Work with bookings

Create a booking

Note

You need to have a job in place to create a booking. When searching for a Job, if one doesn't exist, you can add one by clicking + New Job from the lookup itself

You may add a resource, see add a new active user. You will need Admin permissions to do this. You can also create a booking without a resource. In this case, the booking will show the resource as 'Unassigned'.

To add a client, see Add a client.

To add a job, see create a job.

There are various ways to create a booking:

Create a booking for a single resource by selecting a single cell

Select an empty cell and right-click. The start date will default to the date clicked
Select Create booking from the popup menu
Fill in the fields of the Create Booking form. See Understand the Create Booking form
Click Create on the Create Booking form

Create a booking for a single resource by selecting a range of cells

Select a range of cells by clicking and dragging and then right-click. The start date will default to the date of the first cell selected
Select Create booking from the popup menu to create a booking for the selected range
Fill in the fields of the Create Booking form. See Understand the Create Booking form
Click Create on the Create Booking form

Create a booking for a single resource via the main menu

Select Add → Booking from the main menu
Fill in the fields of the Create Booking form. See Understand the Create Booking form
Click Create

Adding multiple resources when creating a booking

Click Add another Resource on the Create Booking form. A list of resources along with their availability will be displayed
Select a resource from the list. Click the Add another Resource field again to add another resource. You may add multiple resources in this manner. Selected resources will be displayed in a list at the bottom of the field. The Create Bookings button will also display the total number of selected resources
Proceed to create the booking. Bookings will be created for all the selected resources

Selecting multiple resources from the Planner

Select the Jobs tab on the Planner
Select multiple resources (Ctrl + click on Windows; Cmd + click on Mac)
Right-click and select Create booking
The Create Booking form will have the selected resources assigned
Proceed to create the booking. Bookings will be created for all the selected resources

Understand the Create Booking form

A simplified booking form is displayed by default when you wish to create a booking. This form allows you to create bookings quickly by entering just the bare minimum mandatory fields. Values that you have selected on the Planner will be prepopulated. The Add Booking button will only be enabled after all the mandatory information has been entered. If you need to enter detailed information, click the More options button which will display the full (and longer) Create Booking form.

Note

If the booking is created by selecting calendar grid cells for a resource, the resource field will default to that resource's name
If the booking is created by selecting multiple resources, the resource field will be pre-populated with the selected resources
If a booking is saved without a resource allocated, the booking will be created with the resource field set to 'unassigned'

Note

If your Admin makes additional fields mandatory via Admin Settings, then these too will be displayed on the simplified booking form.
If you wish to alter any of the pre-populated information, or change the booking type, the loading, or add a description, click More options, otherwise bookings will be made with a booking type of Planned and 100% loading for time allocation.
If you wish to edit the pre-populated fields, click More options.

When you click on More Options, a longer and detailed version of the Create Booking form is displayed which will capture further details of the booking.

Understand the Basic details section

Click Assigned to to reveal a list of resources. You may also enter first three characters of the resource to reveal a list of matching resources. Select or enter the names of one or more resource. (In case of multiple resources multiple bookings will be created). If your selected resource(s) exceeds your budget (due to resource costs and days required), a warning is displayed
Click Job to reveal a list of jobs. If the booking is created by selecting calendar grid cells for a job, the job field will default to that job name. You can also enter first three characters of the job to reveal a list of matching jobs or you can click Add filters to add filters to shortlist and select jobs
Select the Booking status (This is 'Planned' by default)
Enter the Date range
Select whether to include non-working days. If non-working days are included, the booking assigns contingency hours on weekends, bank-holidays, and other non-working periods
Enter Time allocation: You may enter one of the following:
- % of resource capacity: (the default value is 100%) indicates the percentage of working time spent on the booking. After entering the %, the hours booked in total and the hours per day will be automatically calculated
- hours booked in total: indicates the total hours of work that are to be spent on the booking. The % of resource capacity and the hours per day will be automatically calculated
- hours per day: indicates the number of hours per day that are spent on the booking. The % of resource capacity and the hours booked in total will be automatically calcuated

Understand the Budget section

See Cost and Revenue to get an overview of the budget calculations.

Select from one of the three options to set the budget for your booking:

Resource charge rate (default option): This is the charge rate of the selected resource. The name of the charge rate will be displayed next to this option on selection
Use a different charge rate: Select this option to select a charge rate that is different from the resource charge rate. Clicking this option will display a list of charge codes. Select a charge code and the associated charge rate will be used in the budget calculations
Use custom rates: Use this option to provide your own rates for the budget calculations. Selecting this option will make the hourly cost and hourly revenue field editable. Enter the required values. The total cost, total revenue, the hourly and total profit for the booking will be automatically calculated

For the first two options, the following will be automatically calculated:

the hourly revenue and total revenue for the booking
the hourly cost and total cost of the booking
the hourly profit and total profit for the booking

Note

If your selected resource(s) exceeds your budget (due to resource costs and days required), a warning is displayed. If your Job exceeds budget, the Budget consumed field on the Job details page is displayed in red.

Understand the Comments section

This section allows you to view the comments that have been added to the booking by other users. You cannot add comments while creating a new booking. See add a comment to a booking.

View a booking/role in Jobs/Resources view on the planner

You can rotate a selected booking/role between the Job and the Resource view on the Planner. For example, you can select a booking/role in Resource view and then 'rotate' to the Job view to see the other resources who are working on it.

To do this in Resource view, select Show in jobs view from the View menu on the Planner.

To do this in Job view, select Show in resources view from the View menu on the Planner.

You can also save your view as a new plan to use for future reference.

The Rotate option is also available on selecting a role/booking, right-clicking and selecting 'Show in...' option from the context menu.

To restore your plan settings back to the original view, click Restore view.

Note

Rotating a role is not available for criteria roles
In Jobs view, Show in resources view will not be available if all selections are from an Unassigned row

View bookings that are unassigned

Unassigned bookings are bookings that do not have any resources assigned. Unassigned bookings are displayed on Plans as an Unassigned row which will be the first row above all resources in the Resources View and the first row under each job in the Jobs View. The Unassigned row is hidden by default.

To view unassigned bookings:

Click Planner from the left navigation menu and then select the Resources/Jobs tab
Toggle Show on the top menu to show Unassigned rows. See show/hide for information on the Show menu
The unassigned bookings are displayed in the unassigned row

Edit a booking

Click Planner from the left navigation menu
Select the specific booking that you want to edit
Select Edit → Edit Details or select the booking pane icon. A popup is displayed
Edit the details. If the Job you enter does not exist, you can create a new one by clicking + New Job from the lookup itself
Save

Delete a booking

Delete a booking with a right-click

Click Planner from the left navigation menu
Right-click the booking that you want to delete
Select Delete from the menu
Select OK to confirm

Delete a booking from the booking pane

Click Planner from the left navigation menu
Select a booking
Click on the booking pane icon to display the booking pane
Click Edit. A popup is displayed
Click Delete to delete the booking
Confirm the deletion

Delete a booking from the main menu

Click Planner from the left navigation menu
Select the booking that you want to delete
Select Edit → Delete Booking from the main menu
Select OK to confirm

Edit/Delete bookings in bulk

To select multiple bookings, select a booking bar from the Planner, press the Ctrl key and click on one or more booking bars. Only the booking bars that are in the visible area can be selected
You may drag the booking bars to change dates or resize the booking bars to extend the start/end dates
A section displaying Edit All and Delete All links will be displayed
Click Edit All
A form showing all your selected bookings is displayed as shown in the screen above. You can now edit the bookings in bulk on this form. The total number of selected bookings will be displayed as Bookings (n) on the top of the form
To bulk edit all the selected bookings, ensure that the All n bookings tab is selected and proceed to edit the selected fields
Select the fields that you wish to edit by clicking +Select Fields and then select specific fields by clicking the adjacent checkboxes. Click Add
You may choose to individually edit bookings by selecting the respecting booking tab and then editing the fields. The selected tab is highlighted
If there is an error then the respective tab is highlighted to let you know the erroenous booking
Click Save changes to save
Click the Delete All link to delete bookings in bulk

Note

History fields are displayed as Field (overwrite from date). Example: Diary (overwrite from date).
If you select and edit a history field in the All n bookings tab, all the existing values will be overwritten by your new, edited value starting from the first specified date.
History fields that are blank or missing date/value will be ignored.
During Edit all, when searching for a Job/Client, if one doesn't exist, you can add one by clicking + New Job or + New Client from the lookup itself

Example

Resource A diary fields:
Before:
1 June 2021: Standard company diary
You add 2 history fields:
1 March 2021: Busy period diary
1 April 2021: Standard company diary
After:
1 March 2021: Busy period diary
1 April 2021: Standard company diary

Resource B diary fields:
Before:
1 February 2021: Standard company diary
1 March 2021: Temporary march diary
1 April: Reduced time diary
You add 2 history fields:
1 March 2021: Busy period diary
1 April 2021: Standard company diary
After:
1 February 2021: Standard company Diary
1 March 2021: Busy period diary
1 April 2021: Standard company diary

To deselect multiple bookings:

Simply click on another cell to deselect multiple bookings
Press Ctrl key and left-click to deselect a particular booking from selection while keeping the rest selected
Left-click to deselect multiple bookings and to select the booking that you left-clicked
Right-click to deselect multiple bookings and to select the booking that you right-clicked and display a popup-menu

Add a comment to a booking

You may add a comment to a booking to enable discussions with other users.

Note

You will be able to add and view comments if you have the permissions to create a booking.
Comments can only be added when you edit a booking. They cannot be added while creating a new booking.

To add a comment:

Enter your comment in the textbox above the Add Comment button
The Add Comment button will be enabled after you start typing
You may enter symbols such as . , ! ? < > + * $ or unicode characters such as Greek or Cyrillic characters. You can enter a maximum of 500 characters in this field
Click the Add Comment button
Click Save changes to save changes to the booking

To edit/delete a comment:

Click on the 3-dot menu for the comment you wish to edit/delete
Select Edit or Delete and proceed to edit or delete the comment
Click Update in case of edit, or click Delete Comment to delete
Click Save changes to save changes to the booking

Attach documents to a booking

See Upload and Attach documents for more detail on uploading and attaching documents.

Outlook Calendar Integration

Integration with Microsoft Outlook allows you to view your Retain Schedule as calendar entries in your Outlook calendar (with the Job name as the title).

This allows you to directly view your planned bookings in your Outlook calendar without having to login to Retain Cloud.

Your calendar entries will be automatically updated when the following events are triggered:

Creating a booking - a calendar entry will be created in Outlook calendar for the user assigned to the booking
Deleting a booking - the calendar entry will be removed from Outlook calendar for the user assigned to the booking
Editing a booking:
- When date range of a booking is edited, calendar entry will move to the new dates for the user assigned to the booking
- When the Job of a booking is edited, calendar entry's title and content will be updated for the user assigned to the booking
- When 'Assigned to' is changed, the calendar entry for the user will be removed, and a new calendar entry will be generated for the new user assigned to the booking
- When 'Booking status' of the booking is changed to 'Unconfirmed', the calendar entry for the user will be deleted
- When 'Booking status' is changed to 'Planned', a new calendar entry will be created
- Editing any other booking fields (e.g. Work activity, Time allocation) will not trigger a calender entry update

Note

Bookings created/edited prior Outlook integration being switched on will not be synchronised
Only new bookings created, deleted or edited after the functionality has been implemented will be displayed in Outlook calendar
Calendar entries will display as 'Free' time because 'Busy' time for planned bookings may clog diaries
Only planned bookings are currently displayed as calendar entries
Calendar entries will be created as 'all day' bookings