The ability to display custom fields directly on the main booking form for staff, and optionally on the online booking form for customers, would greatly improve both usability and flexibility.
Currently, all custom fields are automatically placed in the Details tab. This means staff have to open another tab to complete information that may be required, which isn't intuitive and slows down the booking process.
For example, if an "Allergen and Dietary Requirements" custom field is created, it is hidden within the Details tab. Even when marked as required and highlighted, staff still have to navigate away from the main booking form to complete it. If they don't, the booking cannot be completed, but the system doesn't explain why. The Complete button is simply greyed out, with no indication that a required field is missing in another tab. This can easily confuse staff, particularly new users.
This functionality already exists within the tablet app, where custom fields are displayed on the main booking form. Bringing the website in line with the +app would provide a more consistent experience across devices and make training much easier.
It would also be useful to control where each custom field is displayed. For example:
This would allow businesses to collect relevant information from customers while also recording internal information without requiring staff to go to the main website to check the booking history to see who created a booking.
It would also be beneficial if custom fields remained visible on the main Booked form after a booking has been created. At the moment, even though the tablet app displays them during booking creation, they are hidden in the Details tab when viewing an existing booking. Displaying them alongside information such as the customer's name or mobile number would make reviewing bookings much quicker and more efficient.
Finally, allowing selected custom fields to appear on the online booking form would let customers complete them naturally during the booking process, just like entering their name or phone number.
Overall, this would significantly improve usability for staff while giving businesses much greater flexibility over how booking information is collected and displayed. It would also create a more consistent experience between the website and tablet app, making the system easier and more efficient to use.
I definitely agree - specifically in terms of receiving dietaries/allergies from guests which is incredibly important for our team. We currently have this set as a required field for guests to complete when making their bookings online, however it does get hidden away in the details tab rather than clearly showing anywhere else on the booking.
The other issue with using the details tab for this is that the information stays with that particular guests profile, meaning there is a chance of the dietaries being wrong on their next visit if they happen to come with different people or if their circumstances have changed and it is not updated accordingly.
A better way for guests to easily communicate their dietaries that is attached to the specific booking rather than the guests profile would be hugely useful and hopefully make tracking these far more user friendly for both guests & staff.