A table can be either bookable by table (the user can select the full table, but not individual seats) or bookable by seat (the user can select individual seats).
There are two ways to define the bookability setting of a table: on the chart level, and/or on the event level.
on the chart level: if you make a table bookable on the seating chart level, then it will be bookable for all events that belong to the seating chart (unless overridden, see more below)
on the event level: the table is just bookable for that event, not for other events that belong to the same seating chart.
It's important to note that you can combine both methods: the event level settings take precedence over the chart settings.
So even if you mark a table as bookable as a whole on the chart (via the designer), it's still possible to override that setting by marking the table as book by seat on the event (via the event manager or the tables tab on app.seats.io).
Table bookability on the chart level
To make a table bookable as a whole for all events linked to the chart, head over to the designer: select the table and check the Bookable as a whole checkbox.
Table bookability on the event level
Making a table bookable as a whole for an event can be done from the event manager, or https://app.seats.io: navigate to the event detail page, select the tables tab, select the table and click apply changes. This will make the table bookable for the current event only.
Note: this can also be controlled from the API. For example, if you are creating events via the API, you can pass in tableBookingConfig in the JSON payload, which will also set the table bookability on the event level.
Reset to defaults
Is your table shows up as bookable by seat when rendering the floor plan for an event, but you've marked the table as Bookable as a whole in the designer? In that case, head over to your event page, click the tables tab and correct the issue there.
To make that easy, we've provided a Reset to defaults button. Clicking this button will make sure that every table on the floor plan will be using the chart settings, and effectively remove any overriding event level configuration.