date-website

Booking Admin Guide

Purpose

Room booking lets the association publish the rooms it lends out and lets anyone see them and book one. The room list and each room’s page are open to visitors. People who have an account on the website can book straight away; people who do not must unlock the booking form with a shared code. Upcoming bookings also appear in a block on the front page. The board manages the rooms, the bookings and the code in the Django admin.

Managing Rooms

1. Open Booking › Utrymmen in /admin. The list shows each room’s name, its bookable hours, its current booking code and how many bookings it has. Use the search box to find a room by name.
2. Use the add button above the list and fill in:
   • Namn: the room name.
   • Beskrivning: free text about the room, for example what it contains or how to find it.
   • Bokningsbart från and Bokningsbart till: optional. Leave both empty and the room can be booked at any hour; fill both in and it can only be booked inside those hours on a single day.
3. Save. The room appears on the public booking page immediately.
4. The room page also contains a table of that room’s bookings, so you can add or adjust a booking without leaving the room.

The room name and the description are public. The list shows the first 30 words of the description and the room page shows all of it, so do not put internal notes there.

There is no on/off switch for a room: while the row exists, the room is on the public list and its page is reachable. To take a room off the site, delete it, which deletes its bookings with it, so do that only when the room and its history should really be gone. To stop bookings for a while, close a period instead, which leaves the room and its history alone.

Bookable hours

Leave Bokningsbart från and Bokningsbart till empty and the room can be booked around the clock, which is the default and what most rooms want. Fill both in to keep bookings inside a daily window: a room with 08:00 and 22:00 refuses a booking that starts at 03:00, one that ends after 22:00, and one that runs from one day into the next through the closed night. A room that should be bookable across days should leave the hours empty. Setting only one of the two is refused.

Closed periods

Open a room and use the Stängda perioder table on its page, or Booking › Stängda perioder in the sidebar to see them all at once, filtered by room. Give a closure a start, an end, and optionally a Beskrivning, which is shown to visitors, such as “Renovering” or “Bokat av styrelsen”.

A closure blocks new bookings in that period and is listed on the room’s public page, so a visitor sees why the room is unavailable instead of filling in the form and being refused. The message they get is “Utrymmet är stängt under en del av den tiden.”.

A closure does not touch bookings that were already made inside it. Closing a period because something is happening to the room is not the same as cancelling what somebody booked, and the site will not delete a booker’s row for you. Check the room’s booking table before closing a period, and contact anyone affected: the booking stays in the list and on the public page until you delete it yourself.

Replacing a booking in one save does not work. If you delete one booking and add another that would overlap it, or swap two bookings between slots, the save is refused even though the end result would be valid: each row is checked against what is still in the database before the deletion is applied. Delete and save first, then add the replacement.

How long a booking may be

A booking may run for at most one week. A longer one is refused with “En bokning kan vara i högst en vecka.”. There is no limit on how far ahead a room may be booked.

Managing Bookings

Open Booking › Bokningar. The list opens furthest away first, so the rows at the top are the bookings still to come and the history sits below them. It has these columns:

• Utrymme: the room that was booked.
• Tid: the start date and time, followed by the end time.
• Titel: what the booking is about, shown to everyone who looks at the booking pages.
• Bokare: the member who booked, or the name recorded for a booking made by someone without an account. A member is shown by their full name, and by the account name only when the profile has no name. The name is written down when the booking is made, so it stays readable here even if that member later deletes the account.
• Utan konto: ticked when there is no website account behind the booking. It is also ticked for a booking made by a member who has since deleted the account, so read it together with Bokare rather than on its own.

On the public pages each booking shows as a weekday and a date (mån 4.10), with the year added when the booking falls in another year than the current one, so a short badge can never be read as the wrong year. The row also shows the booking’s Titel, which is the part of the booking written for those pages.

Filters are available by booking origin, by room and by start date, the date drill-down at the top steps through the calendar, and the search box looks in the booking title, the booker’s name, the booker’s email and the booking description. The origin filter has three choices:

• Bokning av en medlem: the booking is attached to a website account.
• Bokning utan konto, via webbformuläret: the booking came from the public form. An address is always recorded there, which is what separates it from the next choice.
• Bokning utan konto: no account, whether the booking came from the public form or the account was deleted afterwards.

The last two choices are read from the account and the address, not from a stored marker, so a booking the board entered by hand with no account and an address lands under Bokning utan konto, via webbformuläret even though nobody filled in the public form. Treat the filter as a way to narrow the list, not as proof of where a booking came from.

Open a booking to change it. All fields can be edited: Utrymme, Bokare (the member account, optional), Namn, E-post, Starttid, Sluttid, Titel and Beskrivning. The creation timestamp (Skapad) is read-only. Titel is required for a new booking; a booking made before the field existed may keep it empty, so correcting an old row does not force you to invent one.

• To move a booking, change Starttid or Sluttid and save. A future booking can be moved as often as needed. Once its start has passed, its times are frozen for everyone using the public or member edit form; only Titel and Beskrivning can change there. You can still correct an old booking here in the admin.
• To change what the booking is about, edit Titel. That is the field the public pages show; Beskrivning is not shown in those lists.
• To cancel a booking, delete it. Deletion cannot be undone, so check the row before confirming.
• A booker can also edit or cancel without you. A member does it on their own page, which the booking pages link to when they have something upcoming: each row there has an Ändra link and an Avboka button. A future booking can be edited there as often as needed; once it has started, only the title and description can change. Somebody without an account pastes the code from their confirmation email on the cancellation page.
• The same cancellation page also edits the booking: the Ändra bokningen button opens a form for the title and the time, and saving with the same code keeps the booking and its code. A row that predates the title field can be edited without adding one; a row that already has a title cannot have it cleared there. The time is frozen once the booking has started, and the form refuses a move with a message saying so. An edit that changes the title or the time emails the booker a fresh confirmation and calendar invite; a description-only edit and a cancellation send nothing, so the board only sees those in this admin.
• That cancellation page is not linked from anywhere on the site, on purpose: it is useless without a code, and the code only ever arrives by email. A booker who has lost the email has to come to you, and you can delete the booking from Bokningar instead.
• The overlap rule is checked here too. Saving a booking that overlaps another booking in the same room is refused with “Utrymmet är redan bokat under denna tid.”.
• The end time must be later than the start time, otherwise the save is refused.
• A new booking cannot start in the past: it is refused with “Starttiden kan inte vara i det förflutna.”. A few minutes are allowed, because a visitor filling in the form by hand can be a moment late. A booking that already exists keeps whatever times it has, so you can still correct the description of one whose time is over.

Titel is what the booking is about, and it is public: the room list, the room page and the front-page block show it. Beskrivning is the longer note for the board. It is shown on the public form with a note that only the board sees it, it is not shown in the public lists, and the booker can read it again in the edit form the cancellation code opens.

The room page carries a table of that room’s upcoming bookings, soonest first, so a booking can be added or adjusted without leaving the room. Past bookings are not listed there, because a room collects them for years; use Booking › Bokningar for those, where the room filter and the date drill-down reach them.

What is public and what is not:

• Public: the room’s name and description, the booking’s Titel, and the booking’s start and end times. The room list, the room page and the front-page block show nothing else.
• Not public: the booking Beskrivning, the booker name and the booker email. They are not shown on the public booking lists. The admin shows them, and the booker who holds the cancellation code sees the booking’s own description in the edit form. Do not put anything confidential in Titel, because everyone can read it.
• The booker email is used for one thing: the confirmation message, which is sent when somebody books through the public form, whether they are a member or not, and which carries a calendar invite. The message shows the title, and the calendar event is named after it when it is set, with the room name as the fallback. A booking you create or edit here sends nothing, so tell the booker yourself if you make one for them. A booking with no address at all (a member whose profile has no email) also gets no message.

If the member account behind a booking is later deleted, the booking itself stays, and it keeps showing the name that was recorded when it was made.

The Booking Codes

Every room has its own code. That is the point of them being separate: the code for the sauna says nothing about the office, a room you lend to an outside group can have a code those people never see for the rest of the house, and a code that leaks is contained to the room it leaked from.

A room’s code does not change by itself. It stays exactly as it is until someone with the booking permissions rotates it, so there is no schedule to keep an eye on and no moment of the month when bookers are suddenly locked out.

Open Booking › Utrymmen. The list shows each room’s Aktuell bokningskod and when it was last rotated (Senast bytt, or Aldrig). Opening a room shows the same two things under Bokningskod.

The codes are generated by the site from its own secret, the room and a counter. They cannot be typed in, chosen, copied from anywhere else, or edited, and there is no field for them. The site never stores a code itself, so there is nothing to reveal or reset.

A booking’s cancellation code is a credential for that booking, not for the room. While the booking is in the future, someone holding it can change the title and time without the room code or a captcha, as often as they like. Once the booking has started they can still change the title and description, but not the time. Once it has ended, the code page no longer finds it. Rotating the room code does not stop any of this, because the cancellation code is derived from the booking itself. Anyone the confirmation email is forwarded to can do the same. To end that access, cancel the booking.

Rotating a code

1. Open Booking › Utrymmen.
2. Tick the room whose code you want to change. Tick several to rotate several at once, or all of them.
3. Choose Byt bokningskoden nu in the action menu and press Kör.
4. The page tells you each new code, with the room’s name next to it. You do not have to write them down: the list and each room’s page always derive and show the code that is in force, so you can come back and read it at any time.

Only someone who may change rooms is offered the action.

The previous code keeps working for 15 minutes after a rotation, counted from the moment you rotated it, so a booker who was handed the code just before you rotated is not stranded. Someone who had already typed the old code loses that unlock at once and is asked for a code again, but typing the old code during those 15 minutes works and unlocks them for the new code, so nobody has to be chased up. Rotating one room leaves every other room’s codes and unlocks exactly as they were.

When to rotate

• When someone who should not have the code has it, for example after it went to the wrong group. Rotate that room and leave the others alone.
• If one room’s code has been passed around far beyond the association and you want it back under control.
• Not on a calendar. There is no reason to rotate while a code is doing its job, and every rotation costs a round of telling people the new one.

Nothing rotates a code on a schedule, and nothing warns you that a code is old. Senast bytt is the only signal, so a board that wants the codes to move regularly has to remember to move them. A code that is never rotated stays valid indefinitely, which is why the captcha and the five-attempt limit carry the weight they do; the developer guide says how far those reach.

Telling Bookers the Code

The board shares the current code with outside bookers through whatever channel it already uses, for example at the office, by phone, in a group chat or by email. The site does not send the code to anyone, and it deliberately does not say how the code reaches a booker, because that is the board’s business rather than the website’s.

The website does explain the rest. The room list says that an account books directly and that everyone else needs a code, and the page that asks for the code says that the board provides it.

Så får besökare koden on Booking › Bokningsinställningar is where the board writes its own sentence for that page, if the standard text does not fit: “koden delas ut i kansliet på onsdagar”, “fråga i Slackkanalen”, or whatever the board actually does. It is shown on the page that asks for a code, above the box, and it is the same sentence for every room. Leave it empty and the page says only that the board provides the code. The text is public, so do not put anything there that bookers should not read. It is written once per association and is not translated, the same as a room’s name and description.

Whoever is asked for the code always has a way to reach the board: the association address is in the footer of every page, and the code page and the room page repeat it. The confirmation email carries it too, so a booker whose plans change knows where to turn.

A booker who has unlocked the form stays unlocked for the rest of the current period. When the code rotates, every existing unlock ends, and the next visit asks for a code again. If the booker already has the previous code, it still works during the grace period described above.

Reaching the Booking Page

The room list is linked from the booking block on the front page. To put it in the site menu as well, add a page under Static Pages with the URL /booking/ and place it through Page Navigation. The path is the same in every language, because the website keeps the language in a cookie rather than in the address.

Permissions

Access to the booking section is controlled by the ordinary Django model permissions. A staff group does not get booking access by being a staff group; the permissions have to be granted deliberately to each group that should have them.

The permissions to grant, by model, with the exact codenames as they appear in the group permission list:

• Utrymme (Room):
  • booking.view_room
  • booking.add_room
  • booking.change_room
  • booking.delete_room
• Bokning (Booking):
  • booking.view_booking
  • booking.add_booking
  • booking.change_booking
  • booking.delete_booking
• Stängd period (Closure):
  • booking.view_closure
  • booking.add_closure
  • booking.change_closure
  • booking.delete_closure
  • booking.view_closure is what makes the table appear, and it is enough to read it. Adding a period needs add_closure, and changing or removing one needs change_closure and delete_closure. Without any view permission the table is hidden entirely, so a board that may edit rooms but not see closures gets no explanation of why a period is closed.
• Bokningsinställningar (BookingSettings):
  • booking.view_bookingsettings
  • booking.change_bookingsettings
  • booking.add_bookingsettings is needed once, to create the row: nothing else creates it, and the site deliberately does not, so without it the board cannot write its note. booking.delete_bookingsettings is never needed, because the admin refuses to delete the row.

Who should have them:

• The board group (styrelse) should have all of the permissions above, so the board can manage rooms, bookings, closures and the codes. members/provisioning.py grants a group every permission of every local app, so a group provisioned that way picks the closure permissions up on its next run and nothing has to be added by hand.
• Staff groups that have nothing to do with room booking, such as photographers (fotograf) and vote counters (rösträknare), must not. With these permissions a group could change rooms, delete other people’s bookings, or look up the email addresses of outside bookers.
• Grant booking.view_bookingsettings to whoever writes the note that visitors read. It no longer shows a code: the codes live on the rooms, so the permission that shows them is booking.view_room.
• Any other staff group follows the same rule: no booking access unless it is granted.

How to grant them: open the group on the Grupper (Groups) page in the admin’s authentication section, move the booking permissions from the available list to the chosen list, and save. Granting a permission is what makes the booking section appear for that group; no other step is needed. A group without any of these permissions sees no booking section at all in the admin. Superusers always have access.

Troubleshooting

An outside booker says the code is rejected.

• The code has been rotated since it was shared. Open Booking › Utrymmen and read that room’s Aktuell bokningskod, then pass it on. The old code works for 15 minutes after a rotation and then stops.
• Or the booker typed a wrong code five times and is locked out. The lockout is tied to that visitor’s browser and clears by itself after 15 minutes. Using another browser or device starts fresh.

A room is missing from the public list.

• Every room is listed while its row exists, so a missing room has been deleted. Deleting a room deletes its bookings, so restore it from a database backup if that was not intended.
• If the room is listed but cannot be booked for a period, look at its Stängda perioder table.

You saved a booking and were told it had been removed.

• Somebody cancelled it while your page was open. Nothing was written, which is deliberate: without that check the save would have put the row back after the booker was told it was gone. Reload the page to see the current list.

A booking was rejected because the room is closed.

• A closure covers part of that time. Open the room’s page or Booking › Stängda perioder and check the period, then either shorten it or pick another time.

A booking was rejected because it was too long.

• A booking may run for at most one week. Split it into two bookings if the room really is needed for longer, remembering that the second one has to not overlap the first.

A booking was rejected as overlapping.

• Another booking in the same room covers part of that time. Open Bokningar, filter by the room, and either change the times or delete the booking that is in the way. The message is “Utrymmet är redan bokat under denna tid.”.
• Times that only touch are not an overlap: a booking that ends at 15:00 does not block one that starts at 15:00.

A booking was rejected because of the times or the name.

• The end time must be later than the start time.
• The start time cannot be in the past. The visitor picked a date that has already been and gone, which is usually a wrong year or a wrong month; ask them to pick the date again.
• A booking with no member account must have a name, otherwise the admin asks for it (“Ange namnet på den som bokar.”).

A booking is missing from the room page but you know it exists.

• The room page lists upcoming bookings only. A booking whose time is over is still in Bokningar, which the room filter and the date drill-down reach.

The booking section is not in the admin menu.

• Under the Unfold admin theme the section appears in the sidebar only for a user who holds at least one of the booking view permissions. Grant them as described under Permissions above.

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