We've just released a new feature that several of you have been asking for — booking requests with staff approval.
What's changed
You can now configure certain member roles so that instead of booking directly, those members request a booking. The booking is held immediately (so nobody else can grab it), but it sits in a pending state until a staff member confirms or rejects it.
From the student's side, it feels almost identical to a normal booking — they pick their times and submit. The difference is the button says "Request selected times" and they receive an email letting them know the office will be in touch.
From the office side, pending requests appear in a dedicated filter on the bookings list. Staff can open a request, review the details, and either confirm it (which triggers the usual booking confirmation email) or reject it with a reason, which is sent straight to the member.
When would you use this?
The most common reason is simply that you want to check people are booking correctly. That might be because:
- Students are booking aircraft they're not supposed to. A request workflow lets an instructor or CFI review and catch anything inappropriate before it's confirmed.
- New members. Some clubs want to manually oversee new members' bookings for the first few months until they know the ropes.
- High-demand resources. If a particular aircraft or time slot is contested, requiring approval gives the office control over fair allocation.
You can configure which member roles go through the approval flow and which book directly — so experienced members can self-serve while others are restricted, at least initially.
Setting it up
Go to Admin > Bookings > Permissions. You'll see a new "Request a booking" permission alongside the existing "Make a booking" permission. Assign whichever roles you want to go through the approval flow and remove their "Make a booking" permission.
You can also customise the emails members receive when their request is received or rejected — useful if you want to include your own instructions or contact details. If you want to do this, go to Admin > Bookings > Notifications.