Online Booking Portal - Setup & Use Guide

Sonido Software provides a convenient Online Booking Portal that allows you to customize specific services and packages that can be embedded within your website for client bookings. The Online Booking flow seamlessly connects captured bookings to your Sonido account, automatically creating new contacts, projects, internal calendar bookings, invoices and capturing payments from deposits.

The Online Booking Portal provides an extensive number of configurations and branding options, allowing your booking forms to match your business flows and website design for a more seamless look and feel. 

ONLINE BOOKING SETUP

To begin the setup of your online booking portal, select the "Settings" within your Sonido account and then select "Integrations." Then, scroll down to the "Sonido Online Bookings" section of the page. You will need to toggle the settings from "Inactive" to "Active" to begin. 

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Services and Packages

The Services and Packages section allows you to build out your services that you offer in your studio for your clients to select from when booking studio time. A Service is a high-level service that you offer at a category level, such as "Recording," "Podcasting," etc. These are typically services offered when the client is coming to your studio to fulfill a service. A Package is something you offer under the Service category, such as a "2 Hour Recording Session" or "Podcasting Session." You can create as many Packages as necessary within a Service. 

To create a Service, select the "+ New Service" button. A dialog will appear where you can enter the appropriate information for the Service: 

• Service Name: This will be the name of the Service that you are creating. As a best practice, create this as a high-level category. 
• Event Type: This will be the type of event that is created on the calendar when the booking is created. This corresponds with the list of Event Types that have been created within your Sonido account. If the Service offered is for some kind or recording, you would likely select "Recording" from the Event Type field. 
• Cover: This will allow you to upload an image that will be used for any Packages that fall within this Service. After uploading the image, you will have the option to crop the image and save.

Be sure to save your Service.

You can edit the Service fields or cover image anytime using the "Edit Service" button, or you can delete a Service by pressing the red "X" button next to the Service. 

DYNAMIC HOURS SELECTION

• • • • •

Sonido Software released a new enhancement to the Online Booking Portal that allows you to either select a "Fixed Rate (Package Price)" package, or a "Calculated Rate (Hourly Price Calculation)" package. Both formats have their own unique formats. See below for more information. 

WALKTHROUGH OF NEW DYNAMIC HOURS IN ONLINE BOOKINGS

Once you have created a Service, you can then create one or more Packages that fall within that Service category. To create a Package, select the "+ New Package" button. A dialog will appear where you can enter the appropriate information for the Package: 

• Project Type: You will define which type of project the Package will fall under. These options are defaults within Sonido that include: Music, Podcast, Audiobook, Voiceover, Post-Production, and Other (any other types of projects that you may work within).
• Name: This will be the name of the Package that you are creating. This will typically be a description of the package, as you may have multiple packages that are similar, such as "Recording Session: 2 Hours" and "Recording Session: Full Day" as two separate Packages. 
• Service: This will default to the Service under which you are creating the Package, but you have the ability to select a different Service if necessary that the saved Package will fall under.
• No Engineer: This option allows you to determine whether an Engineer is included with an online booking Package or not. By default, the toggle is OFF, meaning that you DO have an Engineer (and your website visitor will be able to select WHICH Engineer they wish to work with); if you set the toggle to ON, then NO ENGINEER will be added to the online booking.

• Billing Type: There are two different types of billing that you can select from, each with a slightly different purpose:
  • Fixed Rate (Package Price) - this is typically used as a fixed rate package price. For example, if you are offering a "2-hour Mixing Training" package, you may have a set price for that package option. This option works well for setting a non-varying rate for the package. 
    • Package Rate Total - when selecting the Fixed Rate billing type, you will then set the Package Rate Total, which is the total billed price that you will collect from your client. 
    • Total Hours - this field is to specify how many total hours are included with the Package. This is the total number of hours that will be blocked on your Sonido Calendar when someone books this package. 
  • Set Booking Start Times - For Fixed Rate packages, you have the ability to set booking start times. With this option disabled, the online booking portal will show all availability via time increments throughout the day.
    • If you want to limit what times this online booking package will begin throughout the day, you can enable the "Set Booking Start Times" option. After enabling this option, you can then set the Start Time for your package. The End Time will adjust automatically based on the "Total Hours" field above (you cannot change the End Time field - to make a change you will need to update the Total Hours field to reflect the total number of desired hours for the booking). You have the ability to add as many different Start Times for bookings throughout the day as you wish, all depending on the Total Hours for the booking. Keep in mind that Start Times cannot overlap when using this feature - you must have additional Start Times began after the End Time for a previous entry.

• • Calculated Rate (Hourly Price Calculation) - this option is used when you want to allow the website visitor to select the number of hours for a package. For example, if you are offering a Recording Session package, and you want your client to be able to set how many hours they want to book, this option will allow them to select the desired number of hours from a list when booking the package. 
    • Hourly Rate - when selecting the Calculated Rate billing type, you will then set the Hourly Rate that you will collect for the package. The client's total billing will be calculated based on this hourly rate and how many hours they selected for the package. 
    • Maximum Hours - this field allows you to specify the maximum number of hours that your client can select from when determining how many hours they'd like to book in this package. This number must be a whole number. For example, if I enter a 5 in this field, when a website visitor selects this package and opens the list to select the number of hours they'd like to book, they will see options ranging from 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours and 5 hours (which is the Maximum Hours that I set up for selection in this package). 
    • NEW!  Minimum Hours - this field allows you to specify the minimum number of hours that your client can select from when determine how many hours they'd like to book in this package. This number must be a whole number. For example, if I enter a 2 in this field, when a website visitor selects this package and opens the list to select the number of hours they'd like to book, they will see options ranging from 2 hours up to the maximum hours available for this package; they will not have an option to select a number of hours less than the minimum hours that you specify. 
    • Include 30-minute interval options - this checkbox will allow your website visitors to also see 30-minute intervals within the Minimum and Maximum Hours that you have set up. For example, if I check this box, then the client would see options for selection ranging from 0.5 hours, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours... and so on, up to my maximum Hours that I have set up. 

NOTE
If you have Sales Tax/VAT turned on by default (found within your Company Settings), the total tax amount will also display as a part of your total Package price, and that tax will also display within your Invoice for collection. 

• Rooms: This option will allow you to specify which of your studio rooms are available for the Package you are creating. If your package is only available for a specific room, you will want to select only that room in this field, which prevents other rooms being booked for this Package. A simple example may be if you have a podcasting bay only used for a Podcasting package, you'd want to select only that podcasting bay as the room for a "Podcasting" package so that clients couldn't book other rooms for Podcasting. 
• Description: This will be the full description of what you are offering in the Package. These details will be made available to anyone booking studio time through your website as they review the Package.

Be sure to save your Package. Then, create as many additional Packages as necessary for the Service that is provided. Each Package created will be available in a list under the selected Service category. 

You can edit the Package fields anytime using the "Edit Package" button, or you can delete a Package by pressing the red "X" button next to the Package.

Coupon Codes

For Online Booking packages, you control whether coupon codes should be enabled or not. You may find that some packages allow coupon codes, where others do not. Ultimately, you decide whether coupon codes are supported for your Online Booking package. 

To learn more about creating and managing coupon codes, view our Coupon Codes guide.

NO ENGINEER

For each individual Package, you have the option to determine whether an Engineer should be booked with the session or not. By default, all Packages display the "No Engineer" field as disabled. This means that when your client is booking a session through the online booking portal, they will have the option to select an Engineer that they'd like to work with for the selected Package (depending on which Engineers you've made available for that Package).

Alternatively, if you have a Package that does not require an Engineer, and you do not want your client to select an Engineer, you can change the "No Engineer" field to Enabled, meaning that when your client is booking a session through the online booking portal, the Engineer field will simply display as "No Engineer". 

You can always edit a saved calendar booking in Sonido to assign an Engineer later. 

Terms and Conditions / Cancellation Policy

You can add your Terms and Conditions and any Cancellation Policy that you may want to make available for review when clients are booking sessions through the Online Booking portal. Simply paste or type the appropriate content into the Terms and Conditions and Cancellation Policy fields, and these will be available as links for client review.

 

Business Hours

Details relating to some booking preferences may be populated in the Business Hours section. 

• Buffer Between Bookings: You can enter a time buffer between bookings that would prevent a client from booking a session immediately after an event ends. 
• Prevent Same Day Bookings: (This option will be phased out in 2024) You can prevent clients from creating same-day bookings by toggling this setting on. This will help avoid any bookings being saved with little to no notice. 
• Prevent Booking Within Specified Hours: You can set a number of hours of unavailability that relate to the point that a client is using your online booking portal to the time when the first available booking time is available. For example, if you set "24 hours" as this option, when your client reviews your online booking portal, the first available time for selection will be 24 hours from the current time that they are using your booking portal. 

Engineers

The Engineers section allows you to select which Engineers (your Sonido users) are selectable within the Online Booking Portal. You can define details such as the Engineer details, which Packages they service, and their availability. 

To add an Engineer for selection within the Online Booking Portal, select "+ Assign Engineer." This will display the Engineer dialog where you can populate relevant details related to the booking process. 

• Engineer: This field will allow you to select from a list of existing users within your Sonido account. If you need to create an additional Engineer that is not displaying in this list, you will need to first create them as a Sonido user within your account. If an Engineer is added within the Online Booking settings here, they will be available for clients to select from within the Online Booking Portal. 
• Package: This field will allow you to select which Package(s) the Engineer should be connected to. For example, if you have an Engineer that should be selectable for any Packages within a "Recording" Service, you will want to select all the applicable Packages in this field. If an Engineer does not have a Package selected in this field, they will not show up as an available Engineer for clients in the Online Booking Portal. REMEMBER: If you create a new Package(s), you will need to edit the appropriate Engineers in this section to apply the new Package(s) to the appropriate Engineers so that they are displayed within the Online Booking Portal correctly. You can pick and choose which Engineers provide which Packages, allowing you a great deal of flexibility in the booking flow.  
• Rooms: You can specify which rooms would appear for the Engineer. If your Engineer only works within a single room in your studio, selecting only that room would prevent this Engineer from being booked in a different room. You can select "All Rooms" to easily make the Engineer available for booking in all studio rooms. 
• Description: The Description field will allow you to add a details description about the Engineer, such as their credentials and experience, awards they've won, what genres they are focused on, etc. Any of these details will be available to the client to review when booking within the portal, and may help them make the appropriate selection on which Engineer is right for them based on the description. 
• Engineer Availability: This field will allow you to define the general availability of each Engineer separately based on their working hours weekly. You can define which days of the week an Engineer is available, and specific working hours each day of the week. These details will factor into which Engineer is available when a client is booking within the Online Booking Portal; in creating a booking, the client will only see Engineers to select from that are available within the day and time selected in the Online Booking calendar - all based on the Engineer Availability settings. 

You have the ability to reorder the Engineers after they have been saved by selecting the black bar icon to the left of the Engineer name and dragging it to a new position in the list. This will result in your Online Booking Portal list displaying Engineers in the order you desire.

Sonido Project Data Fields

The Sonido Project Data Fields are additional optional fields that you can add to the Online Booking Portal to collect from clients upon booking. When a client completes a booking using the booking portal, Sonido will automatically create a contact record for the contact (the unique identifier is an email address - if they already exist within Sonido, it will not create a duplicate record), create a new Project, book the calendar booking within your Sonido calendar, and create a new Invoice, and document the payment for any captured deposit value (the Invoice and Payment entries are only applicable if you are requiring a Deposit).

You can allow the client to populate additional Project information so that you capture as much of the details upfront as possible upon booking a session. Some of these additional (optional) Project data fields include: 

• Project Name
• Target Start Date
• Target Completion Date
• Band/Group Name
• Band/Group Manager
• Band/Group Music Publisher
• Band/Group Record Label
• Band/Group Collaborators
• Band/Group Bio
• Total Band/Group Members
• Musical Influences
• Music Sounds Like
• Studio Experience
• Favorite Drinks/Snacks
• Website
• Social Media Links
• Music Media Links

If you turn all these details off, a Project will still be created upon a successful booking, but it will use the contact name as the Project Name, and all other fields in this list will remain blank.

You also have the option to determine whether these fields are required for entry by your clients or not. After enabled a field, you will see an additional toggle that displays where you can determine whether the field is required. If marked as required, your client will not be able to submit an online booking until that field is populated - they'll receive a notification if they did not populate the field and attempt to save the online booking. 

ADDING CUSTOM FIELDS TO THE ONLINE BOOKING PORTAL

The Online Booking Portal allows you to include any Custom Fields that have been created for Projects. To learn more about how to create Custom Fields, you can review the Custom Fields article HERE.

The Online Booking Portal will display any Custom Fields that have been created for the "Project" object within the "Fields" tab. These Custom Fields will display at the bottom of the Project Data Fields list after all default system field. For example, we created a new Custom Field titled "What Type of Distribution?", which was created and linked to the Project object. Now, this field displays within the Online Booking Portal within the Project Dat Fields for use.

Booking Deposit

The Booking Deposit settings allow you to decide whether you require a deposit for your clients prior to booking, and if so, for how much. If you'd like to capture a deposit from your clients, change the "Do you require a deposit?" toggle field to "Yes." This will open additional settings for you to review.

• Deposit Type: This field will allow you to decide whether your deposit should be a fixed amount or percentage based deposit. 
• Deposit Amount: This field will allow you to specify the amount of the deposit that you plan to capture. You will populate the appropriate value in the field as either a fixed amount or percentage value. 
• Deposit Threshold: This field will allow you to set a specific threshold for a deposit amount as a minimum.
  • For example, if my total Package value is $120, and my deposit is captured at a percentage of 50%, I would be collecting $60; in some cases you may want to put a threshold in place where any value below that threshold is automatically billed at the threshold, so that you are capturing a significant enough amount of the deposit. In this situation, if my deposit threshold was set at $100, then the deposit payment would be set at a minimum $100 for the booking (rather than $60).
  • In a similar scenario, if my total package value is $300, and my deposit is captured at a percentage of 50% (and my deposit threshold is still set at $100), then the deposit would be paid at $150, as 50% of the total package value is higher than the threshold.
  • If the Deposit Threshold field is left at $0 (which is the default), then the deposit will calculate as the fixed amount or percentage based deposit value without factoring in a threshold.

NOTICE

Capturing deposits requires the setup of the Stripe Integration for payment processing - this is available to Sonido Professional Packages at this time. If you haven't yet set up the Stripe integration, you can follow our guide HERE to do so. 

Booking Result

The section will allow you to define whether you want all bookings from clients within the Online Booking Portal to save directly to your Sonido Calendar, or whether you'd like to receive the bookings with the option to approve or reject prior to being confirmed on your Sonido Calendar. 

The selections include the following: 

• Save as Pending Booking (to be confirmed): This selection will save all Online Booking Portal submissions as a Pending booking on your Sonido Calendar until approved. The designated Sonido users (see "Users authorized to confirm booking requests" below) will receive notifications within Sonido and by email for every new booking submission within the Online Booking Portal, and will have the opportunity to confirm, reschedule or accept the booking as submitted through the Online Booking Portal. Once accepted, the Sonido Calendar booking will no longer display as a Pending booking, and the client will receive a notification that the booking has been confirmed. 
• Save as Confirmed Booking: This selection will automatically save all Online Booking Portal submissions as a confirmed booking within the Sonido Calendar (does not require a user to review and accept first). Immediately upon booking, the client will receive a notification that the booking has been confirmed. 
• Users authorized to confirm booking requests: This selection allows you to specify which members of your team will be notified of any Online Booking Portal submissions, allowing the user to accept, reschedule or reject the booking request. This is only applicable if the "Save as Pending Booking (to be confirmed) option is selected.

Send Booking Notifications to Internal Users

This setting allows you to send email notifications to internal users for all bookings that are confirmed. As an example, you may have one or more team members who are not assigned to bookings as an Engineer, but they still want to have visuals on all bookings that are confirmed through the online booking portal.

By enabling this setting and indicating users that will receive the notifications, team members can now be more aware of all bookings coming in.

Booking Emails

There are a series of email notifications that will be sent to your client after successfully booking within the Online Booking Portal, such as a booking confirmation notification, a reminder email that is sent 24-hours prior to the booking (assuming that there are more than 24-hours between the time the booking is saved and the actual booking date), a booking update email if the date or time of the booking is changed, and a booking cancellation email if the booking is cancelled for any reason. Within the Booking Emails section, you have the ability to customize the email template that is sent to your client in all of these scenarios. There is some default text that is included in the various templates, but it is recommended that you populate each template with the information that you'd like your client to see in each scenario. 

Within the email templates, you will see a typical text composition window, with options for text formatting. You will also see a blue colored section that represent database token fields. These fields can be used to dynamically pull information from the contact or booking records, allowing your email template to feel more personalized; for example, you could simply click on the blue "[Booking_First_Name]" token (which automatically copies the code snippet) and paste into your email wherever you'd like it applied. In the template, it will still show the token code snippet, but when your client receives the email it will default to their first name. This allows your templates to dynamically display information relevant to the contact and booking without manually typing the details into every email. 

You can toggle between the different tabs in the email template window to populate email templates for each scenario indicated. You also have the option to preview the email template by selecting the gray "Preview" button below each email template window (this will show sample token entries to give you an idea of what the final result would look like to a client). 

Sonido Online Booking Branding Options

This section will allow you to customize the look of your Online Booking form when added to your website. You can change details, such as the form background color, button color, the font, and more. 

• Custom Button: This selection will show default branding until you change the toggle to "On." Once turned on, you will see options that you can change for the booking form button: 
  • Button Background Color: This option will allow you to select your desired button background color. After turning the toggle on, simply click the icon to the right to set the appropriate color to match your website branding. You can use the color picker to find the color that you like, or you can enter the specific hex value to lock in a specific color (if you know your color hex value).
  • Button Border Color: This option will allow you to select your desired button border color, if desired.
  • Button Border Thickness: This option will allow you to select your desired button border thickness, if desired.
• Custom Form: This selection will show default branding until you change the toggle to "On." Once turned on, you will see options that you can change for the booking form: 
  • Main Background Color: This option will allow you to select your desired color for the main background outside of the direct booking form. This is often used to match any background color of your web page where this form will be added. After turning the toggle on, simply click the icon to the right to set the appropriate color to match your website branding. You can use the color picker to find the color that you like, or you can enter the specific hex value to lock in a specific color (if you know your color hex value).
  • Form Background Color: This option will allow you to select your desired color for the form just behind the form fields themselves. This is a rectangular area that is set on your web page that contains all the fields that a client would be populating within the Online Booking Portal.
  • Form Border Color: This option will allow you to select your desired form border color, if desired.
  • Form Border Thickness: This option will allow you to select your desired form border thickness, if desired.
  • Form Border Radius: This option will allow you to change the border radius, or also commonly called "rounded corners". The higher the number entered, the more round your form corners will become.
• Custom Font: This selection will show default branding until you change the toggle to "On." Once turned on, you will see options that you can change for the booking form font: 
  • Font Family: This option will allow you to select your desired font to be used within the Online Booking form.
  • Font Size: This option will allow you to select your desired font size for the form.
  • Font Color: This option will allow you to select your desired font color.

Any changes you make to these Online Booking Branding Options will take effect in your Online Booking Portal as soon as they are saved. You can select the gray "Preview Customization" button at any time to see your changes as they would appear on your live site before pressing save.

HTML EMDED CODE

You can add the Online Booking Portal to any page on your website, such as a "Bookings" page within your website menu, or a landing page tied to marketing campaigns.

When you are ready to embed the Online Booking Portal, you can copy the embed code snippet from your settings and paste within your website in an HTML block or other widget designed for populating code snippets. Remember to publish the additional of this code to push it live on your website.

As every website builder or CMS is a little different, the process may vary from website to website. The following is a very simple example of how this is added using Wix. 

The Online Booking Portal is designed to function on virtually any website. Due to the format of how the form is embedded, you may need to increase the HTML element height in order to accommodate the Online Booking Portal height and avoid your clients having to scroll within the iFrame element itself - this will help the form look more professional on your website. 

JAVASCRIPT CODE

Sonido now also supports the embedding of a javascript code that will allow your Online Booking Portal to auto-resize the height. This will allow your Online Booking Portal to display at the appropriate height, without you needing to manually resize (as explained above). 

The Javascript code will be embedded into the Header section of the webpage where your Online Booking Portal is embedded. Most website builders will have either a plugin where you can add your own scripts or code to the Header, Body or Footer sections of your website. You may need to install a plugin to support his, or your website builder may have its own section where this can be accomplished. Often, the Header text is applied to all pages on your website, which is fine; however, with some website builders or plugins, you can designate certain pages where it will be applied to the Header section. In either case, you need to ensure that the Javascript Code is in the Header of the page where your Online Booking Portal is embedded in order for this to function correctly. 

The following video walks through this process based on a common website builder: 

USING THE ONLINE BOOKING PORTAL

Once the Online Booking Portal is published live on your website, your client can begin booking sessions directly! The booking flow will allow clients to select the appropriate Service and Package that they desire to book, select a booking date, time block and Engineer, as well as populate relevant details to complete the booking. If you require a deposit for bookings, they can enter their billing information to make payment upon booking. 

When a booking is submitted through the Online Booking Portal, the following are automatically created within your Sonido account from the booking details: 

• Contacts: a new contact is created for the booking contact. If a contact with the same email address already exists within Sonido, a duplicate contact will not be created, but the booking will associate with the existing contact. 
• Projects: a new project is created for the booking contact with any relevant project details. The calendar booking is also tied to the project to show the booking history. 
• Calendar: a new calendar booking is created for the online booking submission. The calendar booking will either directly book as a confirmed booking, or will show as a pending booking, depending on your Online Booking Portal settings. 
• Invoice: a new invoice will be created for your booking if a deposit is required for the client in the booking flow. If a deposit is captured, the payment will also be recorded against the Invoice (and the funds will be deposited into your banking account). 

Your clients have a convenient and intuitive way to book studio sessions through your studio using a laptop or computer...

And the online booking flow is also fully responsive for a convenient experience from any mobile device when accessing your website!

Sonido Software makes it easy for your clients to book studio time using a booking flow personalized to your studio services and capture all relevant details within your studio management system.