Planning and choosing a location

Planning is for the stage before an event exists, when you do not yet know where to hold it. You give HAPR the dates, the headcount and where people travel from, and it prices a return flight for every route and the hotel nights for each candidate city. The cities are ranked by cost per attendee. The prices are live market rates, and a plan is yours to save, share and take into sourcing.

Start a plan#

You can start in two ways. Both end on the same planning page, with the same brief.

1. 1
   On the event hub, find the Plan a new event card and press Start planning.
2. 2
   Choose how to give the brief.

   • Describe the event in the Guide me dialog. HAPR asks follow-up questions and fills in the brief as you answer.
   • Press Fill the form to type the details in yourself.
3. 3
   When the brief is ready, press the button that starts We have enough information at the end of the conversation, or Calculate estimated cost in the brief panel.

HAPR opens the planning page and prices the plan straight away. If something required is missing, the planning page opens with The event brief on screen instead, so you can add it. Press Open the full planning form if you want to go to the full form without calculating.

A plan you saved earlier opens from its card on the hub.

Describe the event in Guide me#

Guide me is marked as a beta. It reads what you write and keeps a running summary of what it has understood.

1. 1
   Type a few lines in the Describe the event box and press Send. Press Enter to send, or Shift and Enter for a new line. A message can be up to 2,000 characters.
2. 2
   If you are not sure what to write, press one of the Try an example suggestions to fill the box, then change it.
3. 3
   Answer the follow-up questions. Many come with answer buttons, so you can press one instead of typing.
4. 4
   When HAPR suggests cities, tick the ones to add and press the button that starts Done. To keep only the cities you named, press the button that starts Skip instead.
5. 5
   Check the summary of Dates, Attendees, Potential cities, Travelling from, Currency and Budget.

A line at the top tells you where you are. It reads Ready to calculate once nothing required is missing, and counts the required details still to add until then.

To calculate, HAPR needs the dates, at least one city and a currency. If you name where people travel from, it also needs how many travel from each place. The attendee total, the origins and the budget are optional, but without origins there are no flights and the comparison is beds only.

Anything HAPR had to assume, such as an even split across origins, is noted on the field it applies to and saved with the plan. Check these before anyone relies on the figures.

Closing the dialog while you have typed something that is not sent asks Close and lose the brief you have typed? Press Keep writing to stay. The details already captured are kept either way.

Fill in the event brief#

On the planning page, the brief has three steps. Press a step on the opening screen to open The event brief at that step, or press the pencil icon (Edit workspace) once a plan has been priced.

app.thehapr.com/planning

1. 1Compare locations is the first step of planning.
2. 2Step 1, dates and budget.
3. 3Step 2, the cities to compare.
4. 4Step 3, where attendees travel from.
5. 5Calculate, once the steps are complete.

Step 1, the event#

1. 1
   Enter the Event name. It is needed to save the plan, not to price it.
2. 2
   Press Event dates and pick the start and end. The end must be after the start. The dates set the number of nights and the fares quoted.
3. 3
   Check the Currency. If HAPR chose one for you, a note says where it came from. Change it if it is wrong.
4. 4
   Enter the Estimated attendees and, if you have one, the Budget per attendee.

Step 2, where it could be held#

1. 1
   Search for a city in the box and press Add. You can add up to three cities of your own. Add is disabled once the list is full.
2. 2
   Press the cross on a city to remove it.
3. 3
   Tick Suggest locations not listed above if you want HAPR to look beyond your list. It adds up to three cities where your attendees already live, then up to three well-served cities near where your attendees are centred. These rows are marked Suggested in the results. The tick says roughly how many extra market lookups it adds.

Under Priced under, set the rules the estimate follows.

• Accommodation. Press one or more hotel classes, from Luxury to Economy. The estimate starts with Upper upscale and Upscale. If none is selected, rates cover every class of hotel.
• Cabin. Choose the cabin for flights, from economy to first. To upgrade long flights, choose a higher cabin in upgrade to and enter the number of hours. Flights at or above that length use the higher cabin. The default is economy with no upgrade.
• Venue type. Optional. Choose the kinds of venue you have in mind. This is carried to Explore and does not change the estimate.

Step 3, attendee origins#

1. 1
   Press Add an origin, search for the city people travel from, then press Done.
2. 2
   Enter the number of attendees from that city. To enter shares instead, press Percentage. It is available once you have entered the Estimated attendees. Press Actual to go back to head counts.
3. 3
   Press the bin icon (Remove origin) to take a city off. To change a city, remove it and add it again.
4. 4
   Under Ground travel, press Include or Exclude. Then choose how local transport is costed.

   • Transport allowance is one figure per attendee for all local travel, applied to everybody.
   • Airport transfer only is priced per kilometre at both ends and applies only to attendees who fly. Nothing is costed for anyone already in the city.

The total of attendees placed is shown under the list. If it does not match the estimate, a notice tells you how many are still to place, or how many more you have placed than expected. Only the attendees placed count in the comparison.

Calculate the cost#

1. 1
   Press Calculate estimated cost.
2. 2
   Wait while HAPR fetches live rates. It takes a few seconds, and longer for a city nobody has priced recently. Where your plan has a charge for calculating, a cost note appears beside the button first.
3. 3
   If it is taking too long, press Stop waiting (it appears after about half a minute). Nothing is lost from the brief.

If the button is not available, the reasons are listed next to it.

• Pick the event dates
• The end date needs to be after the start date
• Add at least one location
• Pick the currency this plan is priced in

You do not need origins to calculate, but without them the comparison has no flights. A suggested city can stand in for Add at least one location when origins are filled in and Suggest locations not listed above is on.

Read the comparison#

The results open as What each would cost, with a row per city, cheapest first.

• A row is selected at a time. Press a row, or focus it and press Enter, to select it. The first row is selected until you choose another.
• The selected city drives the Cost avoidance card, the insights and the city Explore opens on.
• Cost avoidance shows what choosing the selected city saves compared with the dearest one, per attendee and across the group. For a city HAPR suggested, it also says how it compares with the best city you named.
• vs budget is blank when no budget is set, or when the city has no flight rates.
• On a narrow screen the table becomes a card for each city, with the same figures.

Some rows carry a note.

• Suggested means HAPR added the city. It is priced and ranked like any other.
• no flight rates means no fare was found from any origin. The figure covers accommodation and ground only, so the city is ranked below every city priced in full.
• covers 3 of 5 means fares were found for only some of your attendees. Hover over it to see which origins were missing.
• A city with no hotel rate found has no total and ranks last. On a phone it shows Not priced.
• In the ground column, already here and excluded explain a zero, and not costed means no distance came back for the transfer.
• A flight cell that says, for example, 2 in Business shows that some of your attendees were upgraded under your cabin rule.

A missing price is never treated as a cheap one. A fare of zero is a real answer. It means nobody flies, for example when every attendee already lives in the city. If every city is in your attendees' own area, a notice says it is a local comparison and ranks the cities on accommodation and the drive.

Other notices can appear around the results.

• Refine this estimate for greater accuracy lists the details still missing, from the attendee headcount, where attendees travel from, attendees per origin and the budget per attendee. Press Edit event details to go straight to them.
• Currency changed to appears when you change the currency after calculating. The figures stay in the old currency until you press Recalculate in the new one.
• Prices as at appears on a saved plan you reopen. The prices are the ones fetched when it was saved. Press Re-price now before anyone commits to a figure.
• Where a city has no airport of its own, a note says which airport it was priced from and how far away it is.
• A line at the foot shows when the rates were fetched and how many came from stored lookups.
• If you have many origins, only the largest are priced. The notice names those left out, and each row says how many attendees its figure covers.

Get city insights#

Insights cover what a rate card does not show, such as visas, seasons, advisories and what else is happening in the city on your dates.

1. 1
   Select a city in the comparison.
2. 2
   In the HAPR insights card, press Generate insights. It runs a live search, so it takes some time.
3. 3
   Read the findings. Each is marked Researched (from a search) or From your brief (worked out from your own figures), and the card shows the date it was produced.
4. 4
   Press Regenerate to produce them again.

You can generate insights three times for each plan. The card shows how many are left, including before you press the button, and a failed attempt still counts. There is also a daily limit across your account. If you reach it, a message says the limit resets tomorrow.

Insights you generate are included in the downloaded estimate.

Save, share and download#

1. 1
   Press Save workspace. It appears once a plan has been priced.
2. 2
   Enter a Workspace name. The name is the event name, so the two stay the same. The plan is listed under it on the hub, and the estimate downloads under it.
3. 3
   Wait for Workspace saved.

After the first save, the same button saves your changes. Press the pencil icon (Edit workspace) to change the brief and recalculate.

• Press Share to give colleagues access. It appears once the plan has been saved. See The event hub for who can share.
• Press the PDF icon (Download the estimate) to keep a copy of the comparison. It is available on the location step.

Until you save, the brief is kept in your browser tab, and the page says Picked up where you left off with a Start over button when it restores it. Closing the tab loses it.

If you leave a priced and named plan with changes that are not saved, HAPR asks Save this plan before you go? Press Stay here, Leave without saving or Save workspace and leave.

Take the plan into sourcing#

When you have chosen a city, take it further. Planning has two steps along the top, Compare locations and Explore properties. The second opens once the comparison has been priced. Before then, pressing it explains that you must complete the location decision first.

1. 1
   Under the comparison, find the card with the recommended city. It reads looks like your strongest option when you compared several cities, or is the only location costed so far when there is one.
2. 2
   Under What would you like to explore next?, press Explore venues, Find accommodation or Venue + accommodation. The card opens on the selected city.
3. 3
   HAPR asks Save your planning workspace? Press Save and continue, and enter a Workspace name if the plan has no name yet. Press Continue without saving to go straight on, which saves nothing.

Explore opens with the city, dates and headcount from the plan. Hotels the costing already looked up are carried across when the city, dates and currency match, so they are not searched again. See Explore venues and hotels.

If you press Explore properties along the top instead, a dialog asks what you are looking for (Hotels or Venues, or both) and, with several cities, Which city. Press Continue to move to the save step. If the plan is already linked to a sourcing workspace, Load list from workspace reopens that workspace and its shortlist instead of starting a new list.

When a plan has a sourcing workspace, a Sourcing workspace card shows its name and shortlist, with Open sourcing workspace.

Good to know#

• You can compare up to three cities of your own. With suggestions on, up to six can be priced in one calculation.
• A plan needs no venue and no confirmed dates, so it is not an event and has no event pages.
• Only the Location decision step is part of planning. Exploring venues and hotels belongs to sourcing.

If something looks wrong#

• Live pricing has reached today’s limit for your account. It resets tomorrow. Try again tomorrow.
• Could not reach the pricing service. Try again. Check your connection and press Calculate estimated cost again.
• If the calculation ran out of time, the message says what was fetched has been kept. Try again, or turn off Suggest locations not listed above to make it a smaller job.
• If Live pricing is not configured on this environment is shown next to the button, pricing is not switched on for your account. Contact Help chat and support.
• If a city shows no flights, name the nearest city with an airport instead. A province or an island often has no airport under its own name. Pick the city from the dropdown rather than typing it.
• If some lookups were refused, any blank figure is a refusal and not a city nobody can price. Try again later.
• Could not reach the server. Try again. The plan was not saved. Press Save workspace again.
• If saving asks you to name the event, enter the Event name in step 1 and save again.
• Nothing came back that could be stated as a fact. The search found nothing it could state. Try Regenerate later. It uses one of your three.
• Could not reach the insight service. Try again in a moment.
• In Guide me, a connection message offers Try again and Fill form manually. Your details are kept.
• Could not open the planning form. is followed by a note that your brief is still there. Press the button again.