Room Multi-Booking System

[Georg]

Hi, I'm working in a hostel in New Zealand....at the moment all work is done in a 'old fashioned' way. Therefore I had a look in the internet for a management software. Of course all programs which are available for free are limited in some way ...until I found php-residence.Thats a great idea and great work! The problem i have is that this system is ..at the moment not useful for this hostel (and hostels in general!) because the beds in rooms like dorms can be booked by more than one person!
It would be great if a room could be booked by more than one person so long as enough beds are available and so long as it is allowed. If i had enough skill to do it on my own I would do it, but unfortunately my knowledge of php is more basic and a change like that would probably require changes over the howl system (apartments,table...)

The thing I thought about was to use the apartment number as the number of a bed..this could probably work but in a hotel with 23 rooms and around 50 or more beds the overview would be lost soon. Moreover, every bed must be booked by one person! Therefore it would be good if it would be possible to book one person in more than one apartment (bed) at once to speed up the check-in process.

Perhaps you have some more ideas how I could adjust it. This program is great for motels and hotels but if hostels could use it as well it would be fantastic..perhaps this is something for the future

Thanks a lot Georg

[marco]

Hello Georg,
I think that setting up 1 apartment = 1 bed is the way to go, doing something different would make the code overly complicated without any big advantage. Having a month table with the rooms would not allow you to see how many people is in each room (putting the number instead of the surname would not allow to see when someone arrives or leaves). Also consider that having the automatic assignment you won't have to look at the table so much to maximize the availability

You can insert more than 1 reservation at once, so for example to book 3 people select a rate "one bed" and put the number of "apartments" to 3 (using assignment rule 4 you don't even need to insert 1 for the number of people). Remember to set up the assignment rule 2 for each rate.

A problem is that the 3 people in the previous example can be assigned to different rooms, but this will be solved in next version when you'll be able to insert reservations in close apartments. So you'll be able to configure all beds(=apartments) in the same room as close apartments and select this option when inserting the reservation.

Naturally using php-residence in this way you may encounter some problems that are not common for hotels, if you decide to use it I'll be looking for your suggestions in this area. For example it would be useful for you being able to make more modifications to groups of reservations (now you can only modify the paid amount and see the contracts from the "all reservations table").

Marco

[Georg]

Ok i have now begun to configure the system. Every apartment=bed and grouped to a house(room) and the rooms depending on their beds in it grouped in floors(typs ->singel,double,twin,dorm). And it works quite well! I also noticed the 'Number of reservations of this type' function! I don't know why but sometimes there is an error ..perhaps it is that what you mentioned?


There are some things which would not be bad and would help here.
In this hostel the rate mainly depends on the room...a assignment rule would be nice.
Morover the Monthtable is good ..but if you have 70 beds and 30 days it is difficult to say if a bed is free on a special day...to make the table shorter to a minimum of 1 day would be great! so far what came to my mind ...some other may follow

Chees

[Georg]

So far it works well but i have a small problem with the 'add other types' function when i make a reservation. For example ..I have a familie which booked a room with a double bed and a single bed for their child (a bed = one Apartment for one person)..Therefore i make a new reservation under the name of the man or his wife and instead of changing 'Number of reservations of this type' I use the 'Add other type' function ..because the rate for the child is not the same like for the parents!...but if insert the reservation following error is shown..


ERROR IN: select idappartamenti from appartamenti and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'
1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'' at line 1

Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in C:\Documents and Settings\bonny\My Documents\downloads\php-residence\xmapp\xampp\htdocs\php-residence\includes\funzioni_mysql.php on line 79
There are no beds with the requested features (tipologia 2).

ERROR IN: select idappartamenti from appartamenti and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'
1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'' at line 1

Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in C:\Documents and Settings\bonny\My Documents\downloads\php-residence\xmapp\xampp\htdocs\php-residence\includes\funzioni_mysql.php on line 79
There are no beds with the requested features (tipologia 3).

-then I 'go back'

-'insert reservation '


ERROR IN: select idappartamenti from appartamenti and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'
1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'and numcasa = 'Officers Mess dorm'' at line 1

Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in C:\Documents and Settings\bonny\My Documents\downloads\php-residence\xmapp\xampp\htdocs\php-residence\includes\funzioni_mysql.php on line 79
There are no beds with the requested features (tipologia 3).

-'go back'
-'insert reservation'

..it works

Maybe it has to do with the bedlist.. every time i go back ..step by step ..the bedlist is added to the 'type1' after the seconde go back to type 2....until it works



Thanks for your help

[marco]

This file should solve this bug:

http://www.digitaldruid.net/download/clienti.zip

Unzip it and replace the clienti.php file that comes with php-residence 0.6.4.

Marco

[Georg]

it works thanks a lot!

but what i realy don't understand I use already version 0.6.4???

by the way... is the assignment rule 3 editable? when i'm on the form for the ruels i can only edit 1,2 and 4?

[marco]

but what i realy don't understand I use already version 0.6.4???

Yes, that's to remark that the file is for version 0.6.4 (this post may be read later when new versions are available).

by the way... is the assignment rule 3 editable? when i'm on the form for the ruels i can only edit 1,2 and 4?

Rule 3 is for users, it appears only when some normal user has been created.

Marco

[Georg]

ahh ok !

by the way one realy important improvement for hostels might be

1) to show in the monthly table beside the apartments (which would be the beds) the house (or even the floor ) as well..moreover a changing background color for the houses would make it more overviewable

2) if i want to look how much space in each room is i need for each room one rate...to have a normal function under configuration to sort the apartments in housers(rooms) would alowe to use less rates

thanks

[marco]

2) if i want to look how much space in each room is i need for each room one rate...to have a normal function under configuration to sort the apartments in housers(rooms) would alowe to use less rates

You are refferring to the availability overview grouping, right?

Marco

[Georg]

yes i did mean the "check availibility"

The reason why i suggested that is that this hostel has 26 Rooms. So i have to add at least 26 rates ..which I actually don't need and it also take a long time to insert all the data.

For a smaler hostel with 3 room it's might be not a problem but as soon as you have many rooms it is not so good

Thanks

[marco]

I will add it to my TODO list.

Marco