What if a client's trip actually starts a day before?

Occasionally, a client might request that you 

  • book them a night's accommodation near the start of the trail before their official Day 1 of the trip
  • or perhaps they want a shuttle to collect them from the airport the day prior to Day 1 of the trip
  • or their bike briefing to be held a day prior to the trip so that they can get an early start on the trail

In this situation you need to add a day before their trip officially starts, at the Departure level of the trip.  

Step 1.  Create another day

  • Set up the Departure as normal, with Day 1 being the first day of the cycling tour departure, as below:

  • On the Daily | Daily Locations tab, Click on the +  button to create an additional day. 
  • Select -1 from the drop down list. This will re-sequence this new day to the top of the list automatically.
  • Note:  Using this method will ensure that all the Activities & Accommodations flow to the correct dates, since they still start from Day 1.
Add a -1 day to your departure
-1 Days show on the Daily | Locations tab, but the Display label shows Day 1 as the start date of the Departure
  • Adjust the bike briefing day at Departure level, if required

Step 2: If you wish Departure Descriptions which go to clients to include this prior day, then click the  Include Prior Day button on the Departure Details | Details screen.  The Trip Description now changes to start on the Prior Day, and this Start date is used in the merge tag calculation too.  

  • The trip description will now include that prior day
  • And the Departure Dashboard will now also show a Prior day indicator on this Departure

If you don't want the trip description to include that prior day, leave the tick off

Step 3:  Adjust Bookings to suit

  • To make the necessary changes for the booking, e.g. to add an accommodation booking on Day -1, go to the Booking level, click on accommodation tab, and select a Provider on Day No. -1 as shown.  Add a shuttle booking at Booking level also.
Select providers for this -1 day

Booking form results

BUT Not all elements of Odyssey will display and use these new 'Prior' dates.

The original (underlying package date) drives when eg: Emails are meant to be sent, and when payments are due, as some examples. All of these retain the Day 1 date, as the Start Date.

Note that NO external dates used in your communications are showing these 'extra' days.   The 'true' days are what is being shown on your dashboard & Rooming List for the Provider, and guide's Departure Summary, etc.

We strongly suggest you embrace this indicator on the dashboard, and (INTERNAL date label), as operational information, to let you know there are actions happening BEFORE your clients are involved.

NOTE: The above steps work when the Company settings (and Departure settings) have been set to "Exclude any "prior days" from the Departure # days & Description"

If you do not wish it to work this way, but wish the prior days to be included in the number of Departure Days and Description, change this setting.

Main Menu | Admin | Settings | General settings | Default selections