you are not doing taxi services over peak seasons.
4. Highlight - this does not block any pens but simply highlights with a different background colour on the scheduler so staff can see a special date range at a glance.

Portal Only - This checkbox when selected makes the block only apply to the customer portal and not through the admin. If you want to still be able to book the dates within the block through the admin but not through the portal then select this option. In the case where you don't want your staff to accidentally book the dates through the admin then don't select this option.

Active - this makes the block active if ticked.

Bulk Special Days

This screen is made availabile so you can block certain day names for an entire calendar year.

The difference to Add Special Date above is that there is a selector for the day names and the year instead of a specific date range.

As we have extended out opening hours to allow different opening hours for different services - e.g. Daycare and Boarding, this function is not really used anymore. You can simply not add opening hours for the days and areas that you wish instead of blocking like this.

It may still be useful for adding things like a block of taxi services on certain days for an entire year by selecting Block Taxi from the Special Date Block Type.

Showing Special Dates on Scheduler/Date Pickers

Special dates are shown on the scheduler highlighted in the relevant colour. 

There is a legend to the colours that apply on the scheduler and date pickers.

You can roll over the day numbers to see the name of the Special Date that is applied.

The Date Picker for checkin and checkout dates when trying to add a booking will reflect the special dates. In this case, 25-26/12 cannot be checked in or out on.

Viewing Existing Special Dates

On the main Special Dates screen you can Edit and Delete existing Special Dates

You can also change the setting for whether they are portal only or active by pressing the relevant checkboxes.

You can also select Clone Next Year to clone the existing Special Date to the same dates in the following year.

The Show Past option will allow you to see Special Dates that were in the past. They are hidden by default. You can also turn on Show Inactive to show Special Dates that have been marked Inactive.