I just discovered the versatility that "Special days" offers for each and every employee. This is a really good feature that allows special arrangements for even a range of days.... with periods and breaks.... and I tested it.... it nicely overwrites the regular weekly schedule.  So great. Together with some other workarounds I feel that I can now get a system that works for my specific business. 

Understanding your system better my remaining questions become also more sharp and precise. These are the most important ones:

* Can you make it so that a customer can add multiple services on the same date & time (timeslot) to his/her cart and then buy that all at once. This is very important to my business where each customer (passenger) requires one employee (pilot). Often a couple wants to book 2 flights together same time same place and it would be amazing if the buyer can put 2 in one cart and check out and pay. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND SIMPLE TO DO 

* Please at the booking overview always also show the number of items and not just the total amount. A customer might doubt if he/she did everything right at the last moment when say 1000 euro needs too be paid. Would be good if the buyer can then see that they booked an X number of services (flights). Time and date and amount are shown. Why not the number of items. EASY TO FIX

* Is it possible to add a distance between locations and a travel time? In this way not would be possible to never get problems when a 1 hour service has been booked at 8 at location A which is 1 hour driving from location B. So the first bookable slot for that employee at location B should be 10 o clock. This might be a bit complex to program but makes total sense. 

* Is it possible to create a "general employee" with a kind of countdown system where a manager can decide that on a given day the names are not important and bookings should rather be anonymous.... the manager can then say 6 employees are available.... and the system allows to book that in a countdown fashion. This option goes a bit against the personal philosophy of Amelia... I like the personal style of Amelia. So I see this as a long term consideration. I have a work-a-round anyway: I have created a "Multiple Pilots Any Location" employee that has place for 6 customers. Which is for now a workable solution.  

And regarding exclusive services on exclusive locations..... I really think your system needs to allow for that. Imagine a yoga teacher named Andrea has an outdoor and an indoor location. Those locations are 1 hour apart. She has 2 activities: indoor yoga and outdoor yoga. According to your earlier replies in order to separate them she would need to make two employees for herself: "Andrea Indoor " and "Andrea Outdoor" in order to make it such that indoor can only be booked on location A and outdoor only on location B. As a database programmer it is so easy to allow for this extra direct coupling between locations and services. Imagine a martial arts trainer who only does Kung Fu on location A and Tai Kwando on location B. Your system must be able to accommodate for that in a simple straightforward way right? Please think about this again. I used to be a smart database programmer and really I dont just say something without thinking about it.  

Add 3) I have now seen that I can really exclude time slots that are already booked and I can manually add a travel back time in the google calendar which then makes that I cannot be booked during the travel back time. SO at least that is working (in the general settings I switched the exclude busy time slots function on). So great!

It's still not perfect because often I do not know ahead of time if I need to travel back. I could get a spontaneous booking at the same location that I was already that morning. So the only real and definitive solution is to have stable somewhere where travel times between locations can be filled in, such that only if someone wants to book at a location 2 hours away those two hours are not bookable. Whereas if the customer is at the same current location as the employee he should be able to book without 2 hours delay. 

But at least Im happy to see that it is possible to take out overlapping time slots. So not bad!     

Hi Uros,

Thanks for your kind replies. All good for now. I tried to set up the cart function already and I my conclusion is that a customer cannot add multiple bookings on the same timeslot in the cart. It seems to be meant for a customer who books several yoga classes for him or herself on one time.... but it doesnt allow for a father to book 4 tandem flights for his whole family in the same timeslot. If that possibility could be added than that is a great solution for us too.... that keeps the personal approach of Amelia since the say 3 or 4 bookings the 3 or 4 pilots would have to be selected personally since when Pete is booked in the first instance Pete is no longer available when adding a second flight. So the customer then books Pete, John and Mathilda for one time slot and makes the reservation in one time with one push of a button.

I think you agree right?

Cheers,

Hajo  

Hi Uros,

You write:

"Regarding the cart feature, when customers book multiple services through the cart, they are indeed able to bring multiple people with them for the same appointment. This allows for situations like a father booking tandem flights for his family in the same timeslot."

I have checked that several times and it seems not the case. So just to be clear: we are talking about using the cart function to add several bookings for the same service and same timeslot rather than using the option where people can "bring people along". The latter I have been able to set up with a "Multiple pilots" employee where up to 6 people in total can come. That works fine.

Using the cart function however I have seen that as soon as customer X selects service A from employee A on timeslot A that then shopping further customer X can select service A from employee B but even though B is not yet booked that day timeslot A is no longer available. Your system seems to presuppose that the customer only puts some services for him or herself in the cart like multiple consecutive yoga sessions. As far as I have tested it, it doesnt allow a father to put services for his whole family with 3 different employees on the same timeslot in his cart. 

With tandem paragliding it is always 1 pilot to 1 passenger. So the father needs to book Peter, James and Jill if they want to fly at the same time with 3 pilots. Your system however seems to think that when the father booked Peter on Monday 9 o clock, that he should not be allowed to book James also on Monday at 9 o clock.

I tested this. The timeslot always gets blocked for all employees after the first service/timeslot combination has been selected. Can you check it also. I think you agree that this should be possible.     

Hi Uros,

Here's a video detailing the situation: