Setting up Waivers
About This Course
Transcript
Why it matters
Every activity that carries real risk needs a signed release before the guest shows up — a zipline needs a real liability release, a boat rental might need one for the boat and a separate one for a life-jacket policy. Miss a step — the wrong guest fields, no separate process for minors, a waiver that was never actually attached to the activity — and the liability protection your business is counting on has a hole in it.
What you'll learn
- How to create a waiver under Setup, Build What You Sell, Waivers.
- How to insert interactive fields — a checkbox, an initials box, a text field — into a waiver body with no HTML.
- How to configure a separate set of required fields for minors.
- How to assign a waiver to an activity and choose Adult, Minor, or Guest chooses per ticket type.
- How to attach more than one waiver to a single activity.
- Where to check which activities depend on a waiver before you edit or delete it.
Prerequisites
- At least one activity already created in Setup, Build What You Sell.
- Your own liability/release legal text from an insurer or attorney — TripWorks does not provide or draft waiver wording.
Setting it up
- Create the waiver. Go to Setup, Build What You Sell, Waivers and click New Waiver. Give it a Name only your team will see, a Title your guests will see on the signature page, and paste in your legal text. Then check off exactly which guest details this waiver should collect — email, phone, date of birth, whatever you actually need.
- Insert a waiver field. A waiver body isn't just static text. Click Insert Waiver Field anywhere in the body and drop in a required or optional checkbox, an initials box, or a text field — right where the guest needs to acknowledge or fill something in.
- Configure minor-specific fields. Switch to the Guest fields tab and scroll to Required for Minors — date of birth, a student or passport ID, the minor's relationship to the adult signing for them, and whether the minor has to sign too. Back on Settings, the Where it's used panel tells you exactly which activities depend on this waiver before you touch it.
- Assign it to an activity. A waiver only matters once it's attached to an activity. Open the activity's Waivers tab, click Add waiver, choose your template, and set whether each ticket type signs the Adult version, the Minor version, or lets the guest decide. Save, and the activity shows the assigned waiver right there.
- Stack up to three waivers, if you need to. One activity isn't limited to one waiver. An activity can carry all three it's allowed — a pet release, a liability waiver, and an equipment release — each scoped to its own ticket types.
Key settings — Waiver Settings
One more setting worth knowing about, account-wide: Waiver Settings decides how guests sign in the customer portal. Most bookings know their headcount, so each guest signs against their own spot — but for open seating or by-the-vehicle bookings, guests can add their own waivers instead, as many as the party needs.
Best practices
A few patterns worth copying. The most common three-waiver combo is a general liability release, a minor/parental consent waiver, and one specific to the activity itself — think a pet release for a dog-friendly hike, or an equipment release for gear rentals. Leave a ticket type on Guest chooses whenever you genuinely don't know ages ahead of booking; only force Adult or Minor when a ticket type is always one or the other, like a dedicated Child ticket. And keep "Use the same waiver body for adults and minors" checked unless your minor waiver actually needs different legal language — most operators only uncheck it when a parent or guardian has to sign something the minor themselves doesn't.
Common mistakes
- Building a waiver and forgetting to actually assign it to the activity. Check Where it's used on the waiver's Settings tab to confirm.
- Treating minor fields as optional when a real minor is going to book. Configure the Guest fields tab's minor section before you need it, not after.
Expected final result
A real, reusable waiver — with the right fields, the right minor handling, assigned to the activity that needs it, and visible in exactly the report that tells you where it's live.
FAQ
Where do I get the legal text for my waiver?
TripWorks doesn't supply waiver or liability-release wording — it has to come from your own insurer or an attorney familiar with your activity and jurisdiction. You paste that text into the waiver body once you have it.
How many waivers can one activity have?
Up to three. Assign each to the ticket types it applies to — for example, a general liability waiver, a pet release, and an equipment release on the same activity.
Can I add my own custom questions to a waiver?
Not as free-form questions, but you can insert a fixed set of interactive fields — required or optional checkboxes, an initials box, or a small/large text box — anywhere in the waiver body via the Insert Waiver Field button.
What's different about the minor version of a waiver?
Minors get their own required-field section: date of birth, a student or passport ID number, the minor's relationship to the signing adult/guardian, and whether the minor must also sign personally, separate from the adult fields.
How do I know if a waiver is safe to edit or delete?
Open the waiver and check the "Where it's used" panel on its Settings tab — it names every activity currently assigned to it, or tells you plainly it isn't assigned to anything yet.
What's the difference between the two waiver-signing modes in Waiver Settings?
"One waiver per booked Guest" (the default) ties each waiver to a specific booked spot, best when you always know your headcount. "Guests add their own waivers in the portal" lets anyone sign ahead of time with no expected count, best for open-seating or by-the-vehicle bookings like shuttles or rentals.
Transcript
Every activity that carries real risk needs a signed release before the guest shows up — a zipline needs a real liability release, a boat rental might need one for the boat and one for a life-jacket policy. Miss a step — the wrong guest fields, no separate process for minors, a waiver that was never actually attached to the activity — and the liability protection your business is counting on has a hole in it.
Here's the short version: build your waiver once under Setup, choose what it collects, attach it to the activities that need it, and TripWorks routes every guest to the exact document they have to sign — automatically, with nothing to track by hand.
By the end of this lesson you'll have a real waiver built, a merge field inserted into its body, minor-specific fields configured, and that waiver assigned to a live activity — plus you'll know exactly where to check who's using it before you ever edit or delete one.
You'll need at least one activity already set up, and your own liability text from an insurer or attorney — TripWorks doesn't write or supply that wording for you.
Go to Setup, then Build what you sell, then Waivers. Click New Waiver. Name it something only your team will see, give it a title your guests will see on the signature page, and paste in your legal text. Then check off exactly which guest details this waiver should collect — email, phone, date of birth, whatever you actually need.
A waiver body isn't just static text. Click Insert Waiver Field anywhere in the body, and drop in a required or optional checkbox, an initials box, or a text field — right where the guest needs to acknowledge or fill something in, no HTML required.
Guest fields aren't only for adults. Switch to the Guest fields tab and scroll to Required for Minors — date of birth, a student or passport ID, the minor's relationship to the adult signing for them, and whether the minor has to sign too. And back on Settings, the Where It's Used panel tells you exactly which activities depend on this waiver before you touch it.
A waiver only matters once it's attached to an activity. Open the activity's Waivers tab, click Add waiver, choose your template, and set whether each ticket type signs the Adult version, the Minor version, or lets the guest decide. Save, and the activity shows the assigned waiver right there.
One activity isn't limited to one waiver. Here's a real activity carrying all three it's allowed — a pet release, a liability waiver, and an equipment release — each scoped to its own ticket types.
One more setting worth knowing about, account-wide: Waiver Settings decides how guests sign in the portal. Most bookings know their headcount, so each guest signs against their own spot — but for open seating or by-the-vehicle bookings, guests can add their own waivers instead, as many as the party needs.
A few patterns worth copying. The most common three-waiver combo is a general liability release, a minor/parental consent waiver, and one specific to the activity itself — think a pet release for a dog-friendly hike, or an equipment release for gear rentals. Leave a ticket type on "Guest chooses" whenever you genuinely don't know ages ahead of booking; only force Adult or Minor when a ticket type is always one or the other, like a dedicated Child ticket. And keep "same body for adults and minors" checked unless your minor waiver actually needs different legal language — most operators only uncheck it when a parent or guardian has to sign something the minor themselves doesn't.
The two things operators get wrong most: building a waiver and forgetting to actually assign it to the activity, and treating minor fields as optional when a real minor is going to book. Both are one screen away from fixed — Where It's Used and the Guest fields tab.
You now have a real, reusable waiver — with the right fields, the right minor handling, assigned to the activity that needs it, and visible in exactly the report that tells you where it's live.
Head to Setup, Build what you sell, Waivers, and build your first one today — or book a demo if you want us to walk through it with you.