Customer Booking Portal Overview

(your website integration options)


This article describes the FASTTRAK Customer Portal and how it fits between your company website and FASTTRAK software.


Audience: CEO, Owner, Manager
Read Time: 5 Minutes


TABLE OF CONTENTS


This document is part of a Customer Portal Document Series:


Overview

FASTTRAK offers a variety of ways your existing company website can interact with your FASTRAK database to allow for your end-customers to book, manage and review reservations online. In addition, there are many ways to customize your customer experience specific to your operations needs. This document will provide an overview of the ways you can setup and configure access to your online booking portal.


In general, we will explore the following scenarios:

  • White-Label Site, Link/redirect directly to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal
  • Lightweight login and passthrough interactions before linking/redirecting to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal
  • Customer Portal Widget (embedded iFrame) approach which shows the FASTTRAK Customer Portal directly within your website
  • Custom development using one of the available FASTTRAK APIs


Note: Regardless of the approach you take, you MUST have sufficient Pricing setup in your database before a customer will have the ability to book a new reservation online.


White-Label Site, link/redirect directly to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal

This is the simplest approach. In general, you will do basic configuration of your Portal Profile workflow in FASTTRAK (including pricing) and add a link on your website to your customized Customer Booking Portal. 



Pros

  • Simplest to implement
  • No additional costs
  • Fully responsive User experience for different screen sizes and devices

Cons

  • Customer leaves your site and is redirected to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal configured for your operation. The URL in the customers browser will show www.mytripcenter.com instead of your website.
  • Minimal branding and style options match your websites visual style


Lightweight login and passthrough interactions before linking/redirecting to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal

This approach moves the login and new customer options/form to your website. You have the ability to put a login form or new customer "passthrough" link on your site that will bypass the FASTTRAK Customer Portal login page. However, you are still redirecting your customer to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal similar to the White-Label link/redirect option above.



Pros

  • Simple to implement
  • No additional costs
  • Puts the login process on your site for better user interaction
  • Fully responsive User experience for different screen sizes and devices

Cons

  • Customer leaves your site and is redirected to the FASTTRAK Customer Portal configured for your operation. The URL in the customers browser will show www.mytripcenter.com instead of your website.
  • Minimal branding and style options match your websites visual style


Customer Portal Widget (embedded iFrame) which shows the FASTTRAK Customer Portal directly within your website

This approach loads the FASTTRAK White-label Customer Portal within an iframe directly on your website (i.e. and embedded window). Instead of redirecting the user to a separate URL (as in options above), the user always remains on your website.


Pros

  • User remains on your site at all times
  • The browser URL will always remain your company URL

Cons

  • Additional setup and configuration is required within FASTTRAK and your website to ensure security within the iframe.
  • There may be additional costs on your side to update and support the iframe on your website
  • The FASTTRAK Customer Portal shown in the iframe may have different styling and UI interactions that are not consistent with your website. This will be more apparent since the two sites are literally shown in the same browser window. There are additional "configuration" options in the portal to minimize these differences.
  • Embedding an iframe in your site may not work well responsively (large screen, small screen, mobile, etc.) when displayed within your website. This is highly dependent on your website layout and configuration.
  • You must ensure PCI compliance on your site including SSL, feedback on security practices, etc. since the user will always remain on your site and credit card information may be entered


Custom API development using one of the available FASTTRAK APIs

This approach does NOT leverage the FASTTRAK Customer portal. Instead, you will hire a developer to write code and directly integrate the booking process between your website and FASTTRAK.


Pros

  • Seamless integration, styling and workflow
  • User remains on your site at all times
  • The browser URL will always remain your company URL

Cons

  • There will be additional costs on your side to update and support the custom development
  • You must ensure PCI compliance on your site including SSL, feedback on security practices, etc. since the user will always remain on your site and credit card information may be entered


The sections below are in support of the FASTTRAK Customer Portal if you choose the Linked, Lightweight or Embedded options above.



General Portal Settings and Portal Profiles

If you choose to use the FASTTRAK Customer Portal using the Linked, Lightweight or Embedded options above, you will be required to configure various portal settings as well as the default Portal Profile.


You can think of these settings in two groups:  


General Portal Settings

There are a variety of General settings that are used across the entire Customer Portal process. Some of these settings include communication preferences, new customer communication, google analytics integration, email content, high-level pricing/quote settings, privacy information and others. These settings apply to all portal profiles (discussed below)


Portal Profiles (workflow customization)

Portal Profiles allow you to configure how the booking workflow progresses using a variety of configuration options. A Portal Profile dictates how the user interacts within the booking process including basic settings such as pricing, displayed information, website feedback, etc. More advanced features include group booking management, date specific pricing, limiting of pick-up/drop-off locations, pricing disclaimers, credit card requirements, new customer account options and custom trip types that can be booked (i.e. Wine and Country Tour) .


At a minimum, you will need to configure the "default" Portal profile and target your Default Pricing plan so as to generate pricing for customers on your portal.


The setup of the portal using Portal profiles is discussed in a different document, here.


Portal Theme Options

If you choose to use the FASTTRAK Customer Portal using the Linked, Lightweight or Embedded options above, you will have the ability to configure a specific color theme to match your company branding.


The list of available theme options is discussed in a different document, here.


Advanced Integration Options

Additional integration options are available to extend the acceptance and use of your Customer Portal. The include:

  • Embedded Chat Widget (ex: Text Request SMS Widget or Zoho CRM Chat Widget)
  • Embedded Login Form
  • Embedded iframe
    • Ability to remove header/footer
    • Ability to hide chat code (widget)
    • Ability to adjust widget CSS element sizes (smaller/bigger)
  • Additional Google Analytics integration (coming soon)
  • Custom Development using FASTTRAK APIs


Advanced Integration options are discussed in a different document, here.