How to add custom fields

Solidres has two kinds of custom fields, and they do different jobs:

On this page:

1. Custom fields for the booking forms
   • Installation
   • The forms you can customise
   • The default fields
   • Creating a field
   • The input name
   • Field types
   • File upload
   • The order of the fields
   • One field, some properties or experiences
   • Fields that depend on an extra
   • Examples
   • The inquiry form
   • Where the answers are shown
   • The guest profile
   • Translating the fields
   • Removing a field
2. Custom fields for properties and room types
   • The built-in fields
   • The two XML files
   • How to add a new custom field
   • How to show a custom field on the website
   • One field, several languages
   • How to delete a custom field
3. Troubleshooting

Custom fields for the booking forms

Without the Custom Field plugin, Solidres asks every guest the same fixed set of questions. With it, the forms are yours: rename a field, make it optional, remove it, or add a new one, all from the administrator.

Installation

1. Download Solidres Custom Field from your Download page on solidres.com.
2. In your Joomla administrator, go to System → Install → Extensions and upload the package.

The plugin is enabled by the installer. If it has been disabled since, enable Solidres - Custom Field plugin under System → Plugins.

The forms you can customise

Each form has a field list of its own. A field belongs to the list it was created in and is shown in that form only.

The default fields

The plugin installs the fields Solidres needs. They are marked in the Default column of the list.

A default field can be changed, within limits:

Creating a field

Open the list of the form you want to change and select New.

The input name

Solidres handles the answers of a form together with the other data of the booking, and tells them apart by their input name. Use lower-case letters, digits and underscores, give every field its own name, and start the name with the prefix of the form. The prefix keeps your field clear of the names Solidres uses itself:

Any other character, a space included, is replaced by an underscore when the field is saved.

Field types

File upload

• Not in the room form. The type is available in the guest form, not in the room form.
• Size and file types follow Joomla. The limits are those of the Joomla Media options: Content → Media → Options. A file that Joomla would refuse in the Media manager is refused here.
• Files are kept private. A file can be downloaded by an administrator, by the partner who owns the property, by the guest who made the reservation, and through the link in the reservation emails, which carries the reservation code.
• Not part of the profile. A file belongs to one reservation. File fields are left out of the guest profile.

The order of the fields

The forms show the fields in the order of the list. To change it, sort the list by the first column and drag a field by its handle. The guest form splits the list over two columns: the first half on the left, the second half on the right.

The Optional column of the list is a switch. Select it to turn a field from optional to required and back, without opening the field.

One field, some properties or experiences

A field without Categories is asked everywhere. To ask a question in some places only, select one or several categories in the field. Which categories the list offers depends on the form:

Example for properties: your hotels need a passport number, your holiday apartments do not. Create the field Passport number in the guest form and select the category Hotels. Guests of the apartments never see it.

Example for experiences: your cooking classes need to know about food allergies, your city walks do not. Create the field Food allergies in the Experience guest form and select the category Cooking. An experience can be in several categories: the field is asked when one of them is selected in the field.

The fields of the inquiry form and of the partner subscription form are asked everywhere. The Categories setting has no effect there.

Fields that depend on an extra

Some questions only make sense when the guest buys an extra: the flight number for the airport transfer, the age of the child for the cot. A room form field with Assigned extras stays hidden until the guest ticks one of those extras for the room.

1. Go to Solidres → Coupons & Extras → Extras and note the ID of the extra.
2. Open the field under Solidres → Reservations → Custom fields.
3. Enter the ID in Assigned extras. For several extras, separate the IDs with commas, without spaces: 4,7.

Examples

The inquiry form

The inquiry form is shown on the property page when it is enabled in the property. With the plugin, it is built from the list under Solidres → Reservations → Inquiry fields, and every answer is part of the email the property receives.

• Start every input name with inquiry_.
• Keep the two fields inquiry_full_name and inquiry_email, and keep them required. The name goes into the subject of the email, and the address is the one the property replies to.

Where the answers are shown

In the administrator, Confirm Email is left out: staff enter the address once.

Columns in the reservation list

Guest form fields can be shown as columns of the reservation list. Open the Solidres options, select the Reservation tab, and enter the input names in Custom fields in reservation list, separated by commas and without spaces:

customer_arrival_time,customer_company

Finding reservations by a field

A field with Searchable set to Yes is added to the Filter Options of the reservation list. A text field becomes a search box that finds a part of the answer, a field with options becomes a list of those options. This works for fields of the guest form and of the room form.

The guest profile

The guest form fields are also part of the account of a registered guest, under the heading Profile details:

• in the registration form and the profile form of Joomla,
• in the profile of the Solidres customer dashboard,
• in the customer and the Joomla user in the administrator. There, every field is optional.

When a logged-in guest books, the guest form is filled in from the profile, so a returning guest answers your questions once. Note, Email, Confirm Email and file fields are not part of the profile.

Translating the fields

There are three ways to show a field in the language of the guest:

Removing a field

The answers guests gave to a field that is unpublished or deleted stay in the database, but they are no longer shown with the reservations.

Custom fields for properties and room types

These fields describe a property or a room type. You fill them in on the Custom fields tab of the property or the room type, and the website shows them on the property page. They are added by the plugin Extension - Solidres, which is installed with Solidres, and they are defined in two XML files.

The built-in fields

Some of them can be made required or switched off without touching a file. Open System → Plugins, open Extension - Solidres, and choose Required, Optional or Disabled for the check-in time, the check-out time, the cancellation and prepayment policy, the children and extra beds policy and the pets policy of a property, and for the room facilities, the room size and the bed size of a room type.

With the Hub package, partners fill in the same fields in the partner dashboard, on the same tab of their property and room type forms.

The two XML files

Both files are inside the folder of your Joomla installation:

How to add a new custom field

The example adds a field for information about dining to the group Facilities of a property.

Step 1: define the field

Open reservationasset.xml. The fields of a group are inside its <fieldset> tag. Add a new <field> tag to the group facilities, after the field parking:

<fieldset name="facilities" label="SR_PLG_EXT_RESERVATION_ASSET_FACILITIES">

    ...

    <field
        name="dining"
        type="textarea"
        rows="5"
        cols="100"
        id="dining"
        label="SR_PLG_EXT_RESERVATION_ASSET_FIELD_FACILITIES_DINING_LABEL"
        description="SR_PLG_EXT_RESERVATION_ASSET_FIELD_FACILITIES_DINING_DESC"
        filter="safehtml"
    />

</fieldset>

A field tag has the following attributes:

Step 2: give the field its label

The label and the description are language constants. Give them a text under System → Language Overrides: select your language and Administrator, select New, and create one override for each constant.

A language override is kept when Solidres is updated. A line added to a language file of Solidres is not, so do not edit those files.

Step 3: fill it in

Edit a property in the administrator and open the Custom fields tab. The new field is at the end of the group Facilities. Enter a text and save.

How to show a custom field on the website

The built-in fields are shown by the templates of Solidres. A field you add is saved, but no template knows it yet, so it has to be added to one. Do this in a template override, a copy of the file inside your Joomla template, and leave the file of Solidres as it is: an update replaces it.

There are three files. For each one, the first line is the file of Solidres and the second line is the place of your copy, both inside the folder of your Joomla installation:

• The facilities and policies of a property

  components/com_solidres/tmpl/reservationasset/default_information.php
  templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_solidres/reservationasset/default_information.php

• The same, for a property shown with the apartment layout

  components/com_solidres/tmpl/apartment/default_information.php
  templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_solidres/apartment/default_information.php

• The fields of a room type

  components/com_solidres/layouts/roomtype/customfields.php
  templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/layouts/com_solidres/roomtype/customfields.php

To show the dining field of the example, open your copy of default_information.php and add the name of the field to the list of facilities:

$facilities = [
    'general',
    'activities',
    'services',
    'internet',
    'parking',
    'dining',
];

The template looks for the label of a field under the constant SR_CUSTOMFIELD_ followed by the name of the field in capitals. Create one more language override, this time for the Site:

The new field is now shown on the property page, below Parking. A field that is left empty in a property is not shown.

A field of a room type is added the same way. In your copy of customfields.php, add a block for it. For a field named view:

if (!empty($roomType->roomtype_custom_fields['view'])) :
    echo '<p><strong>' . Text::_('SR_CUSTOMFIELD_VIEW') . ':</strong> '
        . $roomType->roomtype_custom_fields['view'] . '</p>';
endif;

One field, several languages

The facilities and policies of a property can hold a text per language. Wrap each text in a language tag that carries the URL language code of the language, the one set under System → Content Languages: en, fr, de. The property page shows the text of the current language:

{lang en}Breakfast is served from 7:00 to 10:30.{/lang}
{lang fr}Le petit-déjeuner est servi de 7h00 à 10h30.{/lang}
{lang de}Frühstück gibt es von 7:00 bis 10:30 Uhr.{/lang}

A text without a language tag is shown in every language.

How to delete a custom field

1. Delete the <field> tag from the XML file.
2. Edit each property or room type that used the field and save it. This removes the text of the field from the database.
3. If you added the field to a template override, remove it there as well.

To hide one of the built-in fields, you do not need to delete it: leave it empty, or disable it in the options of the plugin Extension - Solidres. To hide the whole Facilities or Policies section of a property page, use the options of the property.

Troubleshooting