What Is Book-It On-Line

So you have your Book-It software for your office and it does everything you require (or maybe you have some requirements that you still need to tell us about!), but what about your members and contacts? What if you could put similar powerful software in their hands too so that they can communicate with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They could do simple tasks such as check the number of slots currently available on an event, or maybe read a full event write-up to check basic details such as time, date, venue, cost as well as read detailed information about the event itinerary. What if they could then book the event directly from the comfort of their own offices or homes needing little more than a modern web browser and a link to the internet?

Well now Book-It On-Line software is here and can provide all this and more. Members can check events, book events, they can even check bookings they have already made, check and pay outstanding balances and so on. All in a totally secure environment that will communicate with your office Book-It software and keep things up to date for you without having to re-key information.

Features

Book-It On-Line provides the following list of features (some features may require you to log in, please use the test member details 002496 with password Test which is case sensitive)

In Complete Control Of Your Website

You can use Instinctive Systems to set everything up for you on your own web server or you may wish to leave this to your own web designer who can do it with our guidance. Once set up, however, you will need neither Instinctive Systems nor a web designer to add new events to your system and keep everything up to date, you will be in complete control and all you will need will be a good knowledge of Book-It Office software and the skills to work a very basic editor (you can even use Microsoft Word if you wish).

How Does It All Work

Firstly we should point out that Book-It On-Line is not a 100% on-line system in the true sense. Your core Book-It system remains in your own office, behind your own locked doors under your complete control. We do not move your office system onto your website and put you at the mercy of your ISP so that if he has a problem your whole system grinds to a halt. We feel that by running two separate systems we give you much better control and peace of mind. The office system is for your use and gives you many great features that even now cannot be achieved over the internet with web based technology and the web based system extends your office system to your members / contacts giving them a selection of features that are important to them.

You can upload basic details from your office system to your web server whenever you choose. By integrating our system with FTP software such as WS-FTP Pro we can make this a simple single button process that can be performed once, twice or however many times a day you feel appropriate. With even the biggest systems the whole process should not take more than 2 or 3 minutes using a broadband connection. For smaller systems even 56kb dial up will be sufficient.

As people make bookings on the web, the system will immediately email details of the booking to you in a format that can be imported straight into Book-It office software as you receive it thereby updating local availability details. At the same time your web site will keep a record of the booking made and will reduce availability figures there in advance of the next update from the office.

Members / contacts receive immediate acknowledgements of their 'booking request' as they make it on the web and then can have 'booking confirmations' emailed directly to them from the office system as the request is received and processed.

Requirements

There are a number of different web hosting systems available from your ISP and it is important that you either host your web site in the following environment or at least take out a second hosting agreement purely for the Book-It On-Line software so that you can link it to your main website.

The following items will be required in your own office (note - a Book-It Pro or higher edition needs to be purchased before you can use Book-It On-Line software)

In order to use the facilities on your web site, members / contacts will require the following

Click here to view a Book-It On-Line Demonstration System. As this is a demonstration system, watch out for special text that will appear in red to help you through the security screens for example. Check out the FAQs and view pricing information for Book-It by clicking on the links. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions. You can also visit a small selection of sites already using Book-It On-Line at

www.spiceuk.com/bookit/bkiteventavail.asp

www.sportendurance.co.uk/bookit/bkiteventavail.asp

www.spicebham.com/bookit/bkiteventavail.asp