Confirm Bookings to Client and Worker

Created by Martin Parkinson, Modified on Sun, 2 Jul, 2023 at 3:18 PM by Martin Parkinson

From version 1.00.17.100 or later it is possible to set the system up to allow you to confirm booking details to both the Client (contact) and to the worker immediately after making a booking.

When a booking is added to the planner, upon entering the details and pressing OK the user will be prompted
"Confirm Booking to Company" followed by "Confirm Booking to Worker"
and then the details are passed to the macro manager and can be emailed to the worker or client contact who made the booking.

System Setup

The confirmation of bookings upon exit is controlled by two system parameters.
PayrollB, Flag 19: Confirm to client on exit (YNMFJ)Payroll, flag(47) Confirm to cand on exit (YNMFJ)

The setting on these flags control whether the confirmation is mandatory, only the First time someone is booked at a site, or Job specific.

Y (Yes)	i.e. A prompt to send a confirmation will be offered upon exit.
N (No)	Users will not be prompted to send a confirmation upon exit.
M (Mandatory)	Users will be forced to send a confirmation upon exit.
F (First time)	The first time a candidate is booked to work at that site, it is mandatory to send a confirmation and the user will not be able to skip doing so. For subsequent bookings at that site, it is optional (but not required) to send confirmation.
J (Job)	In this case the first time the candidate is booked to do that specific Role (Job) at the Site, then confirmation is mandatory. Subsequent bookings for the same ROLE (at that site) will not require confirmation, but if they are then booked to do a new Role, confirmation for the new role will be mandatory (the first time).
R (Requirement)	Every time a worker is booked on a new REQUIREMENT for the first time, it will be mandatory to confirm their booking(s). Subsequent bookings on the SAME requirement will not need to be confirmed. (Added after ver 1.00.17.213)

NOTE: When considering 'first' the system looks at the date of the booking. i.e. If a worker were booked to attend site on for the first time on 19th April, then confirmation may be made mandatory. If they were then subsequently booked at a later date to attend site on 10th April, then the system would make it mandatory to send confirmation for this earlier booking since they will attend site chronologically earlier and thus it now becomes their 'first' booking.

Note(2): When using the Requirement option the system will only enforce the sending of confirmations if the bookings were made from the "JOB" page of the requirement; Simply adding a worker to the requirement and then booking them onto a Job using the [Weekly] page of the requirement will not enforce the sending of a confirmation

After version 1.00.18.100 it is possible to specify the default method for the booking confirmations within the macro manager. This is usually E (email) but can be SMS or Letter.

SMS Replies to Booking Confirmation

From version 1.00.20.153 (or later) it is possible to send an SMS message to a candidate with details of their booking. Replying to this message with "OK#" or "NO#" can update the status of the booking, where # is the day number on which the booking occurs.

e.g. A Worker may receive an SMS such as

"You have a booking at ABC Supplies on 03/06/2020 at 09:15
To accept the booking reply with OK3 or to reject send NO3"

Sending the reply OK3 will update the status of the booking.

NB: Sending 'OK' with no date specified will first attempt to update a booking on the day after the reply is received, and if no booking is found will then try to update a booking on the same day the SMS reply was received

Parameter TEMP, Text(18) controls which Status the OK/NO replies will set the booking to.

NOTE: In order to use the SMS reply feature you need to have the SMS text integration active on your system using our preferred SMS partner - Firetext.