How to create Products and Product Lists/Categories from your Control Panel

Below you can find a full guide in written format. Do you want to skip to the section most important to you? Click on the section below:

What is the difference between 'Product' and 'Category'
Navigating on the Products page
How to create a new Category
Category time slot description
How to create a new Product
Editing an existing Product or Category
Duplicating a Product

Newest updates:

Scan limit & duration
Define the Min./Max. of tickets per user
Setting a Booking Horizon & Release time
Square Images

1. What is the difference between 'Product' and 'Category'

1.1. What is a 'Product'?

To put it simply, your products are the things or services that your venue offers and that you sell online. Products are an integral part of your online ticket shop as they conform to your online offering.

Therefore, if you don't create products in your Control Panel you won't have anything to sell on your Convious ticket shop, which is why it's so important that you understand how to create, edit, and manage them properly. So in this article, we have compiled everything you need to know regarding products, from how and where to set them up on your Control Panel to dealing with their management and updates.

1.2. What is a 'Category'?

You have to think of Product Categories as folders that contain products inside of them. So Product Lists or Categories are simply lists of products that belong to the same category grouped under one same "folder".

E.g: You can have two different product categories: One for Dated Tickets (containing day passes) and another one for Undated tickets (containing season passes).

1.3. Where do I find them in my Control Panel?

Firstly, log into your Convious Control Panel.

You will find all your products and categories (if you already have any) under the 'Products' tab within your left-side menu.

By clicking on it, you will be directed to the screen shown below. If you still haven't created any products, naturally, this screen will be empty for you. If you already have some in place, then it will look something like this Product Overview screen:

In this example, 'I want to buy tickets' is a category that contains different child categories:

1. Dated Tickets
2. Name your own price
3. Flexible day tickets
4. Member passes

The first, Date Tickets, holds 5 different products:

(a) Adult ticket

(b) Convious Souvenir

(d) Child Ticket

(e) Parking Ticket

How can you recognize categories (product lists)?

They stand out with bold font.
They are labeled as 'List' under the 'Type' column (which you can see highlighted in pink on the screenshot above).
They will have an arrow icon (marked in blue above) on their right-side which you can use to unfold (show) or fold (hide) products within the category.

How can you recognize products?

In case you already have categories created, the products within them will be lined up below the category title, starting their row slightly to the right. Products will show their different pricing types under the 'Type' column (e.g: Static, Upsell, NYOP, RTP.) and will show pricing and validity settings in the following columns as well.

2. Navigating on your Products Page

First off, it is important to know you can adjust the view of your products page.

1. You can find your products page by going to Products under Configuration within the main menu on your left-hand side

2. Now, click on Adjust view

You can choose between viewing by Categories or Products. Depending on what you want to edit or view, different views might be handy.

For example, if you want to see which products you have already created for your new special, you enter the product view. But if you want to double-check whether your category is arranged right and has the right products connected, it might be handy to check from a category view.

If you select the product view, you can filter your products further by pricing types.

Per category, you will see the articles attached to it.

Next to the Priority, Type, Min. Price, Max. Price and validity, you also have 4 little icons on the product level that allow you to take quick action.

Let us explain them to you one by one - from left to right:

1. The pencil will let you edit the product.

2. The page icon will let you duplicate the product (see ⚠️ for details).

3. The price tag icon will take you to the pricing settings of the product.

4. The calendar will take you to the validity settings of the product.

5. The trash icon will delete the product.

Pro Tip: If you use the Chrome browser, you can do a left-click and open the page in a new tab. This can be useful when working on products while wanting to go view the overview or other products at the same time.

⚠️ When duplicating a product, be aware that it will

Have the Copy of prefixed to it’s name
Be not active
Have all possible relations and copies linked and duplicated such as categories, validity overrides, translations, bundle items, time slot groups, pricing settings, etc.

Relations that are not duplicated:
External ids
Bundles: If the product was part of a bundle, then the copy won't be.

3. How to create a new category

Creating a new category is a piece of cake and you can do it in just a few clicks! Here's how:

STEP 1

Go to the 'Products' section on your left-side menu in Control Panel where you can find a list of all categories (if any) - as shown in the example below:

STEP 2

Click on the button 'Add category' which is highlighted in yellow above. You will then be directed to a screen like this that contains multiple empty fields and toggles:

Step 3

Let's get started - select the Checkout flow type.

Dated is for dated ticket flows such as single- or multi-entry tickets for specific days.

Undated for undated ticket flows including flexible day-tickets, member passes or season passes.

Calendar view is for flows including products that have Real-Time pricing.

Now, select the Confirmation flow type.

Payment required flow is for the flows where the customers will need to pay, for example, "Dated tickets".

Reservation is used when the customers don't have to pay, for example, for "I already have a ticket" flow. In this case the validation for reservation code will be activated.

STEP 4

Fill in the fields.

Language: Select the language for which you want to edit your category. If you have multiple languages (e.g: English, German, Dutch) then you will have to fill in the text fields as many times as languages you have. Just click on the arrow to swap between languages and add all of your translations.

Name (Required field): The name you type in here will be the name that will appear on your Convious ticket shop.

Description (Optional field): This field is meant to be used to add additional information regarding the product category in those cases where an explanation is needed.

See the example below to get an idea of how these fields will look like:

Parent Category:

When creating categories, you can have two types of arrangements.

a) Parent: Categories (lists) which contain another category/categories inside of them.
b) Child: Categories which directly contain products/articles inside of them.

Let's see an example below:

Parent Category 1 (e.g: Season Passes)
Child Category 1.1 (e.g: Regular Season Passes)
* Products
Child Category 1.2 (e.g: Family Season Passes)
* Products

In this case, Category 1 (Season Passes) is the parent of another two categories (Category 1.1 and Category 1.2). We call this a parent category: A category that is hosting another category or categories within itself. If what you are setting up is a parent category, you should set this 'Parent Category' field to 'none', because a parent category doesn't have any parents above it.

On the other hand however, if we look at Category 1.1 or Category 1.2 these are not hosting more lists within them, they are simply hosting products. This is what we call a child category. Child categories are hosted by Parent categories above them. In this case, if you were creating a category inside another category (e.g; Category 1.1 - Regular Season Passes) you would have to indicate which category it is part of (e.g: Season Passes), by selecting its parent. You will be able to do so by clicking on the 'Parent Category' field from a drop-down menu.

Category Priority: When you have created multiple categories, you can use this field to define in which order you want to show them in the ticket shop.

Setting a Booking Horizon & Release time:

A booking horizon defines the number of days from today the category or product within will be available in the ticket shop. This may come in handy if you want to prevent customers from booking too far in advance. Please note that the number of days you can book always includes the visit day.

For example, suppose you set the booking horizon to 7 days and sell tickets for a special event on July 4. In that case, your category will be available on June 28. but not be available earlier = 6 full days before the visit/event date + the date itself.

The release time defines the number of days from today the product will not be available to buy in the ticket shop. You can use this to set up a category or product that you want to make available for purchase in the future. It is important to know here that today (the day you are setting it) counts as one of those days.

For example, if you set the release date to 2 days and today is July 1, your category will release (go live) and be available to your customers in 2 days (July 3.).

If you want neither of these settings enabled, you can leave it blank to disable it.

Square images or wide images?

Category Images: You have the option to upload an image to make your category card more attractive or to showcase the category of products you are offering in a more visual way.

With products and categories, by default, you will have rectangle or wide images in your ticket shop enabled (450x140), but we also offer the option to use square images instead.

Why we recommend choosing square images:
For one simple but powerful reason: It reduces scroll time. Less scroll time means your potential customers can view all your offers at first sight!

How to upload square images:

It's easy! Here is what you have to do:

1. Send a message to support@convious.com and let us know you want to have square messages enabled - we will take care of the activation.

2. MEANWHILE you get back to your categories and products to upload images with the dimensions 300x300. Make sure you use the correct measurements because the resizing of your image will reduce its quality immensely!

Please note NOT to remove your wide images just yet. Your square images will only show once we have activated them for you, and if you remove your wide images already, you will have no images until then. But don't you worry: if your square images are uploaded, and we activate them for you, they will display instantly after activation hiding your wide images - no need to delete them.

Lastly, it is crucial to point out that square images do not work for products that hold product options.

STEP 5

Enable the right toggles:

Time slots enabled: If this toggle is to the left, your configured times slots do not apply to this category. If the toggle is to the right, you enable the time slots to apply to your category. Read more about configuring default and specific time slots here.
Activate or deactivate category: You can activate (take live) or deactivate (hide) categories just by clicking on the toggle button. This is crucial to make your category visible to the public.
Included for resellers: Here you choose whether or not this category will be visible for your resellers (if you do not have any, this will not be relevant to you). If this toggle is to the left, your category is not apply visible = bookable for your reseller. If the toggle is to the left, it is visible and thus, bookable for your reseller.
Show in Checkout: If this toggle is to the left, the active category will only be accessible via a Deeplink provided to you. As a matter of fact, this toggle needs to be to the right in order to show your category in your ticket shop.

⚠️ You will need to have your category activated AND enabled to show in the Checkout to be visible to the public. ⚠️ It is not enough to have only one of the two enabled!

STEP 6

Hit 'SAVE' on the bottom right corner and you are done!

Category time slot description

We provide the option to include explanations of what each time slot entails or to offer brief descriptions. For example, consider a partner offering access to both a Team Park and Safari Tour. While your ticket grants admission to both attractions, you'll need to select a specific time slot for your Safari Tour. However, you're free to enjoy the Team Park throughout the day. Please note that this feature is optional.

To set up time slot information, follow these steps:

Navigate to the corresponding category where you'd like to add the information.
Ensure that time slots are enabled for that category.
Once enabled, you'll find an additional input field labelled "Category description (optional)." Here, you can input the information you'd like customers to see.

Please keep in mind that you have a limit of 500 characters for the description. Remember, less is more, and more is less. Using fewer characters can lead to higher conversion rates. In fact, in approximately 99% of cases, detailed descriptions aren't necessary and may even reduce conversion rates.