What is Reservation Overflow?
Reservation Overflow is a setting within the Registered Users section of every event that allows a group of people access to any unreserved slots on the activity. Literally, it enables overflow over the number of slots reserved for a specific group of people until the event is full.
This field is commonly misinterpreted to mean that users may register beyond your event's Event Slot Limit; however, this is false. Reservation Overflow never allows users to register beyond the event limit; rather, it simply allows overflow over the number of Slots Reserved and remains active only until the Event Slot Limit has been met.
Why is it enabled by default?
By default, this setting is enabled for Unaffiliated users (i.e., the general public) so they are able to register for unreserved slots until the event is full. Since most events typically do not contain a reservation and/or allow individuals to register, it's essential this setting remains enabled, as turning it off would disable registration for all Unaffiliated Users and therefore could disable registration on your event entirely if no reservation exists.
For Unaffiliated users, we usually don't guarantee them a specific number of slots on the event, so we set the Slots Reserved to zero and ensure they have access to slots that aren't reserved, which is equal to the number of slots on the event minus any Slots Reserved for groups.
How do I apply this to my events?
Let's look at a common example. A store shift has an Event Slot Limit of 20. We've added a reservation of 12 slots for our Wells Fargo group (Figure 1). Therefore, 8 slots remain unreserved (20 - 12 = 8). Only Unaffiliated users (i.e., anyone not affiliated with the group we've added the reservation for) have access to the unreserved 8 slots because only they have Reservation Overflow enabled.
Here's another way to look at it:
- Event Slot Limit: 20
- Reserved Slots: 0 (Unaffiliated) + 12 (Wells Fargo) = 12
- Unreserved Slots: 20 (Event Slot Limit) - 12 (Reserved) = 8
- Therefore, Reservation Overflow = Access to the unreserved 8 slots
Figure 1. Enter the number of slots that will be taken by members of your group in the Slots Reserved field.
Many times, group reservations will also be set to allow overflow beyond the reserved amount. This ensures that members of that group continue to be tracked with their group once the reserved number of slots is taken. Using the example scenario above, a 13th member of the Wells Fargo group to register for this event will be tracked as Unaffiliated since Reservation Overflow is not enabled for the Wells Fargo reservation.