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This is the last step of setup: book your own experience the way a guest would, then follow that reservation through Shopify and Riserva until the visit is over. Then you’ll make a second one and cancel it to watch a refund go back. It takes about fifteen minutes, and every step ends with something you can see. Before you start
  • One experience is Active — see Publish an experience.
  • The booking widget is on its product page — see Add the booking widget to your theme.
  • Your Shopify payments are in test mode, so you can pay with a test card and no real money moves. Shopify’s own help explains test mode for your payment provider.

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Step 1 — Book as a guest

  1. Open your storefront in a browser. If your store is still password-protected, enter the storefront password first; the booking window works the same behind it.
  2. Go to the experience’s product page and press Check availability (or your own button label, if you changed it).
  3. Choose the number of Guests, pick a shaded date in the calendar, pick a time, and press Continue.
  4. On the details step, add an add-on if the experience has any, answer any questions, and type something in Special requests — “Test reservation” is fine.
  5. Press Reserve. Riserva holds the time for you and takes you to the cart.
  6. Check out with a test card. Use an email address you can read.
What you’ll see: the cart shows the reservation as one line, with the experience, location, date, time and party size under it, plus a line for each add-on. After checkout you get Shopify’s order confirmation, and — if guest emails are switched on — Riserva’s reservation confirmation with a reservation code like RES-7K4M.
Good to know Pick a date more than 24 hours away for the second reservation in Step 6. With Riserva’s default cancellation policy, that cancellation refunds in full.

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Step 2 — Find the order in Shopify

Open Orders in your Shopify admin and open the new order. What you’ll see:
  • The reservation line carries Experience, Location, Date, Time and Party size.
  • The order is tagged riserva-booking and with the reservation’s code, such as RES-7K4M. You can type the code into the orders search to find it again.
  • If you’ve added Riserva’s Riserva reservation block to the order page, it shows the code (linking to the reservation in Riserva), its status, the experience, the date, time and party, the place, and the guest’s name.
Good to know — how long it takes. A reservation normally appears in Riserva within seconds of checkout. If the experience saves the card to charge later, allow about a minute: Shopify confirms that kind of order before it tells Riserva. The order itself appears in Shopify right away.

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Step 3 — See the reservation in Riserva

Open Riserva from your Shopify admin. Home. The reservation is in Next 10 upcoming reservations, and Recent activity has a line like “Reservation created for a party of 2”. If the visit is within the next seven days, the This week card counts it. Reservations. The list opens on the Upcoming tab, and your reservation is in it. Click it to open its page: the guest’s name and email, the experience, date, time and party, your special request, the add-ons, and the Payment card with the Shopify order listed under it. The timeline at the bottom records the reservation being created and the confirmation email. Host. Host shows one day at a time, and it always opens on today. It opens on the List view (beside Timeline and Map; each device remembers the one you last used). If you booked for today, the reservation is on the Arriving tab. If you booked for another day, it won’t be on today’s list — move to that day with the Next day arrow, or click the date button between the arrows and pick the date. The reservation is there under Arriving. Today next to the date brings you back. Reports. Reports has two tabs. Overview looks backwards, so a reservation for a future date isn’t there yet — it says “No visits in this range.” Open the Upcoming tab: your reservation is counted in its figures, on the by-day chart and in the day-by-day list.

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Step 4 — Check the party in

Stay on Host, on the reservation’s date, in the List view on the Arriving tab, and press Check in on your reservation’s row. (For a party of two or more, the arrow beside it holds Partial check-in…, for when only part of the party has arrived.) If you’re not actually on the visit’s date — say you booked for next Saturday — Riserva notices the party has arrived early and asks first, in a window titled “Early arrival — …”. For this test, press Check in without moving, so the reservation stays on its date. What you’ll see: the row leaves Arriving and appears on the On property tab with a blue Checked in badge. If the guest’s card was saved to be charged before the visit or at check-in, checking in charges it on the spot. An experience charged At the visit is the one exception: its card waits until the visit is closed out, so the register can settle the fee first.

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Step 5 — Complete the visit

On the On property tab, the row’s button is now Seat — the step in between, for when a party sits down; it’s optional. Click the row itself to open the party’s panel beside the list, and press Complete there (it sits next to Seat). If you do press Seat, the row’s button becomes Complete. What you’ll see: the party leaves the Host list. On the reservation’s page the badge now reads Completed, and the timeline shows the check-in and the completion with your name.
Good to know In real service you don’t have to press Complete. Once a visit has run past its end, Riserva completes it on its own after a short grace period (or at the end of the day, if you choose that under Settings → Reservations → Ending visits), and the timeline says it ended automatically.

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Step 6 — Make a second reservation and cancel it

  1. Repeat Step 1 for a date more than 24 hours away.
  2. When it appears in Riserva, open its page from Reservations.
  3. Open More actions and choose Cancel reservation.
  4. The dialog shows the refund your cancellation policy allows — for example “Refund per policy: 100% ($85.00)”. Press Cancel reservation to confirm. (Keep reservation closes the dialog without changing anything.)
What you’ll see:
  • In Riserva, the badge reads Cancelled. The Payment card shows a Refunded row with the amount, and a Refunded badge (or Partially refunded, if the policy kept some). The timeline records the refund, and Staff notes on the Reservation card record the policy applied — for example “Cancelled by staff — policy refund 100% ($85.00)”.
  • In Shopify, the order shows the refund, back to the test card.
  • If guest emails are on, the guest gets a cancellation email that states the refund.
  • The time you cancelled is back on sale in the booking window.

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You’re done

You’ve seen a reservation go from your storefront to Shopify, into Riserva, through check-in and completion, and you’ve watched a cancellation refund itself. That’s the whole loop your guests and team will run every day. When you’re ready to take real reservations, switch your payments out of test mode in Shopify.