This option allows members to book a reservation type that other members can sign up to participate in. Developed mostly for our tennis clubs in mind for members to find partners, this reservation type could also be used for lap swimmers if your club has a “buddy system” for unguarded swim hours.
Reservation Tally
A Seeking Partner type reservation will count toward the tally of each participant. For example, if members can only book once per day, enrolling in someone else’s reservation will max out the daily limit of both players.
These reservation types can “seek” up to 4 players. So including the host, a total of 5 at most can share in a single reservation. Typically though for tennis courts, your club would define these two options…
- Reservation Name: Seeking Singles Partner – Amount Seeking: 1
- Reservation Name: Seeking Doubles Partners – Amount Seeking: 3
We included the Seeking 4 people option so your tennis director or pro can create these reservations as the Host but not necessarily play.
Automatic Cancellations
These reservation types can optionally be set to automatically cancel the day of or the day before if the reservation has zero participants.
If at least one person has signed up, not including the original person that made the reservation (the host), it will not be cancelled.
For example, if the host was seeking to play Doubles, but enough people signed up for a Singles match, the reservation will stand as that at least gives the host and another person an opportunity to play.
This setting will also prevent members from making this type reservation the day of or day before.
Email notifications
All participants will be notified if the reservation is cancelled by the host. Likewise, the host will be notified if a participant signs up or removes themselves. Hosts and participants will receive each other’s email address in case they need to contact one another before the reservation date.
Hosts and participant names will be noted on the reservation grid (for members-only to see).
Members can opt in or out of receiving email notifications when this type reservation is made.
Seeking Partner Interest Tag
Members can opt in (or out) of a new Partner Interest tag in the Member Dashboard. This tag name can be customized in the Admin Settings for your Tennis grid (or Fitness or Swim grids).
If the “Allow Seeking Partner reservations” property is set to “Yes…” for all members, this tag will appear in the Member Dashboard in the Your Interests section.
If this tag title is blank, it will not show in the Member Dashboard.
Enabling this Feature
By default this new reservation option is turned off. It can be left off for the entire club, but turned on for specific members using the Extend Reservation Limits module.
Publicizing the Seeking Partners Interest Tag
To get the word out about this option, we recommend emailing people that regularly use the courts (if this is for tennis players). In the Communications module, select the Reserved a Tennis Court option…
From there, you can choose a timeframe to pick from members that have reserved a court. We recommend anyone that has a reserved a court in the last year.
In the body message of the email, say whatever you would like regarding this amazing new feature!
Finish off your email with a link for members to add the “Tennis Partners” interest tag to their account. In the dropdown menu below the body message, select the “Tennis Partners” option (this tag name may be different if you renamed it in your Grid Settings).
Members that click the link will automatically add this tag to their account.
When members create a Seeking Partner reservation through the website we will email people with that interest tag that a reservation is available for them to join.
Publicizing all upcoming Seeking Partner reservations
Again when composing an email, another option in the dropdown menu below the Body Message is to list upcoming “Sign Up” reservations in the next 4 weeks. This could be all clinics that allow sign-up’s as well as seeking partner reservations.
As you can see the Seeking Partners type can be excluded if your club only wants to publicize the clinics (which are obviously more important to focus on).
Once selected, you will see a list of the upcoming sign-ups found in the next 4 weeks…
