Clock PMS+ Update (21 Mar 2018)

Dynamic Package Capacity and Availability Management

We have significantly expanded the functionality tracking the availability of extra services. Now it covers rates, too.

The rate availability can also be managed through the elements of the rate package. For example, if you have limited meal capabilities and you can't provide breakfast for all your guests, now you can limit the sale of the packages including breakfast.

What we have done is much more than giving you another availability report. Now you have an integrated approach at your disposal. The restrictions on the sales of packages extend to all modules of the system. Apart from the Rate Availability Screen, these limitations are also reflected in the Web Reservation system, the Channel Manager, the Upsell Module, as well as in the API.

Our integrated approach enables the better control through restricting the sales of both packages and individual services under one and the same capacity. In other words, taking the breakfast from the above example, it won't be possible to sell it neither as a part of a package, nor as an individual service, no matter whether it is the WRS or Self Service Portal, when for the given date there is no availability. Apart from the cases of limited availability of services like breakfast, excursions, training courses, spa procedures, parking spaces or assets like baby cots, rented bikes, etc., now you can use the functionality to restrict the sales of a given rate for the purposes of the revenue management. If you have a promotion rate, and you would like to only sell a certain quantity of packages (e.g. 20), you can use the new functionality.

Detailed description

• The old feature with the inventory code and capacity in the charge template has been replaced by the new one. The old data - transferred to the new functionality and it will continue operating without additional adjustments.
• A new setting - "Capacity counter". Create counters for anything whose daily availability you would like to track when it comes to daily sales. The counters define the daily capacity. One counter can be linked to multiple different charge templates or rate package elements. This way several charge templates can draw from a common capacity. For example, you can define one counter "Parking Lot" and assign it to multiple charge templates to sell your parking spaces at different prices such as "Car Parking Space", "Bus Parking Space", "VIP Parking Space", etc.
• Charge templates.To link a counter to a charge template, open the edit screen of the charge template and select the counter.
  • You can track the availability through charge templates in the "Charge Template Availability Report". The same can easily be accessed from the booking screen, where it is run with the period of the booking.
  • Web Reservation System and Self Service Portal. The list of available services is checked for sufficient availability. Guests cannot select more services than the available ones.
• Rate Packages.You can assign a capacity counter to any package element. Also, different counters can be used for individual package elements, e.g. breakfast for one of the elements, and SPA - for another one. The availability of such a package will be the lesser one of the two elements. In other words, if you have 20 available breakfasts and 10 spa procedures, the whole package availability will be 10. If you wish to control the number of sold packages for the purposes of the revenue management, you can add an additional element to the package at a zero price whose availability to track.
  • Rate Availability screen. The availability of packages is automatically reflected on the Rate Availability Screen. The package is marked when sold out. There is also information of the availability of the package itself.
  • The Web Reservation System automatically stops the sales of the packages without availability.
  • Channel Manager. The availabilities sent to the Channel Manager also take into account the availability of each package.

How it works:

• The capacity is determined by the Capacity Counter
• The capacity counter uses the valid charges in the folios for which it has been selected.
• No matter how the charge has been created: manually, through a charge template or a rate package, if a counter is assigned, the quantity of the charge is deducted as sold.
• If you cancel the charge, the related quantity is returned for sale, i.e. the cancelled charges are not reflected as sales.
• The sold quantity accounted for by the service date of the charge.
• Charges without quantity are considered to have a quantity of 1.

Online Check-In

With airlines, the Online Check-In feature definitely brings benefits for both the airlines saving working hours and the passengers saving time. If it works for them, it will work for you, too.

Actually, we already provide this functionality in the form of Clock Kiosk. Now you can use the software of Clock Kiosk to offer Online Check-In to your clients through your website. The design of the screens is responsive and the software can operate on the customer smartphones and tablets. And all being true cloud-based, no application installation on the client's device is required. Your guests go through all formalities before their arrival to avoid the queues and the processing at the reception desk. The new feature has step-by-step instructions of the process. In accordance with your needs and preferences, some of the steps can be skipped.

Here is the process and what the Online Check-In feature offers:

• After enabling this feature (please contact the support team to do so), youíll receive a link to the Online Check-In functionality. You may place it on your website, confirmation emails or the automated emails from the Guest Mailer.
• After clicking the link, the guest has to log in to the Online Check-In module using either their booking number and PIN, or their booking number and surname. The login through a booking number and surname is optional. If wish to offer this option, please let our support team know.
• Email check. There is an option to set the system to require the guest to check whether their email is correct. This is also very useful in the cases where the guest has a booking with automatically generated email by the OTA portal. This is the moment when the guest can fill in their own email to receive the paid bills.
• Review and confirmation of the hotel policy. The guest goes through a screen where the same can review and agree to your hotel and guarantee policy.
• Upsell. If you have taken advantage of the option to enable this feature, the system will offer your guests upsell suggestions. It can be a higher class room or package. The settings are up to you. If the guest chooses the higher class package, its price will automatically be updated.
• Registration cards and signature. The guest enters their data for the registration cards. Depending on the settings, this can be one registration card or an individual registration card for each booking. For each registration card, the system will require a signature, too. It is optional.
• Passport image. There is an option to require the guest to provide you with an image of their photo ID to verify the personal data.
• Bill payment. There is also an option to require the payment of the amount due for the booking. The guest can pay it in a click, if their credit card has already been tokenized or use another credit card. In the process of payment, one can also choose the issue of an invoice for a company or private individual. The invoice for the payment made is sent to the clientís email.
• Automated allocation of a free room.
• Mobile Key. If your access system is compatible with Clock PMS Suite and supports mobile keys, you can send your guest a mobile key. Thus the same use their smartphone for room entry.

For the time being, the Online Check-In is released as a separate feature. Our next step will be to merge it with the Self Service Portal to give your guests a clearer and easier way of electronic communication with your hotel.

Guarantee Policy by Seasons and Days

We have expanded the options for connection between the rate and the guarantee policy. So far, one rate could be linked to only one guarantee policy. Now it is possible for a guarantee policy to depend on the booking period and to be a different one for the different seasons or days even.

This way you have the flexibility to manage the required deposit and the cancellation conditions depending on the demand. For example, with many events and greater demand, you can apply a policy with non-refundable rates, in periods of lesser demand and a free cancellation policy.

If a booking falls in a period when two or more guarantee policies apply, the one having a higher priority is chosen. For this reason, we have added a new field to the Guarantee Policy - priority. Similar to the rate restrictions, the guarantee policy can be set at three levels: Rate, Season and Day. Each next level has a higher priority. You can set the default guarantee policy on the rate screen, and for the seasons and days when necessary to set any other policy.

The automated selection of a guarantee policy is reflected on the Availability and Rate screen, the API, as well as in the Web Reservation System. Bookings imported from the channels do not account for mixed guarantee policies. They take the guarantee policy set in the rate.

Channel Manager

• Delay Policy. For the RoomCloud channel manager, we have developed additional logic aimed at accelerating the product communication without errors while delaying the product communication with repeating errors. The delay policy tracks the accumulation of consecutive errors for one and the same product. When the accumulated errors exceed a certain threshold, the sending of info of the product starts delaying. Initially, it is twice slower than usual, and with the accumulation of errors in the course of several days the data sending of this product ceases. In such a situation, emails are sent. When the reason for the errors is removed, the product can again be released for synchronisation.
• Disable Registration Card Creation. With this new setting, you can forbid the import of bookings from the channels to create registration cards to the bookings.
• Auto charge deposit setting is for each portal now. This way you can control this feature more precisely.

Other improvements and changes

• Folio emails. We have expanded the options for design of the folio emails. Now you can create different HTML templates for various purposes using parameters for the folio itself. For example, the number of the document, date, the amount due, etc. We have added a list of the sent emails, so that you can check the chronology for each folio. The whole functionality is not fully completed yet and the automated emails are still sent using the old format, but we are working on it. The new email templates can be found in 'Settings' - ' Folio Email Template'
• Out of Service Rooms -new implementation. We have changed the implementation of room statuses.
  • Active From and Active To fields are added to the Room settings screen. They define the time frame for each room. If outside this time frame, the room is not included in the hotel capacity.
  • Out of Service. The OOS functionality has changed. Now you can define the period of the OOS room status instead of its start date only. These statuses can be edited from the Room Calendar drop-down menu for each room or using the OOS buttons on the Room settings screen. Additionally, you can select a predefined type and enter a description for each status. You can set these types by going to 'Settings' – 'OOS Room Type' and also choose their colour for the Room Calendar.
• Booking Advanced Search - we have added a new filter and column by date of last booking update. We have also introduced a booking balance column.
• POS terminal payments - the info of the card type and number of the created payment. The type of the created payment is now "Credit Card".
• Guest Mailer - we have added a few parameters to use in the emails: Arrival Time (booking.arrival_time), Departure Time (booking.departure_time), as well as parameters related to the location of the room itself (or the room type): booking.bookable_location_t_name, booking.bookable_location_t_description, booking.bookable_location.image_url, booking.bookable_location.google_map_url
• The room change is now included in the confirmation email. If the booking has a room change planned during the stay, the info of the change is now added to the confirmation email.
• In all reports, we have introduced a label appearing in the printouts showing the hotel the reports refer to.
• The registration cards now contain a new checkbox "Checked by user" for marking by whom and when the data of the registration card was verified. This is for the cases when the registration cards are completed by the users themselves and this data is to be checked against the details from the photo ID.
• The images of photo IDs are now deleted after 10 days of the departure or after the cancellation date.
• The default values of the meal fields on the booking screen have been changed. Now you can select more than one default meal.
• Meal translations. We have added an option for the meal names to be translated.
• Multiple booking edit screen - the selected columns can now be saved and when opened again, the screen will look the same as the previous time.
• Kiosk. We have changed the login screen to be more compatible with the various device sizes, allowing you to use the Kiosk software on your own tablet or PC.

Interfaces

• Datecs:
  • The fiscal printer now supports non-fiscal printouts and can be used with the POS for printing orders, totals or kitchen receipts. This way if you need only one printer, you can save on buying a new Epson printer.
  • A new option for repeated fiscalisation in the POS.
  • Fiscalisation can be undergone only by folios with mapped payment types.
  • The "Wait for fiscalisation" option when printing folios now accounts for whether the folio is a fiscal one or not.
  • We have added user, date and time info to the fiscal requests.
• Salto. A new option for compatibility to the old protocol versions. This way Onity is also supported.
• Lightspeed. Integration between Lightspeed POS and Clock PMS.

Fixes

• POS printers. The spaces are now stripped away from the IP address.
• In certain rare situations, the guests with RoomCloud bookings were allocated wrong rooms
• The API call statistics didn't show for certain accounts
• Adyen Terminal in the Kiosk - the back button appeared after 3 minutes to avoid the confusion among the users.
• Virtual room types - already with an upsell index
• In certain rare situations, the tax amount in a given folio could be doubled.
• CRS WRS - the iframe resize didnít work
• Adyen 3D secure - the check is now skipped for the cases when the transaction is initialised by the hotel employees.
• Advanced Search - the note was hidden, if the reference number column was hidden.