This article will assist administrators with understanding the difference between internal and external reservations, and why entering them correctly into the Facilitron platform is important.
What is an Internal Reservation?
An internal reservation is a reservation where the facilities are being used for the facility owner’s own purposes. This would include events like a high school basketball team’s practice, a teacher’s meeting, or the school play.
These schedules or events are created from the calendar page of the administrative dashboard, as shown below.
Internal Reservations are not subject to the same availability limitations that External Reservations are limited to on the Facilitron marketplace. For more information and assistance please see Creating an Internal Reservation or Creating An Internal Schedule With Multiple Dates.
What is an External Reservation?
An external reservation is any reservation where facilities will be used by someone other than that facility owner. For instance, a clear example may be a commercial business renting an auditorium for a business seminar. A less clear example may include school-related groups, like the PTA, who aren't charged fees by the school or facility owner.
A school-related group is still considered an external renter in Facilitron, and must submit their reservation requests through the Facilitron Marketplace, as shown below.
External reservations are subject to the facility owner’s scheduled availability, internal reservations, and other approved external reservations.
Please note that if a special group, such as the PTA, requires a reservation to be made without fees, they should proceed by creating an external reservation through the marketplace. Once a reservation request is submitted, their rate category may be changed to one where fees are not associated, or the reservation may be manually adjusted per your district’s policies. See Submitting a Reservation Request to learn how a reservation request for an external renter should be submitted.
Why Is It Important To Enter These Reservations Correctly?
Collecting data is an important part of the Facilitron platform, therefore entering data correctly is an important part of the integrity of the data. When reports are pulled to analyze data, it is important that this data is correct in order for districts to make informed decisions regarding their policies and facilities.
The data collected and reports generated by the Facilitron platform illustrate why external groups cannot be entered as internal whether or not they are paying fees. Utilization Reports by Renter will show the number of hours a particular group used a school facility. To maintain data integrity, these groups must be entered as external.
Additionally, it is essential that renters submit their reservations through the external marketplace so that any and all application questions set by your school or district may be answered as accurately and completely as possible. External renters are also required to agree to the district’s terms and conditions when proceeding through the checkout process, and once a reservation request has been submitted the insurance requirement will populate correctly on their reservation. District Internal reservations are not built with insurance verification tools - without these, a renter’s uploaded insurance cannot be properly verified, nor populate an Insurance section on reservation requests the way that it would on a reservation built for renters.