Rack Options

All of these options are used to affect the way the Rack is displayed (the main dynamic interactive report screen).  A description is given here of each option, but more information may be found in the Rack (Reservation Grid) section.  Note that they also affect the mini-rack view on the New Reservation dialog.

Dates-across-the-top orientation -- This is the normal orientation for the Rack.  If you prefer it with Sites across the top and dates down the side, then uncheck this option.

Show Date Header -- Controls whether the date is shown across the top of the grid (or site, depending on the orientation).  The only real reason to disable this is if you select a query to completely replace the normal date header, e.g. to show it in a different format

Show Day of Week in header -- Controls whether the day of the week (Mon, Tue, etc.) is shown for each date header cell.  While this can be helpful, it does take extra space on the grid.

Show Year in header -- Controls whether the year is shown for each date header cell.  Helpful if you do a lot of multi-year reservations, but most users leave it off to save the grid space.

Show Site Abbreviations -- Controls whether the site abbreviation (e.g. site number) is shown as the first column in the grid.  The only reason to turn this off is if you choose to use a specific query to replace all of the site header columns (see below).

Show Site Types -- Controls whether the site type is shown next to the site name in the grid.  This can be useful if the site names show no clue as to their type, for instance if they are all just numbers.

Show "Dirty" status -- Only available if the Site Dirty field is enabled, this will add a column that will show "****" for sites with the "Dirty" flag.

Show # sites available each day, in a separate row -- When selected, a row will be added below the date header to show the number or percentage of sites available each day.  The number will only include available sites of the selected site type (or other filtered selection).  Note that any unassigned reservations will be subtracted from the number shown, since they will occupy sites when they check in.  However it will not know which site type(s) will be occupied by unassigned reservations, so the number is subtracted no matter which site type is selected (possibly resulting in a negative number available).

Show # sites available each day, as pop-up tips -- When selected, the availability information will be included as a pop-up tip in the date header cells.  Usually there's no need to select both this option and the separate row option above, since they show the same information.

Show # sites available for each site type, as pop-up tips -- When selected, the availability of sites for a particular type will be shown as a pop-up tip on the site type column cells (assuming you have Show Site Types selected also).  The availability shown will be for the date range selected in the Rack.

Show availability as a percentage -- When selected in conjunction with any of the availability options above, it will show the percentage available instead of the number of sites.

Query to insert with additional site info -- If you want to see more (or different) information for each site in the grid, you can create a Query to be shown in addition to the normal site "headers" (or in place of them).  Any columns defined in the query will be inserted before the grid part of the Rack (after the site abbr and/or type if they are shown). Important: if the Query selected has any Filtering defined, then that filtering is also used to determine which sites are shown.

Query to insert with additional date info -- As with the site info query, you can create a Query to be used in addition to (or instead of) the normal date "headers".  Any columns defined in the query will be inserted before the grid part of the Rack (below any of the normal date header options shown).

Default future days -- This defines how many days in the future will be available for instant scrolling on the rack, regardless of future reservations.  In other words, a value of 31 will allow you to scroll over to see at least 1 month in the future, without having to change the End date in the header.  Note that the actual number of days shown may be greater (up to the maximum, below) if there are reservations beyond the minimum future days value.  

Default past days -- The number of days in the past that will be available for instant scrolling, before the Start Date must be changed in the header.  (This is also the minimum past days shown.)

Note that the settings above don't limit the ability to view or create reservations.  They only help minimize the number of cells in the Rack that the program needs to keep visible under typical usage conditions, to increase response speed.  If your computer is fast enough, there is no reason you can't set these to show a full year in each direction by default, so that you rarely have to change the dates in the header and can simply scroll to the desired dates.

Cell Width -- The default cell width for the rack is 50 (measured in pixels, or "screen dots"), so that the date header will display fully.  While this allows the most possible grid cells to be shown at once, it may truncate more of the customer names than you prefer.  You can increase the cell width to see more complete names.  A good medium value is 55, which will allow most common names to fit and still allow nearly 2 weeks to be shown at once on screen with 800x600 resolution.  Alternatively, you can reduce the cell width to get a "compressed" view.  For instance, set it as low as 3 to see several months at once.  This would most likely be a temporary setting, due to the time it takes to display and the lack of names & date information.  (Dates will be compressed as the size is reduced, but after a point it can't show date headers).  However, the pop-up tips on both the date headers and occupied site cells will still be shown.

Start Rack with yesterday by default --For convenience in seeing who might still be in the park, this option is enabled by default so that the Rack shows yesterday as the first column.  A red line separates yesterday from today as an indicator, and to help avoid making new reservations on the wrong date.  If this becomes too confusing or you just don't need to see who was on site yesterday, you can turn this off so that the rack starts on today.

Note: The From and To dates on the rack are not affected by this option -- they will still default to today, so that the Available Only function only shows those available today.  This can create a slight bit of confusion when using the date-stepping buttons (the arrows on each side of the date). Stepping back one day won't change the first column of the rack, since it's already showing yesterday.  On the other hand, stepping forward one day will appear to jump 2 days because the rack will now go from starting yesterday to showing tomorrow.  It makes sense when you consider the actual dates selected, but may be a little confusing at first.

Show bars at the start and end of reservations -- This option (enabled by default) helps you visually separate back-to-back reservations by drawing a small vertical bar at each end of a reservation on the rack.  This can be especially helpful if you print the rack in back & white.  If you don't need the bars and prefer a "cleaner" look, you can disable this function.

Show Unassigned reservation counts in open sites (e.g. "No Site: 4") -- By default, any reservations made without a sites assigned to them will show up on the Rack as a "No Site" notation in open site cells for the corresponding dates.  This serves as a reminder that there are some reservations on that date that still need sites assigned (so don't fill in all available sites with other reservations!).  To see the details on these reservations, you need to go to the Unassigned tab view.  However, you may prefer to turn this notation off just for aesthetic reasons, for instance if your normal practice is to leave reservations unassigned until they arrive and checking the Unassigned list is part of your normal routine.

Include Waiting List reservations in unassigned sites count -- When this is checked, any waiting-list reservations with unassigned sites will also be included in the No Site count, so you know that someone may be waiting for a site on that date.  Disable this option if you don't want to include waiting-list reservations.

Show Owner reservations -- If this is checked, Owner-type reservations will be shown on the Rack.  The sites will be considered "open" in most respects, but appropriate right-click functions will be available on owner reservations.  If most of your sites are owned, you may wish to disable this for a cleaner display.

Hide a site if it's unavailable for the entire shown date range -- This option allows you to minimize the number of sites listed in the rack, showing only those that are available for at least part of the date range shown.  This can be particularly useful if some sites are only available during certain seasons, or if a large number of sites are currently unavailable for an extended time due to renovation.  See the Sites Setup Dialog section in Maintenance Functions for more information on season dates and special dates.

Show only "XXXX" in occupied sites instead of customer names -- This option will eliminate the customer names from the Rack, primarily for use when printing the rack as an availability chart that might be viewed by the public.