Booking widget on your own website

The booking widget is a calendar of free dates with an inquiry form that you embed on your own website. A guest picks dates and the number of people and sends an inquiry. They pay nothing. You accept or decline it in Norka with one click.

1. Set the capacity of your properties

The widget only offers properties for which Norka knows how many guests fit.

1. Open Properties, pick a property and click Edit.
2. In the Capacity section enter Beds (proper sleeping places, a double bed counts as 2) and Extra beds (sofa bed, folding bed, mattress).
3. Optionally fill in Extra bed price per night. Empty means extra beds are free.
4. Click Save.

A new property (the Add a new property dialog and the First property step of workspace setup) now requires a capacity. Properties created earlier have none: the Dashboard lists them under Needs attention as Capacity not set, and they are not offered on a widget until you fill it in.

2. Create the widget

1. In the left menu open Booking widgets and click New widget.
2. Give it a Widget name, for example after the website it goes on, and click Create widget. The widget's page opens; the switch next to the name turns it on and off.
3. Go through the settings below and click Save. At the bottom of the page is a Preview: colours and showing reviews and prices change there right away, everything else once saved.

You can have several widgets, each with its own properties, look and token. The Booking widgets list shows for each whether it is on, how many inquiries are waiting and whether it shows reviews.

What guests can book

A unit is what the guest books: one property, or several properties let together (for example "Whole villa"). A unit's capacity is the sum of its properties' beds and extra beds. A new widget starts with one unit per property and, if you have more than one, a Whole property unit as well. You can rename units (Unit name), remove them, or add one with Add unit.

Other settings

• Minimum nights: the guest cannot pick a shorter stay.
• An inquiry lapses after: 24 h, 72 h, 7 days, or never. Until then the inquiry holds its dates. If you do not answer, Norka cancels it and frees the dates (it checks every hour). The guest then gets the same email as when you decline.
• Appearance: ready-made palettes or your own colours (Accent, Free, Taken) and Corners. Pick a colour by clicking its swatch, or type or paste its hex code (for example 1D6FB8) into the field next to it, such as your website's brand colour. Once the colours match no palette, Custom is highlighted next to the palettes.
• Size: Compact makes the text and calendar smaller for a narrow page column (two months fit side by side where they would otherwise stack), Regular is the default and Large suits a wide page.
• Show guest reviews (under What the widget shows): adds a Reviews tab with the average and the reviews. It shows only ratings guests agreed to share, and only for this widget's properties. Switch it off to hide the tab.
• Show prices: "from … / night" and an estimated breakdown from your pricebook. The "from" price is tonight's price in the current season; once the guest picks an arrival day it shows that night's price.
• Allowed websites: websites separated by commas, such as vila-pod-lesem.cz, www.vila-pod-lesem.cz. The widget only shows on those. Empty means any website.

3. Put the code on your website

Under Put this on your website click Copy code and paste it into the page where the calendar should be:

<div data-norka-widget="nw_…"></div>
<script async src="https://app.mojenorka.cz/widget.js"></script>

The widget runs in a frame (iframe) served by Norka, so there is nothing else to install on your website. Open preview shows it beforehand.

For advanced use: the div takes optional attributes data-view="reviews" (opens the Reviews tab), data-unit (a preselected unit), data-locale (language) and data-accent, data-busy, data-free, data-radius, data-size (look). You can also mount it from a script with Norka.mount(element, { token, locale, view, unit, theme, onSubmit }). The element then fires the events norka:ready, norka:select, norka:submitted and norka:error.

What the guest sees

The guest sees a two-month calendar for each unit: taken days, free days, and turnover days when one guest leaves and the next can arrive. They pick arrival and departure and enter adults and children. They cannot enter more guests than the unit holds. Extra beds are only used once every proper bed is full, and if the property has an extra bed price they are charged per extra bed and night. The guest sees an estimated price, fills in name, email, phone and a note, gives consent and clicks Send inquiry. No payment is taken.

What an inquiry is

An inquiry is a reservation with the status Inquiry and the source Booking widget. It blocks its dates against every other booking; when it is sent, Norka checks the dates once more, so two guests cannot ask for the same dates at the same time. You get the same email as for any new reservation.

Until you accept it, an inquiry is not in the iCal export to the portals, is not in the cleaning plan, has no door code, and does not count towards occupancy or revenue. The portals therefore do not know about it and do not block those dates.

While an inquiry waits, a portal can still sell the same dates. The next iCal import then shows a collision in Norka. Answer inquiries quickly.

To rule that out, turn on Block the dates in the iCal export as soon as an inquiry arrives on the widget. The inquiry then shows in the export as taken dates, without the guest's name or contact, and leaves the export when you decline it or it lapses.

Accepting and declining

Waiting inquiries are on the Dashboard in the From your website card.

• Accept: Norka checks the dates again, the stay becomes Confirmed, gets a door code, and the guest gets the usual booking confirmation email with the check-in link. From then on the stay is in the iCal export.
• Decline: the inquiry is cancelled and the dates are freed. The guest gets an email in their language saying the dates did not work out, with a button back to your website (the first of Allowed websites).

Refreshing the token

The code on your website contains the widget's public token (nw_…). To replace it, click Refresh token. The old token keeps working for 7 more days; swap the code on your website within that time.