Product Release - 05.02.2019

This release includes a modification to the Night Audit, we  have made changes to several Emails, improved the Booking Engine and the Events  Module and, most importantly, we have overhauled the way restrictions on rate  plans are managed.

Please share this with any relevant staff and  don’t hesitate to contact us via our help desk should you have any queries or  requests.

Contents:

    · Rate Plans – Restrictions Management

    · Night Audit modification – missed check ins, no  show

    · Booking Website – Improved User Experience

    · Enhanced User Experience on mobile Devices

    · Email Updates

        o Custom Field Changes

        o Cancellation Email

        o Group bookings – accept quote via mail

    · Events

        o Adding Packages and Charges

        o Function room visibility on Planner

Rate Plans –  Restrictions Management

We’ve had requests from members of the HOP family to improve  how restrictions for rate plans are added and managed. In this release we’ve  overhauled how restrictions are set up – any previous restrictions you may have  put in place will still work, to set up new restrictions or edit existing ones,  you will need to use the new workflow.

When you now click on “Rates”, you will notice that the sub  menu has changed. We’ve added a “rate history” and a “restriction history”. Clicking  on those navigation items will take you to a screen that shows you previous  updates – any new updates will also include further information, such as  “updated by” and “date”. The Yield Management is unchanged and works as before.

The biggest change has been implemented in what’s called  “Rate Calendar”, under “Rates”. The “Bulk Update” button, top right, now has a  drop down menu, that lets you chose to either bulk update “Rates” or  “Restrictions”. Bulk updating rates works as previously, you can override the  Base Rate for a given time/rate plan/room type.

After going to “Rate Calendar”, click on “Bulk Update” and  choose “Restriction”. On the next screen, select one or more Rate Plan Buckets  and do the same for rate plans and room types as applicable to your restriction. 

In the field below, you can add a date range, for example  “01/03/2019 to “15/03/2019”. But clicking “Add Range” you can provide another  date or date range for which the restriction should apply. You can add as many  date ranges as you need and even set restrictions for several months or years  in advance.

The fields below have not changed, select the days of the  week the restriction should apply to, provide info on “length of stay” as  applicable, enter a “cut off” if need be and set the selling status to “open,  closed to arrival, closed to departure, closed and press save.

Once you’ve saved, the screen will display all your room  types as tables with rate plan info. We’ve added a new button “Show  Restrictions” to this view. Click it and little icons will appear for any Room  Type/Rate Plan and Day. There are four icons available, from left to right  those are “open/close”, “closed to arrival”, “closed for departure” and  “min/max length of stay”. You can now apply restrictions directly on this view,  simply by clicking one of those icons – “open” will change to “closed”, “open  to arrival” will change to “closed to arrivals”, and so on. Any changes you  apply will directly update the rate values within hop, on your booking engine  and on any OTAs that have those rate plans/room types connected.

You will also have noticed the “Clear all Restrictions” check  box on the Bulk Update Restrictions screen. This allows you to delete any  restrictions set for a certain time period and applying to any rate plans /  room types you selected. Simply fill in the details, tick the check box and  click save.

With this redevelopment of restriction management you’ll  find it much easier to apply, edit and keep track of your rate values.

Night Audit  modification – missed check ins, no show

Several members of the HOP Family have requested an  alteration to the way the night audit works. We have developed now developed a  feature as an optional setting, whereby you can automatically set missed check  ins as “no shows”. This way, the night audit will not fail if reservations have  not been checked in.

When you click on Administration THEN property, the top of  the page will show your Night Audit settings. Below the time for the recurring  night audit, you’ll see two new check boxes: 

“Mark Missed Check Ins As No Shows” and “Charge Full  Accommodation Price For No Show”.

If the “Mark as no shows” box is ticked the night audit will  run, even if there are outstanding check ins. Those reservations will then be  marked as “No Show” and the night audit date will go forward.

On the Manage Reservations screen, no shows are displayed  with a red icon under “Status”. We’ve also added a report under Reports – Front  Desk – No Shows, where you can select a date range and can search for specific  reservations.

If you tick the box “charge full accommodation price for no  show”, you will first need to set up an article that the now show will be  charged against. Go to Administration, Articles and click “+Add”. Chose a name  for the article that makes it easy to identify, for example “no show charge”. Provide  all necessary details and click save.

Next in Administration go to Property and scroll down to  Property Settings. Above “Hotel Features”, you’ll see a new field “Article for  No Show Charge”, this is where you can select the article you previously set up  from the dropdown menu. Don’t forget to click “update settings” below before  leaving the page.

Booking Website –  Improved User Experience

In this release we’ve also changed some aspects of the  booking engine on your website. If your guests choose to have available dates  displayed by rate plan the price is no longer shown beneath, but right next to  the image. This is to allow for a smoother user experience and increase the  click through rate for direct bookings.

Many of your guests will browse the internet on mobile  devices. We have also updated the behaviour of the booking website for this  purpose. When the booking website is opened on a mobile device, the pages open  on top, so the user can enter a date immediately. Once the departure date is  added the date picker pop up disappears automatically, taking the user to the  next stage of booking their stay at your property.

We’ve also changed the default values entered in the screen  showing after a room was added to the reservation to “1 adult, 0 children, 0  infants”. Furthermore, you can now set the order of the State/County info  listed under guest details on the booking website. Please go to Administration  - Option Sets and select “State or County”. The number you enter for each  State/County in “Sort Order” will define its position on the booking website –  sort order “1” being on top, “2” below, and so on.

Enhanced UX on mobile  Devices

In line with the updates to the booking engine on mobile  devices we have also improved the display of the PMS if accessed from a phone  or tablet. We’ve updated the mobile user experience and made sure all areas of  hop are easily accessible and fully functional across devices. To increase the amount  of the information displayed we’d advise that you use your tablet or mobile  phone in landscape mode when using HOP.

Email Updates

Custom field change

When setting up or editing Email templates you can add  “Custom Fields”, such as “[booker name]”, which will pull the actual booker  name for the confirmation Email sent out to the guest. We have changed one of  those Custom Fields, “[Room Details List]”. Prior to this release the default  value “0” was displayed (for example “2 adults, 0 children, 0 infants”). Going  forward, if the value for children or infants is “0”, the information will only  state the number of adults.

Cancellation Email

On request from several members of the HOP family, we have  added another automated Email to the system. To set up an Email that gets sent  to the booker when the reservation gets cancelled in the system.

Go to Administration, then “Email Templates” and click  “Add”. In the drop down “Template Type”, select “Reservation Cancellation”.  Provide a Name (internal), subject and content for the Email, tick the box “Use  as the Default Template for this type” and click save. 

When you cancel a reservation (by selecting this option from  the dropdown menu next to the RES number) an Email is sent now automatically to  inform the booker. You can also disable this function. To do so, click on  Administration, then Property and scroll down to Property Settings. Tick the  box “Disable Booking Cancellation Emails”. If the box is ticked, no Email is  sent after cancelling a RES.

Group bookings – accept quote via  mail

We have added an option that allows you to automatically  accept a quote for a group reservation by clicking a link the quotation Email.  To make use of this first go to Administration then Email Templates. Click  “Add” and select the Template Type “Group Reservation Quotation” or edit an  existing Email if you have previously set one up. Select the Custom Field  “Quotation Acceptance Link” from the drop down and click “+Insert Field” after  putting your cursor on the spot in the text editor where you would like the  link to appear. Click Save. In addition you can also include the URL which,  once clicked, will accept the quote. To do so, insert the custom field  “Quotation Acceptance URL” in your quotation Email.

When you now send out a quote for a group reservation  through HOP and the recipient clicks “accept quote”, the status of the group  reservation will automatically update to “Quotation Accepted”.

Events

Adding  Packages and Charges

We have overhauled the ways you can add charges to events.  Prior to this release, you could either use a package, or add individual  charges (articles and services) to an event. As of today, you can do both, add  a pre-defined package and include additional charges.

The number of adults, children and infants you enter on the  “Details” screen when creating a new event or are editing an existing one is  taken over to the “Rates” tab, where you can either leave them as is, or edit  the numbers. The package rate total per day is displayed underneath (depending  on user rights, the value can be edited at this point).

If you wish to add further charges, simply click “Add  Charges” and select an article. Next, either enter an Amount or click “Charge  Per Guest”. The numbers of Adults, Children and Infants are taken over from the  details screen and can be changed by clicking the pen icon. Enter the price per  adult/child/infant and see the total amount below. Repeat for any further  articles or services you wish to add. Don’t forget to click “save” before  leaving the page.

Function  room visibility on Planner

We have increased the information shown on the Event Planner  in this release. Under Events, Planner, the function room of the event is now  shown if you place your cursor on an event. Previously, only the time of the  event was available on hovering over the event. To make even better use of the  planner, we recommend using colour tags for recurring events or events of the  same type, this way you can easily spot event types and identify recurring  patterns.

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