Updated Correspondence Window

We have improved the look and feel of the correspondence window so that it is now more mobile friendly and also cleaner.



Some of the key changes:
- The editor toolbars are hidden by default
- Cc, Bcc, Reply-To, Attachments are hidden unless the field contains data or the link to show is clicked
- Much more useable now on small devices
- The correspondence history section also works better on small devices

NEW ENHANCEMENT: Easily view your ADR and RevPar

ADR and RevPar, two important financial performance indicators used in the hotel industry, are now easily found in the report Income Summarized by Unit.



Average Daily Rate, ADR, is one of the commonly used financial indicators in hotel industry used to measure how well a hotel performs compared to its competitors and itself (year over year). It is common in the hotel industry for the ADR to gradually increase year over year bringing in more revenue. However, ADR itself is not enough to measure the performance of the hotel. One should combine ADR, occupancy and RevPAR (revenue per available room) to make a sound judgment on hotel performance. Wikipedia

Revenue Per Available Room, RevPAR, is a performance metric in the hotel industry that is calculated by dividing a hotel's total guestroom revenue by the room count and the number of days in the period being measured.Wikipedia

NEW FEATURE: Click to call

Phone numbers entered into the Reservation Details are now clickable to call. Skype or another phone program can open, depending on your what you have set in your browser. Or on a mobile device, your device's phone.

Once a number is typed into one of the phone fields, the new call link shows. Just click the link to make a phone call.



Here is a video showing how this works:

NEW FEATURE: Change the order of guest names

It is now possible to change the order of the guest names on the internal availability calendar to read first name first, such as John Smith" instead of the default last name first, such as "Smith, John."

To set this up, go to Settings, Preferences and expand the section for "Internal availability calendar." Then select how you want guest names displayed, and remember to click Save.





Also, here is a quick video showing this setting.

NEW FEATURE: send email automatically when changing reservation status

Have you ever wanted to be able to have ReservationKey send an email automatically after you've changed the reservation status? This is now possible.

To set this up, go to the Website Tab, Email Templates, and select a template. Then expand the Advanced section and select the status where the email will be sent. Once this is saved, whenever changing to this status in the Reservation Details page, the email will be sent.





Also, watch our video walk-through of this feature for more details.

NEW FEATURE: send email automatically when changing reservation status

Have you ever wanted to be able to have ReservationKey send an email automatically after you've changed the reservation status? This is now possible.

To set this up, go to the Website Tab, Email Templates, and select a template. Then expand the Advanced section and select the status where the email will be sent. Once this is saved, whenever changing to this status in the Reservation Details page, the email will be sent.





Also, watch our video walk-through of this feature for more details.

NEW: Reports menu has been redesigned

Something we meant to do for awhile, and now have completed, was to improve how the Reports menu works. Instead of one long column listing all our reports, we have now sorted them into topic areas which we makes it easier to find the report you are looking for.



For users that only see some of the reports, we still sort into topics, but just show the reports select, and still in the order specified by the user.

For example:

NEW FEATURE: Track when emails were opened

It is now possible to see when exactly an email sent from ReservationKey was opened. We automatically add tracking now to all emails sent from the system. When the email is opened ReservationKey records the time and location where it was opened. This is useful to verify that guess are receiving your emails and when they opened the message.

An easy way to see a list of all emails opened on a particular day is to use the Monthly/Yearly Statistics report and select "Reservation Emails Opened." Then click the link next to each date to expand that day's results.



We also have added the tracking information to the "Reservation Emails Sent/Scheduled" view in this same report.



Clicking into a reservation, now in the Correspondence button we see a summary of emails.



And in the Correspondence History & Queue we have a new column showing how many times each email sent was opened.



We have also created a video walk through of this new feature here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qTSmJT3xXCw

NEW FEATURE: Set rates & minimum stay day by day in Rate Plans

In additional to our existing way of setting rates, by entering rates for each date of the week, it is now possible to enter rates on a day by day basis. This makes it easy to quickly change rates and minimum stays for specific dates.

We used to recommend using Rate Adjustments for making small changes, but now that section may no longer by needed. Instead just make a rule, for example, for one year, and then enter all your rates and minimum stays directly in each day of every month.

To use this new feature, go to the Properties tab, Rate Plans, Add a New plan or click into an existing plan. Then either Add Rule, or click an existing Rule to edit it.



Enter a start and end date (maximum range for day by day feature is three years worth of dates).



Finally, enter rates and minimum stays. Rates go in the first box, minimum stay in the second, for each date. Use the links at the bottom of each calendar to make entering rates quicker. There are also similar links at the top of the page for duplicating rates throughout all dates (rather than one month at a time).




Also take a look at our video walk through of this new feature:

New feature: include room/unit specific details in email templates

While you could make a different email template for each room/unit you have, you may find it more convenient to make one generic template and then have the system pull information into that template based on the room(s) reserved. This is useful for things like a pre-arrival email which has directions to the apartment reserved, wifi codes, gate codes, etc. All things specific to the individual unit the guest reserved.

To set this up, just add your details that will be included in your email in the Room/Unit settings (Properties tab). Under the Property Manager options you will find a text box "Details for Email Templates." Add all your unit specific information there and then use the merge code {{detailstemplate}} in your email templates to have the system automatically pull this information.

Introducing the new search bar

We now have a way to search six different sections of the system, quickly and as you type. You can search all six sections at the same time, or select from the drop down field to only show results from one section at a time.

Here are some notes about each section.

1. Reservations

Search by guest name, phone, email, address, ID number, and words within the notes fields. Type in a list of reservation ID numbers (separated by spaces or commas) and all matching reservations are returned.




2. Guests

Search by name or email. Click a guest to open up the small guest details window for editing that guest information.




3. Content

Search for any content you have added to the system. For example search by room name and you can jump directly to the edit screen for that room. Search by user name and go directly to the user settings page.




4. System

This section returns links to specific sections of the system. For example, If you can't remember where to edit Taxes just type "taxes" into the search bar and all the places where taxes appear in the system will be listed.



There are also a couple of special searches:

"bye" - sign out from the system
"forum" - opens the forum
"myallocator status" - opens the status modal
"change log" - opens the system change log modal
"new reservations" - opens the new reservations window
"reminders" - opens the reminders window


5. FAQs

Links directly to our FAQ database. Click a result and the answer will open within the system in a modal window.




6. Videos

Search our database of tutorial videos. Click a video and the video opens directly within the system.

Floating top scroll bar & more dates

Two useful features have been added to the internal availability calendar:
1. floating top scroll bar
2. more days show prior to a selected month

Now, when clicking on a month, it will also show the number of days you have set in the Preferences section to show prior to the current day.



And, for accounts with large numbers of rooms, when the top scroll bar is enabled (in Preferences), the top scroll bar will float when scrolling down the page.



The Preferences settings for both of these features are here: