FAQ Q120: What are conflicts?

Conflicts (visible in the conflicts section in the reservations tab) happen when a reservation is entered for a resource which is not available. In normal situations (see exception below) the system makes sure that conflicts do not occur, that is, non-admins can never cause a conflict to occur (in other words, overbooking is not possible).

Conflicts made possible by custom changes in the reservation process

Please note that changing the default value of the option: Reserved period is marked as occupied: as soon as the reservation is entered into the system to another value will introduce a possibility of conflicts / overbooking. For example, if this is set to when the reservation is confirmed, there will be a period between the time when a reservation is made and when the reservation is confirmed when another customer will be able to make an identical reservation. Do not change this option if you don't want conflicts to occur.

Conflicts added by resource vacations

A conflict can occur when the administrator enters vacations for a resource already occupied at given time. Another possibility is the oposite: the admin enters a reservation for a period that's already marked as vacation (customers couldn't do this but the admin can).

Let's say our resource may need renovation or may become unavailable for some reason. In such case we enter resource vacation and if a booking already exists for this time, a conflict will occur. In such case you should click on each conflicted reservation listed in the conflict tab, and resolve it by either contacting the customer and moving their booking or canceling the booking. Either way the customer will be notified of this. Let's say you find yourself with a conflict of two reservations for a resource. If you move one of the bookings to a different time, therefore resolving the conflict, you should then mark both reservations' conflict as resolved as the system will not do it automatically for you. You will find the resolve button on each reservation's details page.

Conflicts through confirmation of non-completed reservations by the administrator

Another possibility is when the admin manually confirms a non-completed reservation. Non-completed means the customer didn't finish the reservation process. In case the shopping cart feature is used, this is possible when the customer quit the reservation process before checking out their shopping cart. Otherwise it's also possible when the customer quits before making an obligatory payment.

Conflicts through delayed completion of checkout or obligatory payment

The last possibility of a conflict is a situation when your reservation process requires a checkout (shopping cart is used) and/or an obligatory payment and this last required step is done after a delay. By default such delay is fixed to 15 minutes (Unfinished reservations block availability for... in Site settings / Active features). If you come across this problem, you can increase this delay to an hour or longer. This will give your customers enough time to make the obligatory payment or do the checkout without the risk of overbooking (conflict). If the conflict is created, the customer will see an information text asking them to contact you when they return from the payment gateway. Note that if the customer waits a long time before being redirected to the payment gateway, the system does another conflict check just before they are redirected and will inform the customer that the payment is no longer possible if the resource is no longer available. However, once the customer is redirected to the payment gateway, there's nothing we can do to inform them of the conflict until they return to the payment completed page.