Overview
Offering tours for a prospective member is a key tool for a community manager. Making it easy for both your potential member to book a time and for you to keeping track of this is important. Over the coming months we'll be introducing an exciting update for arranging tours as we build out the CRM element of Habu. But for now, there's a workaround you can use to achieve this by making use of 'Custom Forms'
Details
First up you'll need to create a new bookable space:
You'll probably want to set the space up a bit like this, without adding a price:
Now that you have this in place, head over to 'Settings' > 'Custom Forms' where you can set up your form for prospective members. Be warned, the custom forms interface looks scarier than it actually is!
Once you selected + Custom Form you can get to work customizing. There are a few key settings here:
Default Space: set this to your dedicated space for tours
Availability: make sure this is enabled
Default Booking ... [Status]: you can set this as unconfirmed or confirmed
The minimum required fields are:
Start
First Name
Last Name
Email Address
You can rename the fields to be as formal or informal as you like, as well as using an alternative language to English. Here's an example:
You can also add extra fields you like to the form by using the + Field button. You can add more fields asking the questions that are most important to you for prospective members but editing the label for the field (see above). Once you're done, hit save. You can then view the form:
You can then embed this form in your website. Here's an example of how you can make this appear: http://the-factory.webflow.io (scroll down to the 'Book a Tour' button). For more details on forms and how to embed them in your website, check out our Custom Forms help doc.
Considerations
There are a few things worth bearing in mind with using custom forms for tours.
Pluses
You can embed the form in your website, making it easy for members to book a time.
The contact details inputted create a new contact in Habu
Neutrals
You can't set your availability, apart from manually booking out times that you don't want people to be able to book a tour for. You can use the 'Duplicate Booking' functionality then which mean you can easily set limited times that will be available. Simply set your unavailability for each day of the week, and duplicate away.
Minuses
The prospective member doesn't receive an email notification. It's up to you to follow up with them to confirm any details.
The space will appear within the Members App