As a guide to the use of RoomBoss Ski School Management System we will go though the setup of and look at day to day management tasks for an example ski school. Spending the time to get the setup right before taking bookings will save you a lot of time in the long run.
Ski School account setup and management is simpler for Schools which do not offer Group Lessons (lessons where 1 instructor will teach students who all have their own booking). If your ski school will offer group lessons please contact us to discuss setup.
Our example ski school will have 10 instructors and offer a limited range of lessons:
- Private Ski – Full Day
- Private Ski – Am Only
- Private Ski – Pm Only
- Powder Guiding – 6 Hour Flexible Start Time
Setup – Categories
Categories are used to group products together and can also be linked to activities.
For our example ski school we will setup categories:
- Powder Guiding
- Private Ski
- Miscellaneous
If, for example, our ski school also offered snowboard lessons we would have a category for these also.
To Setup Categories – Navigate → Product Setup → Product Details → Categories tab and add each category.
Setup – Products
The lessons our example ski school offers will be:
- Private Ski – Full Day
- Private Ski – Am Only
- Private Ski – Pm Only
- Powder Guiding – 6 Hour Flexible Start Time
It is possible to setup and manage a much wider range of products, with multiple ability levels and snowboard classes etc, however for the sake of simplicity we will use only these for our example.
To Setup Products – Navigate → Product Setup → Product Details
Create a new product by via the Products and Services tab. Enter the product name and Save New Product.
Once our lesson product has been created we will add the lesson details – click on the 
icon to the left of the product listing on the Products and Services tab.
As can be seen from the screen shot, to set up our Private Ski lessons we have entered the following.
Name: Product name
Code: Optional. Enter your code here.
Category: Choose from the list of Categories created above, Private Ski for our ski lessons and Powder Guiding for our guiding products.
Order: Our products will by default be listed in alphabetical order. It is possible to change the order by adding a numerical index here.
Option A: We will use number of days here, this will allow us to enter different rates for lessons of different length. We could alternatively use number of customers, which would allow us to enter different rates for lessons with different number of customers.
Options B and C: We will use Lesson Start and End time these are not editable in a booking. The values entered here will be used when making schedules. All Lesson products must have a “Fixed Start Time”start and “Fixed End Time” (or “Custom Start Time” and “Fixed Duration Time” for Flexible start time products).
Option D: Text entry – Customer name.
Option E: Drop down list for lesson Start location.
Option F: Text entry – Alternative start location.
Options G: Ability Level
Options H to J: We will not use at this time but any additional fields could be entered here.
Copy: If you are entering a lot of similar products, copy the products and then edit to match details of your product your new product to make entry and editing simple.
It is best to use the same product options on all products where possible so for example we have start time as option B and end time as option C…. for all of our products.
Custom Start Time Products
For our “Powder Guiding – 6 Hour Flexible Start Time” we set this up using “Custom Start Time” and “Fixed Duration Time”. In the screen shot above we have set up a product that has a duration of 6 hours and 4 start time options 830, 900, 930 and 1000. When bookings (or enquiries) for this product are made the user will be able to select one of the 4 start times.
Custom Start Time Custom Duration Products
If we wanted to allow guests to book a flexible start time flexible duration lesson, this can be done using Custom Duration Time and Custom Start Time. In the above example guest could book 2 hour, 3.5 hour or 6 hour lessons starting at 830am, 9am or 930am.
If the price of our lesson will vary with duration the the Custom Duration Time must be Option A.
Note, it is possible for lessons with custom start time and fixed/custom duration to run past midnight. These lessons can be allocated as normal, however, you should be aware that:
- The start time and duration will be displayed on the instructor login.
- The hours after midnight will not be shown on the drag and drop schedule page.
- The hours after midnight will not be included in the instructor pay, pay for the hours after midnight should be managed with a paid activity.
Custom Number of Days Products
When setting up products where, rather than allowing guests to choose any duration up to 7 days, we can set custom duration. The example above shows a product setup for a product which can only be booked in duration of 3, 5 or 7 days (but not 1,2,4,6…). This is used for example if selling a 3 day “Intro to skiing product” which can only be 3 days long or if selling multi day tours which can only have a set number of fixed duration.
Attention when editing products – Do you have rates set up or existing bookings for the product?
Until you have entered rates or taken booking for a product (lesson type), you can edit as much as you wish. Once rates have been entered and / or a booking exists for a lesson type changes are restricted.
To avoid problems with bookings that have already been made it may be necessary to create a new product rather than editing existing products.
Text Descriptions
We can add text describing our products and services by using the Text Descriptions tab, this will be visible to our guests and agents during the booking process.