The Group Sales Public Portal is an optional web application that your customers can use to create and submit their own booking inquiries for private events. Talk to your Vista representative to help with setup and branding.

The public portal uses the Group Sales Public API to allow your customers to create their own booking inquiries. Group Sales staff will still need to review orders for actions like session scheduling, offering discounts, generating invoices, and closing bookings.

Note: You can embed the public portal into your existing website for a seamless experience.

What happens after an inquiry is submitted?

When a customer submits a booking inquiry through the public portal, Group Sales continues the booking process by doing the following:

• An email is sent to the customer confirming that their inquiry was received. If a payment was made, a separate confirmation email is also sent.
• Group Sales checks if this customer already exists in your system. If no record exists, a new individual will be created using the information provided.
• A new Action Point is created to notify you of the inquiry.
• A new booking appears in the Group Sales website with the status set to Inquiry.

Customer records for public portal users

When a customer submits a booking, Group Sales searches your database to find a record with a matching email address. If no match is found, Group Sales creates a new contact.

If the email address is associated with an existing customer, Group Sales creates the booking under that customer.

For inquiries where the email address matches an existing customer but other contact details don't match, Group Sales creates an Action Point. This Action Point instructs sales staff to confirm information with the customer.

New public portal booking inquiries in Group Sales

When a booking inquiry is submitted through the public portal, it appears as a new booking on the Group Sales website. The booking details are those specified by the customer on the public portal.

The booking can be assigned to staff and edited exactly as if it was created directly in Group Sales.