The Booking Portal

What is the Booking Portal?

The Booking Portal is a self-service website where your senders (the businesses or sites that send goods through you) book their own deliveries. It works without access to the Urbantz Control Tower application. Senders sign in, create an order, pick an available time slot, and follow their upcoming orders, all under your brand.

With the Booking Portal, you can:

• Cut manual order entry. Senders create their own tasks instead of emailing or calling your team.
• Offer only slots you can deliver. Time slots come from the real availability of the hubs that can serve the order.
• Keep your brand front and centre. The portal shows your logo, colours and company name, and can run on your own domain.
• Control what senders can change. You decide which order fields they see and edit.

Getting access

The Booking Portal is turned on per platform by Urbantz. Contact your Urbantz account team to enable it, then set it up as described below.

Portal address. Your portal is available at booking.urbantz.com. You can also point your own domain (for example, booking.yourcompany.com) to it by setting up DNS records. Your domain stays in the address bar on every page.

Who can sign in. Only users that already exist on your Urbantz platform can sign in; senders cannot register themselves. Create a user for each sender contact and give them access to the sender (or senders) they book for.

Sign-in methods. The portal offers the same sign-in methods you use for the Control Tower:

Setting up your portal

You configure the portal in the Control Tower. Changes apply to your portal straight away, with no release or downtime.

Branding

Once branding is set, the portal carries no Urbantz logo.

Order form

For each field of the order form you choose whether it is shown and whether it is editable. Hidden fields are still filled in from the sender's default task, so orders stay complete.

Available fields:

• Task information: task type, task ID, task reference
• Address: with autocomplete
• Building information: building, floor, elevator, door codes
• Delivery instructions
• Contact details: person, company, account, one or more emails and phone numbers
• Communication preferences: language and channels (SMS, email, WhatsApp, depending on your platform)
• Items: item types and quantities. If you hide items, a generic item is added automatically.

If you hide or lock a required field, the Control Tower warns you. Make sure the sender's default task holds a value for it, or senders won't be able to create orders.

Time slot picker

Choose one of two layouts:

• Calendar: senders browse dates and pick a slot on the chosen day.
• Next available list: senders see a short list of the earliest slots and pick one. You set how many slots the list shows in the flow configuration.

Both layouts only show slots that are available and feasible at the hubs matching the order.

Using the portal

Sign in and choose a sender

1. Open your portal address and sign in.
2. If you book for several senders, pick the one you want to work for. With a single sender, this step is skipped.
3. To switch sender later, use the sender selector. You don't need to sign out. Each order belongs to one sender.

Book a delivery

1. On the home page, click New order.
2. Choose a flow. If the sender has a default flow, it is picked for you and this step is skipped.
3. Check the order details. Fields are pre-filled from the sender's profile. Edit the ones your provider has made editable.
4. Add items. Use + and − to set the quantity of each item type.
5. Pick a time slot. Select one of the available slots and confirm. You'll see a warning if a recurring order already covers that slot, or if the date is blocked.

Contact information

Item types

Time slot selection

Order summary

If your sender account is not validated yet, the New order button is disabled and a banner asks you to contact support. You can still use the rest of the portal.

Follow your upcoming orders

The home page lists your next 10 scheduled orders, including upcoming recurring orders. For each order you see the date, time window, status, address, task ID and reference, whether it is recurring, who created it and a link to its tracking page.

Manage your profile

In your sender profile you can:

• Set communication preferences: choose your language and how you are notified (SMS, email, WhatsApp).
• Block dates: add single dates or date ranges when you don't want recurring orders created, such as closures or holidays. Dates must be in the future.

Contact details, building information and delivery instructions are shown for reference. To change them, contact your delivery provider.

Frequently asked questions

Can senders create their own account? No. Users must be created on your Urbantz platform first.

Why don't I see any time slots? Slots only appear when a hub that matches the order has capacity. Check the order address and items, or try a later date. If the problem persists, contact your delivery provider.

Why is the New order button greyed out? The sender account is not validated yet. Contact support to have it validated.

Will my senders see the Urbantz name? No. Once branding is configured, the portal shows only your name, logo, and colours.

Can we use our own web address? Yes. Point your domain to the portal through DNS. The tracking page linked from each order uses tracking.urbantz.com unless you also set up a custom domain for it.

Does a blocked date cancel orders I already booked? Blocked dates stop recurring orders from being created on those dates. Orders you book by hand are not affected; you'll see a warning if you pick a blocked date.

Need help?

For help enabling or configuring the Booking Portal, contact your Urbantz account team or open a ticket with Urbantz Support. 

When it comes to senders having questions about an order, they should contact you, their delivery provider, using the contact details shown in the portal.