Here is an update as to some of the miscellaneous features we have been working on recently.
Remove taxes individually- For certain guests you may need to charge some of the taxes instead of automatically including all tax categories linked to a room. Now, when selecting the taxes section you can select which taxes to remove from the reservation.
Owner email as a default option- This feature mainly applies to property manager users. Now, in e-mail template setup the owner e-mail address that is linked to the property can be set as a default e-mail address for the template. This option has also been added to the e-mail schedules section. Owner information is set under Rooms/Units, Advanced settings.
Merge codes for owner information- Also a feature primarily for property managers, these codes can be used in e-mail templates to pull owner of information. The new codes:
{{ownerfname}}
{{ownerlname}}
{{owneremail}}
{{ownerphone}}
{{owneraddress}}
{{ownernotes}}
Additional user permission settings -If users are limited to see only certain rooms/units, when they go to the Rooms/Units tab under the Properties tab they will only see the rooms and they have allowed access to. Additionally, there is a new setting to restrict users to only see reservations and guests that they have added themselves. Any reservations added by other users will not be accessible and will show on the reservation calendar just as if the dates were blocked. Also, users can be limited to which reservation statuses they are allowed to use. This is useful if you want other users in your account to be able to add reservations but not necessarily block the dates on the calendar. You could limit that user to only have access to a reservation status that does not block the calendar.
Reservations search-Searches by guests name will now be limited to results where the arrival date falls between the date range searched. Previously, the date range was ignored and all matches were returned. We’ve also added the ability to search by the company on this page.
External connections- We have renamed the section under the Settings Tab that was previously called Channel Managers to now be called External Connections. We have made this change in order to make this section more expandable in the future. We plan to continue linking to outside systems and the setup for those systems will be in this section.
ResortLock connectivity –One of the newest connections in the External Connections section is a link with ResortLock. This link allows merge codes to be used in ReservationKey templates which will generate an access code to a lock in your ResortLock account. Currently we are still debating the best way to fully implement this in ReservationKey. At this time we have added a merge code {{resortlockcode}} which can be used in e-mail templates to pull the access code from ResortLock. If you use ResortLock and are interested in using this feature please contact us as we would like additional input on how best to further develop this.
System down time –Unfortunately it is difficult to guarantee 100% up-time. We have been doing quite well, although we did experience a brief outage yesterday. As we grow, we will continue to add server capacity, which will help to spread the system load (we haven’t yet determined whether the outage was related to load or not though). Additionally we have people around the world (USA, Canada, Mexico, and Europe) monitoring the system, so in the event of a problem there will be a fast response. It is also good to periodically make backups to your local computer. You can do so by exporting to a CSV file from the Reservations Tab, or simply by printing one of the calendar reports occasionally.