How to set up group bookings

Group bookings let you reserve simulators for a named group of players, either as a one-time session or as a repeating series. You can collect payment for each session or for the whole series, and give the group organisers a door-access link so members can enter the venue.

Group bookings are created from the admin calendar. You manage the groups themselves under Customers → Groups.

Create a group

1. Open Customers in the admin panel.
2. Go to the Groups tab.
3. Click Create group.
4. Enter a Group name (visible to you and the customer).
5. Add at least one Organiser. Organisers are your contacts for the group. They receive booking confirmations, reminders, the access link, and payment requests.
6. Optionally add an internal Note for your team. Customers never see this.
7. Click Create group.

Finding an organiser: you can add any Alba user as an organiser. Searching by name only finds customers of your venue. Searching by their exact email address finds any Alba user, even someone who has never booked at your venue, so you can add an organiser before they have booked.

The group is saved for this venue, so you can reuse it whenever the same company, league, or social group books again.

Book a group from the calendar

1. Open Bookings in the admin panel.
2. Click the time slot you want to reserve.
3. In the drawer, open the Group tab.
4. Select the group, adjust the time and simulators, and review the price.
5. Click Create.

A one-time group booking is a series of one. To set up a weekly slot for a whole season, turn on Repeating and choose the recurrence pattern. You can review every chosen date before saving. A series can have at most 100 bookings. If you need more, create more than one series.

If any chosen dates conflict with an existing booking, Alba flags them. Change the time or resources, or deselect the conflicting dates, before you continue.

Who can open the doors

When you create the booking, choose who can use the access link:

• Anyone with the link. Organisers receive a link they can share with guests. The link only works during the booking time.
• Organisers only. Only group organisers can use the access link to enter the venue.

Organisers receive the access link in the booking confirmation and in reminders before each session. You can copy the link from the booking details in the calendar, or from the group page under Customers → Groups. Replacing the link or changing who can enter still happens in the calendar booking details. Replacing the link invalidates the old one.

For more on how door access works, see How access control works in Alba.

View access links on the group page

When you already know which group booked, you do not need to find the slot in the calendar first to copy its access link.

1. Open Customers and go to the Groups tab.
2. Click the group to open its details.
3. Under Upcoming bookings, click the date line for a booking. The row expands.
4. You will see the access mode, whether the link was sent to organisers, the access link with a copy button, and for a repeating series a note that the same link works for every date in that series.
5. Click Open in calendar to jump to that day in the bookings calendar.

To see older sessions, click View historical. Previous bookings are listed there, but those rows do not expand. To change the access mode or replace the link, open the booking in the calendar as described in Manage an existing group booking below.

Payment options

For a repeating booking, choose how the group pays:

• Pay for series. One payment covers every session in the series. Alba splits the total across the sessions.
• Pay per booking. Each session is paid separately. Later dates stay unpaid until you send a payment link or mark that booking as paid.

You can send a payment link to an organiser when you create the booking, or handle payment later from the booking drawer. You can also mark bookings as paid outside Alba.

Once any payment has been captured, the payment mode is locked. You cannot switch between pay-for-series and pay-per-booking after money has moved.

If the series was paid in full, cancelling a single session does not refund that session. Partial refunds for a series payment must be handled outside Alba. To refund and cancel every remaining session at once, use Refund the series and cancel every session from the booking details.

For more on payment links, see How to use payment links for bookings.

What organisers see

Organisers who have an Alba account see their group bookings under My bookings in the customer app. They can view payment status, open a receipt, and cancel a single session. On a series-paid booking, cancelling one session does not trigger a refund.

Manage an existing group booking

Click a group booking in the calendar to open its details. From there you can:

• View or edit the group
• Change who can open the doors
• Send or resend payment links
• Cancel a single session or the whole series
• Change the payment method (before any payment is captured)

You can also open the group from Customers → Groups to see upcoming sessions, copy access links, and jump to a date in the calendar.

Group bookings are for simulator reservations. Instructor-linked bookings are not supported yet.