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A guide to Group Trip beta functionality
A guide to Group Trip beta functionality

We'll keep this article up to date as each piece of group travel is ready to use!

Molly Johnson avatar
Written by Molly Johnson
Updated this week

Overview

Tern will be rolling out beta features for group travel throughout the Fall. To learn more about when each feature is available, you can check out our Group Travel Beta: Product Roadmap!

As each feature is available, we'll keep this article up to date on how to plan group trips in Tern.

As of right now, you can create a group trip, set up your group trip itinerary & pricing, create beautiful group landing pages, and manually add sub-trips. Coming soon, you'll be able to enable self-service sign-up for clients.

Creating a group trip

When you create a new trip in Tern, you'll see a new "trip type" toggle. Change that to Group Trip, and fill out the rest of the details for creation.

You'll immediately land on the group trip overview tab, where you can now create sub trips and manage group-level actions and settings.

Configuring group trip settings

Before creating a sub-trip, take a look at your Group Settings on the right. These are the same settings you'll see for regular trips in Tern. But think of group-level settings as a "template" for creating new sub trips -

  • Any sub-trips you create will automatically copy these settings.

  • If you change these settings later, they will not automatically update your sub-trips.

Trip settings

Collaboration settings

Collaboration settings work the same way - trips created under this group will be automatically shared with the same people as the group trip.

Group itineraries

Setting up your itinerary

Next, set up your group itinerary. Just like settings, think about the group itinerary as a "template" that can be used for creating sub-trips.

  • Any sub-trips you create will automatically copy the group itinerary.

  • If you change the itinerary later, they will not automatically update your sub-trips.

Building your group itinerary is very similar to regular trip itineraries. The main differences to keep in mind are:

  • There isn't a concept of "itinerary status" - that will be managed on a sub-trip level.

  • Multiple itinerary options are not supported at the group level. You can configure multiple options or further tailor sub-trips, once created. For that reason you also won't see the option to delete or duplicate your group itinerary - but you can still unpublish it.

Creating group activities

Group activities serve as "templates" that will be copied to sub-trips. For the most part they work like any other activity in Tern. The main differences to keep in mind are -

  • They don't have a 'status' / ability to 'book' or mark 'paid' - those things will happen at the sub-trip level.

  • You won't see travelers on group activities - the activity will be copied to the sub-trip, and you can add travelers from there.

Pricing & packaging

Because group itineraries don't have travelers, you'll also notice that pricing will show "rates" not "totals".

Client experience

You can preview and publish your group itinerary normally, just like any other trip in Tern. But there are a few key differences to keep in mind -

  • Approving/requesting edits: clients won't see options to approve the trip or request edits. It's a great way to give potential clients an overview of the itinerary, but there isn't a structured "call to action", yet.

  • Pricing: just like on your view, clients will see "rates", not "totals". You can configure pricing visibility to hide these rates just like any other trip.

Landing pages

Setting up your landing page

If you're interested in marketing out your group trip, you can set up and enable a landing page for it. If you want to jump right into tips & tricks for creating and customizing beautiful pages, check out this article.

From here you can add a page title if you want - otherwise we'll use the name of the group. You can also fill in overview content.

Scrolling down, you'll see the option to add featured images. Add as few or as many as you'd like - your landing page will look great with any number. We'll display up to 5 at the top of the page, and show a carousel to cycle through others if you add more than that.

You can also add additional content sections. These let you break up the page with structured content, and you can add as many as you want!

Once the content of your page is ready, we recommend adding a custom call to action. This can be any link you'd like. Check out our tips & tricks for ideas. And make sure to click 'enable call to action' when you're done.

Once your page is ready to go, make sure to enable it in the top right, and hit publish! This will publish all of the latest updates you've made to your group trip settings/itinerary, as well as landing page.

When you publish, you'll see the option to grab a direct link to your landing page, or link directly to the group itinerary

Client experience for landing pages

Clients will see all of the content you've added - featured photos and content sections. If they click through to the custom button you've set up, they'll visit whatever link you added there.

They also see a dynamic itinerary preview that gives them a feel for the trip. They can click through to view your full group itinerary to learn more.

Creating and managing sub-trips within a group trip

Once your settings, itinerary, and pricing look right, you're ready to create your first sub-trip! And don't worry - you can also move regular trips into your group, which we'll cover later.

Creating a sub-trip

The experience for creating a sub-trip is almost identical to creating a regular trip in Tern. The main difference you'll notice is that group settings are automatically copied into the trip creation modal. Don't worry - if you need to adjust something specific, like the 'travel end date' if this particular client plans to stay longer - you can do so without a problem.

Once you create your sub-trip, you'll see it appears immediately in the table. For now you'll be able to see the name, lead client, dates, and status for all of the sub-trips in this table. In the future Tern will support additional management and reporting views, to help you easily look across all your sub-trips.

Managing a sub-trip

If you click into a sub-trip, you'll see it looks a lot like a regular trip in Tern. That's because it is! There are a few specific differences we'll call out in this article, but for the most part it functions the same way as any other trip.

  • All of your trip planning tabs - the itinerary, tasks, pricing, authorization, and more - work just like any other trip.

  • You can customize the settings and dates for this sub-trip at any time, and it won't impact the group trip or other sub-trips.

  • Previewing, publishing, and the client experience will function just like any other trip.

A few group-specific differences -

  • When you duplicate a sub-trip, it will be duplicated into the same group trip the sub-trip is in

  • You'll see a new option to move this sub-trip out of the group trip, if you'd like to do so. This won't impact any of the details of your trip.

Managing your group trip

As of right now, Tern supports group-level tasks, emails, notes, and activity. These are just the first versions of these experiences for groups, and Tern plans to enhance them over time.

One important note is that your workflow auto-apply logic will not apply to group trips. It will still apply to sub-trips within your groups. We do plan to support group-level workflows in the future.

Group tasks

Group tasks work like any other trip task in Tern - they are just on your "group trip", instead of sub trips within your group.

Group emails

Group emails let you send an email to any traveler on a sub-trip, right from your group trip inbox. In the future we plan to introduce improved ways of targeting travelers and tailoring your emails/variables across your group. For now, this can be a great shortcut - but there are a few things to keep in mind -

  • If you have an email integration set up with us, emails send as one thread to everyone selected. Keep that in mind for the types of emails you send.

  • Variables currently queue off the group trip, not sub trips. So we don't support variables to avoid confusion. (Eg if you tried to send a trip link, it would use the group trip itinerary link in this case - which doesn't exist yet).

In this example, Mary and Molly are from two different sub-trips, but I can send an email to both of them at the same time.

Also please keep in mind that emails sent from the group-trip level won't show up at the sub-trip level, unless you change their trip categorization on the right. Currently an email thread can only be associated to one group or sub-trip.

Group notes

Group notes work like any other note in Tern - they are just on your "group trip", instead of sub trips within your group.

Group activity

For now, group activity just lists specific activity at the group-trip level. So things like when the group trip shell was created, when notes are added, and when status changes.

Moving regular trips into groups

When viewing one of your regular trips in Tern, you'll see a new option to "move to group" in the menu. Please keep in mind that regular trips moved into group trips retain all of their current settings and itinerary items. If you'd like to use the default settings or itinerary from your group, we recommend creating a sub-trip from the group directly instead.

When you do so, you'll be able to add it to any group trip you've created.

After moving the trip into the group, you'll see it listed as a sub-trip:

Organizing group trips and sub trips

When looking at your trip board or table, you'll notice a few new things for groups!

First, in your trip filters -

You'll see new options to filter by trip type. Many of you may choose to hide sub-trips, and then just use the group trip as the entry point to manage sub-trips.

Next, as you create group trips and sub-trips, you'll notice they look a bit different on your board/list. On the trip board, you'll see that group trips show the number of sub-trips they have. And sub-trips list the group trip they are associated with.

On the list view you'll also see the number of sub-trips associated with your group, and the associated group trip for your sub-trips.

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