The Reservations and Availability form is displayed, when the Reservations option is selected from the DAILY RENTALS menu.
The Reservations and Availability form has four main areas of interest.
Reservations Grid: The reservation grid is located at the top of the form. This gives details of the hire groups and, through use of a colour display, will indicate whether the availability of vehicles within a group has reached a reserve level, whether there are no vehicles available, or indeed if an overbooking situation exists.
Use of this form with a mouse will allow you to begin a "drill down" process into any of the form elements and examine the vehicles which belong to a particular group on a particular day. To the side of the colored squares there is a display of group codes and descriptions which will also respond to mouse actions.
The second area has a mouse control display and a dynamic diary which you can scroll as required to show any selected 10 day period. Various mouse actions (including the calendar) are allowed here, as will be discussed.
The third area shows the legend which describes the meaning of the colors on the Reservations and Availability Grid.
The fourth area shows which option to take in order to initiate a different form, to make a booking for example, remember that with total mouse control these commands can be selected with a simple point and click action.
The diary section of the screen will show the month, date and day of the week relating to the portion of the reservations diary being displayed. The year is shown within the calendar block.
Weekends are highlighted, (on a default set-up, the highlight will be grey, although you may change this colour if required).
On entry to the form the diary will show today's date automatically in the first column of the display, followed by the next nine days. In order to scroll the diary section, the following buttons should be used.
The calendar: Any date can be clicked on the calendar grid to take the Reservations Grid to that specified date. To move the month backwards click on the month beneath the back arrow. To move the month forwards click on the month beneath the forward arrow.
The scroll bar: If greater than 15 groups exist then a scroll bar will appear on the right hand side of the Reservations Grid. To display any further groups then click the scroll bar up or down accordingly.
Later on we will discuss the central reservations facility. However it is important to note that when central reservations is being operated you will often switch between the central company reservations screen and that of a specific company. The banner line at the top of the screen will show which company you are in.
To move from the central reservations company to a specific company a booking has to be made. During the booking early part of the booking stage the reservations screen of the related company will replace that of the central company. In order to return to the central company either press the ESCAPE key or click the Exit button.
In the group display information section in the centre of the screen each day is represented by two colored squares. These will initially show you what the availability status of each half of the day is using predetermined Colour. A quick look at these squares will allow you to gauge whether there are vehicles available in a group, whether the bookings have reduced the available number to below the reserve level or whether there are no vehicle available. The colored squares can be changed to display the number of vehicles available instead of the squares. These squares also include the actual number of vehicles available.
If you want to plot the statistics for a particular group you can do so by clicking the left mouse button while the mouse pointer is over the description of the group required. A message on the command line will ask you if you want to plot by individual vehicle or by the whole group. To automatically initiate a statistical group plot avoiding this prompt click with the mouse while the mouse pointer is over the group description on the extreme left of the screen. Plotting statistics will be covered later in this topic.
The information shown on the group section of the screen is quite simple. The line for each of the groups will display details for a 10 day period. Each day is illustrated by two colored squares, this will normally be one for A.M. and one for P.M. The squares will be displayed in one of four different colors.
Note: The colors referred to here will be the default ones installed on the standard system, users should be aware that as these are user-definable they may not reflect the ones seen on the display.
The normal display for a group will be green, this shows that there are vehicles available for hire in that group, for the day in question.
If the square is yellow then it means that the number of vehicles able to be hired has fallen below the reserve level. The reserve level is set by an entry in the Group option in the Miscellaneous menu.
Note: The change to yellow occurs when the number of available vehicles moves below the reserve level, the colour is not affected when the number of available vehicle is the same as the reserve level.
If the square is red then it means there are no vehicles available for hire in that group for that period.
If the square is blue then the group has been overbooked and there are insufficient vehicles to cover the number of bookings already taken.
The fourth area on the Reservations screen shows which buttons to click to accomplish various tasks. Each option will be briefly explained here and then fully covered in following topics.
BUTTONS
Administrator: This will give access to the Kerridge Administrator, allowing you access to electronic mail, company phone book, diary entries and other facilities all subject to your permissions. See the miscellaneous reservations commands section.
Marketing: This will link you to the Marketing system. You will then be able to edit Target details, (the driver), Company details or Vehicle details.
Booking: This will refresh the screen and allow you to enter details of a new booking.
Movement Log: This will allow you to create or edit a vehicle movement record. This is normally used to track the repositioning of vehicles.
Quotations: This will allow you to prepare a quotation on the screen, perhaps to allow pricing of a telephone inquiry.
External Hire: This button allows you to create or edit an external order to another hire company, including the creation of the vehicle record in the marketing system. It can also be used to create a sundry order for other supplies.
Agreements: This buttons allows you to access the search agreements form.
The primary reason for using the mouse on the Reservations screen is to allow inspection of the data which sits behind the squares and which make up the centre section of the reservations area.
Move the mouse pointer over any of the squares and double left click.
The Allocation Summary form is displayed, which consists of two sections, the top one will show how many vehicles are in the group on the date selected. It goes on to say how many bookings exist for that group for that day, and how many vehicles in the group have been allocated to those bookings. Finally it shows the total number of vehicles in the group - this final number illustrates the number of vehicles in the marketing system which have the Available for hire flag set to Y, (regardless of the associated dates).
The second, and lower, section will display the vehicles which make up the group and show the present status of each of those vehicles as it would be at the date selected.
The order in which the vehicles are shown can be governed by a setting in the System parameters option in the Miscellaneous menu.
The Allocation Summary form is displayed when the mouse pointer is moved over any square and the double left click the mouse.
The fields shown in the window are as follows.
Summary
The summary section of the allocation summary form displays the following:
Total Vehicles
Total Bookings
Vehicles allocated
Group Vehicles
Selection
Select either of the four radio buttons
A.m.
P.m.
Full day
All
Sort by
Select either of the four radio buttons to indicate how you would like your allocation summary sorted:
Agreement
Off-site Date/Time
On-site Date/Time
Registration number
Further vehicle details: If the you would like to examine any of the agreements which relate to a particular vehicle then double click on that vehicle with the left mouse button and a further window may appear showing a list of associated agreements. This window will list agreements to which this vehicle is allocated, or an agreement that is in progress at this time. A rental which has been finished will not appear on this display.
If agreements exist for the vehicle chosen the window will show the agreement number, followed by the agreement status in brackets. The start time and date, followed by the finish time and date are shown next. A Y or N indicates whether delivery or collection is required, an E signifies that the dates or times are estimated. The location code shown next indicates where the hire will terminate. Finally it will show who the vehicle is being charged to.
A final move now is that an agreement shown in this windows can now be selected by highlighting it and pressing OK, (or by double clicking on it with the left mouse button), whereupon the agreement will now be displayed in full, in review mode.
We can see that the drill down has the following sequence;
Drill down on a square to see the group summary detail.
Drill down on an individual vehicle to see the agreements associated with it.
Drill down on one of the agreements shown to review the agreement in full detail.
The mouse has complete control of the reservations screen, although its use is simple this list will summarize the possible actions. As the actions vary depending on where the mouse pointer is positioned we will deal with each area in turn.
Left button Click on a date to move the main display to the selected date.
Left button Single click on the left or right arrow buttons, or on the scroll bars to move the central display in the direction required.
Single click on the Home button to return the display to todays date.
Left Button Click once on group code to plot statistics for the group.
Left double click once to drill down into the group and date selected.
Right button click once to drill down into the group and date selected but only the summary of the bookings on that date will be shown.
Left double click on any description to initiate the function.
