Flights and Flight Packages in Certain
This guide is an introduction to Flights and Flight Packages in Certain, which are available in the Travel Packages sub-module of the Travel Module.
If this advanced feature of the Certain platform is not enabled for your account, and you are interested in it after reading this guide, please email help@certain.com, including your account name.
The functionality described here is available to users with a user type of Event Builder or higher.
Contents
- What are “Flight Packages”, and Why Would I Use them in My Event?
- About Setting Up And Using Flights and Flight Packages
Enabling the Travel Packages Sub-Module
Assigning Flights to Attendees
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Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms
- Editing (or “Completing”) Flights
Communication & Change History
Introduction
What are “Flight Packages”, and Why Would I Use them in My Event?
Flight packages are sets of flights to and from the event. You can make flights or flight packages available for attendees to select on a registration form or allocate them directly to attendees. They make managing your attendees’ travel arrangements easier and enable you to provide detailed itineraries.
- Flights and Inventory. Each flight has one or more inventory records: seat blocks (referred to by their “Reference Number”), often known as “PNRs”. Each one is the reservation of a block of seats on a flight.
- Flight Packages. A package includes multiple flights, such as flights to and from an event, perhaps for attendees from a particular area, city, or country.
This document explains how to set up flights, add them to packages, make them available to attendees, generate itineraries, and report on travel data.
About Setting Up And Using Flights and Flight Packages
The steps involved in setting up and using flights and flight packages in Certain are explained in some detail in the rest of this document, but here is a brief summary.
Switching the feature on in the event
- Enable the Travel Packages sub-module (of the Travel Module) in Plan > Configure > Options. (See Enabling the Travel Packages Sub-Module.)
Setting Up Flights
- Add the flights to the event, each with details such as its flight number, carrier, destination and arrival airports, departure and arrival dates and times, etc.
- For each flight, add inventory records: seat blocks (“Reference Numbers”) – the reservations that have been made. See “Setting Up Flights”.)
Setting Up Flight Packages
- Optionally, add a Flight Package for each set of flights; for example, the inbound and outbound flights from a particular port of origin.
- You then add the relevant Flights to each package, including the Reference Numbers to be used. (See “Setting Up Flight Packages”.)
Assigning Flights to Attendees
- You can assign flights to attendees in any of five different ways:
1. Via a registration form, where the attendee makes their selection
- of one or more packages (see Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms), or
- of one or more pre-booked flights (see Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms)
2. Manually on the admin side, by editing an attendee’s record to assign
- one or more packages of flights (see Assigning a Flight Package), or
- pre-booked flights (see Assigning Pre-booked Flights), or
- individual flights booked especially for that attendee(see Assigning Pre-booked Flights).Enabling the Travel Packages Sub-Module
In the event, go to Plan > Configure > Options, and select Travel Packages under Travel Module in Functional Areas Needed by This Event. (The Travel Module must be enabled for its sub-modules to be available.)
The event now includes a Travel option on the Plan menu, the page, with the four-page links described below: Configure, Flights, Flight Packages, and Import. The Manage > Registrations page will also have a Travel page.
(As always in Certain, detailed context-sensitive help is available for every page. You can click Help and Support and then click Page Help, whatever page you are on..)
Travel > Configuration
The Configuration page under Travel > Configure enables you to set up the following, each of which is described in detail below.
- Maximum Transfer Time (for use by Appointment Matching)
- Custom Transportation Types and
- Default airports,
- for selection by attendees as their transportation preferences.
- Custom Booking Statuses,
- Payment Codes,
- Travel Types, and
- Travel Action Codes, for use on attendees’ flight reservations.
You can set up default values for three of them when you are setting up flight inventory (see Adding Flight Inventory.) Those defaults are then applied as the initial values on an attendee’s flight registration when you assign a flight.
Setting a Currency Label
But before we look at those items on the Plan > Travel > Configure page, there is one extra item we can set up. On the Details page in Event Setup, you can select a Currency Label to be used for amounts on flights in the Travel module, and on room blocks in the Accommodation module.
Transfer Time
If you are using the Appointments Module, you may wish to set a Maximum Transfer Time (in minutes) here. If set, it determines an attendee’s Available From date/time, by automatically adding that number of minutes to their flight arrival time
For example, if Juliana’s flight is scheduled to arrive at 8:30 AM, and the Maximum Transfer Time is 45 minutes, then she is not available for her first appointment until 9:15 AM.
The same Maximum Transfer Time value is used to set the attendee’s Available Until the date/time. So if Juliana’s outbound flight is scheduled to depart at 5:10 PM then she is not available for appointments after 4:25 PM that day.
Statuses
These four sets of user-definable codes are all optional. Any you set up, to meet your organization’s workflow, can be assigned to attendees’ flights (on Manage > Registrations > Travel), and used in reporting.
These statuses make it easy to ensure the workflow for travel arrangements progresses smoothly from one stage to the next; for example, with the travel team running reports and taking the action indicated by the Travel Action Codes on bookings.
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Booking Status
Used to record the current status of an attendee’s flight booking. For example, “New Booking”. -
Payment Code
Used to record the current status of the payment for an attendee’s flight. For example, “At Own Cost”. -
Travel Type
A means of classifying flight bookings. For example, “Charter Flight”. -
Travel Action Code
Can be used to indicate what action the planner or travel staff should take next for a booking with this code. For example, “Upgrade Request”.
Transportation Types
The custom Transportation Types set up here can be made available for an attendee to select on the Travel section of a registration form. (You do that by selecting Show Transportation Preferences on the form when setting up the form.)
You can also assign them to Groups if you are using the Registration Groups module. In that case, when showing transportation preferences on a form, you can restrict those shown to those associated with the group the attendee is a member (if they are a group member).
To add a transportation type:
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Select a Mode of Transport from the drop-down list. (Air, Rail, Road, Ship, or Other.)
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Type a name in the unlabeled text box, and click Add.
Default Airports
In this section, you can add any airports to be used for the event. Like the Transportation Types, they can be made available for an attendee to select on the Travel section of a registration form. (Select Show Transportation Preferences on the form when setting up that form.) You might do this to enable attendees to select their preferred port of departure, from which you will be organizing the flights
As with Transportation Types, if you are using the Registration Groups sub-module, you can assign any of these airports to Groups and then restrict the airports an attendee sees on the form to those assigned to their group (if they are a group member).
To add an airport:
- Find it by typing three or more letters in its name. (For example, typing "San" or "cis" or "SFO" would find "SFO - San Francisco International Airport".)
- Click the name found. (In the example, that would add "SFO" to the list.)
- To delete an airport, click the x before its name.
Setting up Flights
Your first step is to add the flights to be used. In the event, go to Plan > Travel > Flights. The Flights page displays a list of any flights that have already been added. You can filter the flights shown by selecting a filter in the drop-down list (Airline, Flight Code, Departure Port, Arrival Port, or Inbound/Outbound). You can export a list of flights to Excel, by clicking the Excel icon .
Adding a Flight
Click Add New to add a flight, or to edit one.
As illustrated in the screenshot below, follow these steps to set up your new flight.
Some of the information is required, such as the Flight Code, but some are optional information for the benefit of the planner or the attendee.
- Select whether the flight is Inbound (to the event) or Outbound (from the event).
- Type the Flight Code, e.g. AA1867
- Optionally type a Description of the flight, which attendees will see on forms
- Select the Carrier from the list of airlines.
- If required, select an Aircraft Type
- Select the Date and Time of departure, and of arrival.
- Select the Airports of departure and arrival.
- If relevant, enter the names or numbers of the Terminals (and even the Gates) at the airports.
- Optionally type the Duration and Distance of the flight, e.g. (6h 30 m” and “2586 miles”.
Adding Flight Inventory (Reference Numbers)
When you’ve saved the flight, you can edit it in order to see the Flights Inventory section, in which you add the “Reference Numbers” on the flight.
What’s a "Reference Number"? It’s the generic term used in Certain to refer to the confirmation or booking number for a set of seats booked on a flight. It’s often referred to as a PNR (Passenger Name Reservation), or other names such as Confirmation Number or Reference Number. Each flight must have at least one so that there is some inventory for attendee registrations.
For however many reference numbers on this flight, click Add New, and then:
- Type the Seat Block ID, a descriptive name for this block of seat inventory. (Unique to flight.)
- Type the Reference Number, as supplied by the travel agent. (Unique to flight.)
- Type a number representing the initial Inventory: the number of seats reserved in this booking on this flight.
- Enter the Total Amount charged for this flight (the ticket price plus any travel taxes) and the Travel Tax. (If a currency label has been set up for Travel and Accommodation (see Setting a Currency Label), it’s displayed here, and the figures must be in that currency.)
- If required, select a Class (Business, Economy, First, Economy Plus, or Other).
- Optionally, if set up in Travel Configuration (see Transfer Time), select a Travel Type, Action Code, and/or Booking Status.
If entered here, these are used as the default values for new attendee registrations on this flight (which you can then edit on the attendee’s Registrations > Travel page).
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Click Save or Save and New, and repeat these steps for each reference number being added.
The flight you have added is now available:
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for inclusion in a Flight Package, as described next,
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for inclusion as a “pre-booked flight” on a registration form (see Assigning Pre-booked Flights),
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for assignment to an attendee directly on their Registrations > Travel page (Assigning Pre-booked Flights).
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Setting Up Flight Packages
Once you have created flights, you can add them to flight packages. To do so, go to Travel > Flight Packages. The Flight Packages page lists any packages that have already been set up. You can export a list of flight packages and their flights to Excel, by clicking the Excel icon.
You can click expand next to a package to show all its flights, and for an expanded package you can click
collapse to hide them.
Click Add New to add a flight package, or to edit one.
As illustrated in the screenshot below, follow these steps to set up your new package.
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Give the package a unique name
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Click Add flights to Package; and in the pop-up window that opens, select the flights to add, and Click Add Flights.
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In the Selected Flights section, for each flight added, select the reference number to be assigned, i.e. from which the inventory of seats booked will come.
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If necessary, click the up
and down
arrows to change the order of the flights in the package, ensuring that the earliest flight is first on the list.
Assigning Flights to Attendees
As mentioned at the start of this guide, you can assign flights to attendees in any of these five ways:
- Via a registration form, where the attendee makes their selection
o of one or more packages (see Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms), or
o of one or more pre-booked flights (see Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms)
- Manually on the admin side, by editing an attendee’s record to assign
o one or more packages (see Assigning a Flight Package), or
o pre-booked flights (see Assigning Pre-booked Flights), or
o assign individual flights (see Assigning Pre-booked Flights).
These are all explained below.
Attendees Selecting Flight Packages or Flights on Registration Forms
When adding or editing a form, include a Travel section. In that form, go to Plan > Forms > Travel. You can choose to make flight packages or individual flights available for attendees to select from.
Which one of these two possibilities is more appropriate depends on your own business processes.
The Flight Packages section is a list of the Flight Packages you have set up. Select the check boxes next to any you want to include on the form.
The best practice is to show either packages or individual flights on a form, not both; so the Show Individual Flights selection on the form check box has been left clear in this screenshot because flight packages have been selected for inclusion. If the Show Individual Flights selection on the form is selected, then the attendee registering can select from a list of all the flights in the event.
In the Transportation Preferences section, you can choose whether to include Transportation Preferences on the form (i.e. the Transportation Types and Default Event Airports you set up on Travel > Configure (see Transportation Types), whether to make a selection required and what label should be used.
If you are using Registration groups in your event, you can also choose to limit the Transportation Preferences to those allocated to the attendee’s group (on Plan > Groups).
After an attendee has selected their package or individual flights, you can edit their flight bookings to complete the details required, such as changing booking status or travel action code. See Editing Flights.
Planner Assigning Flight Packages and Flights to Attendees
You can assign flights manually on the admin side; by editing an attendee’s record to assign a package, pre-booked flights (coming from inventory), or individual flights (booked just for that attendee). Go to the attendee’s record; for example, by searching for them via the global Search icon , go to the Travel page for their record and click the Assign Flights button.
Assigning a Flight Package
To assign a flight package to an attendee, first go to the Travel page for that attendee, as explained above, and click the Assign Flights button. Of the three options, Select Packages is the default already selected. Select the package(s) to assign, and click Assign Packages.
If the flights in the selected package(s) have default values for custom codes assigned to them on Travel > Flights (see Setting up Flights), then the attendee flight registrations will have those values for those fields.
You can edit each flight registration if required; for example, select a Booking Status or Meal Type. This is illustrated on page 15 and is the same whether the flight was booked as part of a package or as a separate pre-booked flight (see the next item).
Assigning Pre-booked Flights
To assign individual pre-booked flights to an attendee, instead of a package of flights, you still first go to the same Travel page for that attendee, as explained above, and click the Assign Flights button. Then click the Select Flights option, select the flight(s) to assign, and click Assign Flights.
For each one, select the Reference Number (PNR) of the flight inventory to be used for their booking. The figures in parentheses after the reference number show how many seats are still available out of the initial inventory. In this example, all five seats of the original inventory remain available. Click Assign Flights to complete the selection.
Just as for flights in packages, if the selected flights have default values for custom codes assigned to them on Travel > Flights (see Setting up Flights), then the attendee flight registrations now have those values for those fields.
You can edit each flight registration if required; for example, select a Booking Status or Meal Type. This is illustrated on Assigning Individual Flights and is the same whether the flight was booked as an individual flight, or as part of a package (see the previous item).
Assigning Individual Flights
The third type of flight you can assign to an attendee is an “individual” flight – one that you have booked specifically for them, and which does not have multiple reservations. Individual flights are not inventory controlled but are included in the attendee’s itinerary and in reports, for example.
To assign an individual flight to an attendee, first go to the Travel page for that attendee, as explained above, and click the Assign Flights button. Then click the Create an Individual Flight option, and enter the details of the flight (which are very similar to what you enter for flights on the Travel > Flights page), and click Save.
As with the other types of flights, you edit the flight information, as described next.
Editing Flights
When an attendee has a flight reservation, whether as part of a flight package, as a pre-booked flight, or as an individual flight, and whether through their selecting it on a form or you are assigning it to them, you may want to edit their reservation.
To do so, first go to the attendee’s record as explained above; for example, by searching for them via the global Search icon , and going to the Travel page for their record.
In the Flight Summary on that page, click to edit the flight.
Edit the fields you need to. In particular, these will include fields that the attendee couldn’t enter or select on the form, or which you couldn’t enter or select when assigning the flight to them, such as the Meal Type or Seat Number; or where the default value assigned from the flight record needs to be different for this attendee, such as the Booking Status or Travel Action Code.
Communication & Change History
You can record communications about an attendee’s Travel data, or about the changes to that data, by clicking the speech bubbles on their Travel Information page.
This opens a Communication & Change History pop-up window (illustrated overleaf) in which you can enter comments, and see previous comments.
Note also that you can import date-stamped comments into this history when importing flight reservations.
Importing Travel Data
You can import flights, flight inventory, and attendee flight reservations (pre-booked flights and individual flights) by going to Travel > Import, and selecting the type of data to import.
Three Steps: Decide, Prepare Data, Import
There are three steps to importing the data: Decide the type of data to import, prepare an import file of that data (as a .CSV file), and then step through the import wizard.
A: Decide the type of data to import
Before preparing a CSV file containing the data to be imported, you need to decide which one of the four possible types of data you will be importing:
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This section of the guide is quite detailed. The next section, Itinerary PDF, if you want to skip ahead |
● Flights, ● Flight Inventory,
● Attendee Pre-booked Flight Reservations, or ● Attendee Individual Flight Reservations.
B: Prepare an Import File
Next prepare a CSV file containing the data to be imported. Ensure that the columns in the file match those required for an import of the relevant type of data, especially including any required fields. See the lists of columns to import below Importing Travel Data.
Best practice: Keep the columns in the same order, and use the same or similar names, as used in the mapping step, which is described below. This will make the mapping step quicker and easier since those fields are more likely to be mapped by default.
Tip: The online help includes a sample CSV file for each import type, with appropriately named columns in the correct order and just one row of sample data to make the columns formats, such as dates and times. (See the lists of fields below for each import type, on Importing Travel Data.)
Caution: The value in some columns (such as the Flight Code in a Flight Inventory import, for example) must match data in your event (as described on Importing Travel Data), so if using the sample CSV files, be sure to delete the example data.
Note that a file cannot be imported if any of the "Required" fields are not included; and the import of a record will fail if any of the "Required" fields are null (i.e. have no value).
Save the file as a CSV file, where the first row contains the column headings (the field names). The usual way is to save an Excel file as "CSV (Comma delimited)".
C: Import Your Data
Once you have a CSV file of Travel data to import, step through the Travel Import Wizard to import it.
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Select the type of Travel data to import. You can select one from the drop-down list
-
-
Flights
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Flight Inventory
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Attendee Pre-booked Flight Reservations
- Attendee Individual Flight Reservations
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Browse to select a file to upload, and then Upload it.
In the pop-up window, map the columns in the import file to the data fields. These are the same as the fields you can import for each of the four types of import as listed below:
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Flights
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Flight Inventory
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Attendee Pre-booked Flight Reservations
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Attendee Individual Flight Reservations
Then click Import.
Your import is queued, and you receive an email notification as soon as it is processed. The records are then available for use.
Importing Flights and Flight Inventory
Importing Flights
See Adding a Flight for more about flights, and Importing Travel Data for the import steps. This is a list of the fields you can include in the CSV file for the import.
Importing Flight Inventory
See Adding Flight Inventory (Reference Numbers) for more about flight inventory, and Importing Travel Data or the import.
This is a list of the fields you can include in the CSV file for the import.
Importing Attendee Flight Reservations
Importing Attendee Pre-booked Flight Reservations
See Assigning Pre-booked Flights for more about pre-booked flights, and Importing Travel Data on page 16 for the import steps. This is a list of the fields you can include in the CSV file for the import.
A note about History
The History column in an import is not imported as part of the attendee’s flight registration record, but is added as a Comment in the Communication and Change History for the attendee's Travel Information in Registrations > Travel.
If the History Timestamp is also included, it is a date that the import adds to the beginning of the History field to form the Comment. If it’s not included, but History is included, then the date of the import (Pacific Time) is used. An example resulting comment: "08/26/2022 - Imported text".
Importing Attendee Individual Flight Reservations
See Assigning Individual Flights for more about individual flights, and Importing Travel Data for the import steps. This is a list of the fields you can include in the CSV file for the import.
A note about History (which is the same as for the Pre-Booked Flights import on page 22).
The History column in an import is not imported as part of the attendee’s flight registration record, but is added as a Comment in the Communication and Change History for the attendee's Travel Information in Registrations > Travel.
If the History Timestamp is also included, it is a date that the import adds to the beginning of the History field to form the Comment. If it’s not included, but History is included, then the date of the import (Pacific Time) is used. An example resulting comment: "08/26/2022 - Imported text".
Itinerary PDF
You can generate itinerary PDFs in any of three ways:
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Click Itinerary under Actions on an attendee’s record Profile registration overview.
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Select Attach Itinerary PDF in an email:
in Communication > Templates, or (Attendee) > Registrations > Email
or in Forms > Confirm.
3. Click the Print Itinerary action when you have selected registrations in a Report Results window.
That generates a zip file containing a PDF for each of the selected attendees (where the PDF filename is the attendee’s name).
Itinerary Settings
To configure the appearance and default contents of itineraries, before you generate any, open the Itinerary Settings page by going to Promote > Communication > Itinerary.
Under Itinerary Options, select at least Include Travel. Include Appointments (if you are using the Appointments module) and Agenda Items to provide a more complete itinerary. (If you do include Agenda Items, you also select which agenda item types to include).
Note that when sending itineraries as attachments to emails, you can choose which of these three to include; that decision overrides the defaults selected on this Itinerary Settings page. (If you choose fewer than all the relevant options, you may want to change or remove “Complete” in the default wording “Complete Itinerary”.)
Under Itinerary Details, use the HTML editor to edit and format the text to be displayed as the Header of the Itinerary. This can include adding any dynamic data fields required. The default Header, as shown above, is:
Under Itinerary Layout Colors and Fonts, you can set the colors to be used in the tables that make up most of the itinerary.
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Caption Color – The background color of the caption at the top of the grid.
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Caption Title Color – The color of the text in the caption. (The Title is "Calendar" for the
appointments and agenda section, and “Travel Itinerary” for flights.)
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Header Color – The background color of the header.
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Header Title Color – The color of the text in the header title. (The date, for the calendar (i.e. agenda
and appointments) section, for example.)
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Grid Color – The color of the lines separating items in the grid.
To specify a color, you can enter its hexadecimal value (for example;
#FFFFFF, for white) directly in the field, or click the
icon to the right of the field to open the Color Picker, where you can click and drag to select a color, then click the Save icon (in the lower right corner) to select that color.
Itinerary Output
The itinerary is generated as a PDF, with one page for the Travel Itinerary (flights), and one page for the Calendar (agenda items and appointments).
Reporting
Flight Reservation Report
On the Travel > Flights page, you can click the Excel icon to run a Flight Reservation Report – an export to Excel of all flight reservations.
The report consists of a list of all reference numbers on all flights.
Custom Reports
When adding a new report on the Reports page, you can select the Travel Flights report type.
Such a report returns one row of data for each attendee's flight reservation, whether the booking is as part of flight packages, as a pre-booked flight, or as an individual flight.
The Travel data fields available include those from flights and attendees’ flight reservations; these can be included in the report and used for sorting and filtering.
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