How do I enable leads to book tours from my website?

The Tour Form in Optix allows prospective members to easily book an in-person tour of your space directly from your website. It's a simple yet powerful way to convert interest into engagement — helping you showcase your community and facilities while collecting key visitor details, automatically.

Enabling the Tour Form helps you:

Increase the conversion of your website: Let leads easily book tours at their convenience
Simplify lead capture: Automatically record inquiries and visitor info in your Optix dashboard
Save time: Sync tour availability directly with your Google Calendar
Streamline your sales process: Centralize tour scheduling, follow-ups, and conversions in one place

How to enable the Tour Form

Note: The tour form requires that you integrate with Google Calendar. The hours of availability displayed in your tour form are directly correlated to either the open hours of your location or your Google Calendar's availability.

To get started, first enable the Tour Web Form in your Optix dashboard:

Select Settings from the left-hand menu, followed by Forms, and then Tour bookings
If it's not currently enabled, on the right-hand side of the screen under Using this feature, select Enable Feature

Note: Enabling the tour will add a link on your Drop-in Form, so users can choose to book a tour if they are not ready to make a drop-in booking.

How to customize your Tour Form

Next, you'll want to ensure your Tour form is customized to your preferences:

Under Options you can add a title for your tour form.
Set the duration, you can choose from 15 minutes up to one hour.
To customize the look of your form, you can go to Settings > Forms > Forms overview > Customize Theme. Changes made here will affect all of your Forms. Learn more on how to customize the design of your forms here.
Set whether you want the Company and Phone number fields appear in your Tour Form. To adjust these fields:

Go to Settings > User settings > User properties.
Locate the Company or Phone number property.

Scroll to the bottom to find Tour bookings form.
Choose one of the following options:

Hidden – field won't appear in the Tour Form
Optional – field is visible but not required
Required – field must be completed before submitting the form

How to collect additional details from your leads

To create and enable additional details you want to collect from users filled out the Tour form:

Navigate to Settings > Forms > Tour bookings, scroll down to the bottom under 'Included fields' to click Go To User Properties OR navigate to Settings > User settings > User properties
Optional: Create a separate property group for your Tour bookings form. Click here to learn more.
Create your questions via User properties
Scroll to the bottom of the user property under 'Tour bookings form', and select either Optional or Required based on your preference.

How to embed the tour form onto your website

There are three different ways you can enable your Tour Form:

Embed will allow you to have the Tour Form integrated onto one of your existing web pages
Pop-up will allow you to have users click a button to open a modal that displays over the top of a webpage
Link will give you the URL to which you can connect a "Tour" button (or something similar) to open the tour booking form on a separate page

To select your preferred method:

Scroll down to Embed and select pop-up, embed, or via a link
Click Get the Embed Code/Link to generate the code or link that can be added to your website

If you are unfamiliar with how to edit your website, it is recommended that you work directly with your web developer on how best to integrate this functionality on your website. If you don't currently have a web developer available to you, we recommend using the link option. The link to book directly from your website will be in the format: yoursubdomain.optixapp.com/book/tour

How to sync tour bookings to your Google Calendar

Syncing tour bookings to an external calendar

You can sync tours bookings made via the tour form to connected Google calendars. Syncing your calendar with Optix will allow you to reduce duplication with tour bookings and block out any hours that your organization is not able to provide tours.

Note: Users are currently able to book tours within the operating hours of the location they're looking to book a tour at. In order to customize these hours further, you'll need to block out bookings in the connected calendar to stop tours from being booked during those hours.

Getting started

There are two steps to successfully sync your tour bookings to an external calendar. Step one is to sync your external calendar to your Optix account. Step two is to link a specific calendar (associated with a particular location) with the corresponding location within Optix. Click here to learn how to create a new calendar in your Google Calendar account to add to your tour booking.

Step 1: Sync your Google Calendar with Optix

Select Settings from the left-hand menu, then click Apps & Integrations, then Find new apps
Scroll down and click Google Cal
Click Install
Enter the Google account credentials for the account where your tour booking calendars are hosted
You'll be redirected back to Optix, where you can connect specific locations to your linked calendars (see below)

Step 2: Connect a specific Google Calendar with a corresponding location

Select Settings from the left-hand menu
Click on Forms and select Tour bookings
Scroll to the Synchronize external calendars section and click Configure
Choose which Google Calendar you want to connect to each location in the calendar drop-down menu

Note: In the screenshot provided, we've named our Google Calendar 'Tour calendar'.

Note: Users can book tours within the operating hours of the location they're booking a tour at. To customize these hours further, see How to set availability for tour bookings below.

How to set availability for tour bookings

Tour bookings are available within your location's operating hours by default. You can further control availability in two ways: setting a booking window, and blocking out specific hours directly in your connected Google Calendar.

Set your booking window

Using the booking window, you can set parameters around how far in advance and how close to the start time someone can book a tour. You can specify your desired parameters by the minute, hour, or day.

Block out specific hours

Note: You can block your booking availability by creating an actual event in your linked Google Calendar (for example, a recurring "Block" event every day from 1-3:00 pm). Optix only syncs real calendar events - marking time as "Busy" or "Out of office" alone will not block those hours in the Tour Booking Form.

Once the event is created and your calendar re-syncs, those hours will no longer appear as unavailable in the Tour Booking Form.

How to add multiple calendars to my tour booking form

Whether you'd like Users to view the collective availability of your tour schedule, or have multiple tour time slots available across locations, you can connect multiple Google Calendars to your tour booking form.

Note: Currently, only Google Calendars can be connected to the tour booking form. You cannot add the same calendar more than once.

If you haven't already, sync your Google Calendar (see How to sync tour bookings to your Google Calendar above), then create a calendar for each location in your Google Calendar account.

Select Settings from the left-hand menu
Click on Forms and select Tour bookings
Scroll to the Synchronize external calendars section and click Configure
Select the Google Calendar you'd like to connect to each location in the calendar drop-down menu

You can name your calendars whatever you prefer in your Google account - the names shown in examples above (like "Tour Calendar") are just examples.

How to view a Tour booking

When a lead books a tour via your Tour Form, you'll find:

A new Unconfirmed User in your User list, with the source listed as Tour
The tour booking on your Schedule ( Timeline / List / Calendar )

Note: The tour form does not override existing user names. If an existing user (with the same email) tries to book a tour, the tour will be booked under their name as seen in your dashboard and not under any new name they enter in the tour form.

FAQs

Can I collect more information from people booking tours?

Yes! You can add custom fields through Settings → User settings → User properties, then scroll to Tour bookings form to mark each field as Optional or Required.

Can I customize the confirmation message after a tour is booked?

Yes! You can edit your follow-up communications by creating a Tour Booking automation.

How do I know if a tour booking worked?

Each successful tour booking will:

Create a new Unconfirmed User in your dashboard with the source Tour
Appear as an event in your Schedule

Can I create a Tour manually from Schedule or Timeline?
No. Tours can only be created through the Tour booking form flow. Once a tour is successfully booked through that form, it will appear as an event in your Schedule / Timeline / List views, where you can then view and manage it.

Can I block specific hours so tours can't be booked then?

Yes. Create an actual event in your connected Google Calendar for those hours. Optix only syncs real events, so marking time as Busy or Out of office alone won't restrict availability.

Troubleshooting

The Tour Form isn't appearing on my website.

Make sure you've copied the full embed code or link correctly, and that your website uses https:// (secure connection)

The available time slots aren't correct.

Double-check your Google Calendar connection in Apps & Integrations → Google and ensure your calendar's availability matches your open hours. Keep in mind that Optix only syncs real calendar events - if you've marked time as "Busy" or "Out of office" instead of creating an event, those hours won't be blocked in the form.

The Company or Phone fields aren't showing up.

Go to Settings → User settings → User properties, scroll to Tour bookings form, and make sure these fields are not set to Hidden.

The tour confirmation message shows the wrong contact info.

Check your Location Settings → Contact info → Primary contact — the message pulls this information automatically.