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Adding to my comment on the new ribbon calendar.... how do I filter by payment due/overdue, etc. and legal agreement signed or not?
Thanks for the updates - very nifty! I am wondering though if there is an easy way to filter by property like before. For example, I have five properties listed and often only want to view four of them. I can figure out how to do that now with the new calendar.
I so appreciate the new Vrbo Commission Import tool!!! Is there a way I can customize my import document so that it uses a preferred description, adds the Channel category, and chooses the correct PM account handling option? Right now it defaults to no category at all and sets it to "Paid from escrow (won't be reimbursed on PM statement)" which is incorrect for our setup.
We are happy to announce our partnership with Quibble to offer our OwnerRez users insight and intelligence to vacation rental pricing.
Quibble – Next-Generation Revenue Management Software For Short-Term Rentals – brings insight and intelligence to vacation rental pricing by utilizing big data analytics and airline pricing models to forecast optimal pricing strategies, allowing you to intelligently manage inventory and maximize revenue.
30-day free trial for new users! Learn more here.
Get started with Quibble by visiting the Quibble website and checking out the OwnerRez support doc for how to integrate OwnerRez with Quibble.
Are you observing Plan A Solo Vacation Day 🧳while listening to Pink Floyd's chart-topping album Dark Side of the Moon, which was released today in 1973?
Pink Floyd's philosophical lyrics dealt with the pressures of modern life and how those pressures can sometimes cause insanity, and today's Plan A Solo Vacation Day encourages people to get out and explore the world on their own and the self they find within it.
While these two events appear to be incompatible at face value, OwnerRez understands how complex running a vacation rental business can be. Our mission is to deliver a fast and reliable software solution for you. But before you go off exploring, don't forget to slide into today's product update that details our March 1st release with 3 updates, including our spiffy new Ribbon View!
Not just an overhaul but a facelift! Maybe you saw our teaser video on Facebook? We're hyped, and for OwnerRez users that own or manage multiple properties, the new Ribbon View will be pretty thrilling. And it will improve as we add more to it over time. But let me share what's included so far...
The Ribbon view offers a versatile way to view past and upcoming bookings seamlessly. Users can view the Ribbon calendar by selecting Ribbon on the Bookings page. The current date will always be highlighted in a light yellow color.
For this exercise, I'm using the setting under display preferences to have the property name be color-coded according to the property calendar color. When users hover over the individual Properties on the left menu, a nifty informational pop-up (i.e., hover card) will appear detailing information about that specific property.
And users will still find individual Booking Information when they hover over each booking too. Blocks are also visible.
But the most exciting part of the new Ribbon View is that users can now slide the view using the "Handle" back and forth, to view past and future bookings, including scrolling across months.
But does it work on mobile, you ask? And how will I fat-finger that "handle" on my phone? No worries there. Just let your fingers do the walking on your mobile device. Check it out in action! We'll be adjusting the ability to have different mobile swiping velocities in a future release.
Not sure if you are comfortable with the new look and feel of the Ribbon View? We know change can be challenging, and technically it is not at "feature parity" with the old view at present (i.e., you can't filter on Booking info yet). So, that's why we still have a way for users to revert to the Legacy Ribbon View for the time being.
Want to see more? Read all about it in the Ribbon View section of the Main Bookings Display support article.
Upgrade Channel Bridge to Use New Vrbo Booking Data Endpoints. We upgraded Channel Bridge (to version 12) to use different Vrbo booking data endpoints. Vrbo recently retired some old API endpoints that Channel Bridge relied on, essentially breaking it for use with Vrbo. We've moved it over to using available data from newer Vrbo endpoints.
Fix Account Billing to Apply Negative Invoice Balances Against Future Invoices. This was an edge case where booking cancellations that generated Damage Protection refunds were displayed as a credit on OwnerRez users' accounts, but the credit was never applied to either the user's regular subscription invoice. This bug has been fixed, and any credit amounts will be correctly applied to user accounts.
YES! That is coming very soon! We will be sure to let everyone know as well.
Is there any plan to do the same for SMBYO?
Hey Everyone! This is Joe with ECBYO.COM
We are very excited about getting the integration set up with OwnerRez. Here is what you can expect. With this being a new integration and process for us, we do ask for your patience as we streamline the process to get your listings up ASAP! Any new integration has a learning curve and we are getting through that now!
Once you initiate the integration in OR, that sends us your ID. Then you need an account with ECBYO and purchase your ECBYO listing(s). Then you need to use the CONTACT US form on ECBYO.COM and give us that OR ID and ECBYO IDs you want to set up. We need the ID's in that CONTACT US EMAIL.
Once we have both the OR IDs and your ECBYO IDs we will be in communication with you through our ticketing process. Our team will then work to map your request to the new listings and get your properties live. This has been taking our team 1-3 days presently but we hope to speed the time up as we get more familiar with this new integration.
We also have a completely new site coming very soon! ECBYO 2.0! It will be 100% new from top to bottom and have many more desired features. We will of course keep you posted once this is up. It will also serve all the areas on the Gulf Coast, including, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas! Stay tuned for that announcement!
We look forward to working with you and appreciate your business!
For specific custom changes you'll typically need to rely on using CSS code to modify the hero unit of the website. We've written some examples of what's possible you can view here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/hosted-website-css-magic#hosted-site-hero-unit-font-color
Did you know that back in February of 1992, Wayne's World opened in U.S. theaters? 😮
No way?!! Way!! Yes, the beloved duo, Wayne and Garth, hit the big screen 31 years ago. Despite their immaturity, Wayne and Garth had moments of joy and the spontaneity of youth, providing movie-goers everywhere a refreshing break from the stress and responsibility of adult professional life. In much the same way, OwnerRez provides fast and flexible vacation rental software to help streamline your vacation rental business allowing you to take time to relax and recharge!
Today we're bringing you some totally excellent 👍OwnerRez product updates, including Security Deposit Hold Improvements, Multi-Property Hosted Website Search Results Tile Layout Improvements, and lots (14!) of bug fixes. So get ready to party on, excellent 👍readers! It's time to jump (or schwing!) into the February 22nd release with 20 updates.
You've got your booking, payment(s), and guests are on their way... but what if they're rockstars and trash your place?
No matter how hard you try, predicting and keeping out bad guests is impossible. If you are un-lucky enough to have really bad guests that burn your place down, your property and business interruption insurance (you do have those, right?) should cover you. But that's rare.
Much more common are minor damages that no regular insurance will cover - a lost TV remote, a carpet caked with tracked-in mud or a broken window. OwnerRez offers a variety of methods to protect yourself from having to eat these costs (one is Damage Protection). Security Deposits are another option. Security Deposit holds, in the below cases, provide a way to guarantee that you'll be able to charge the guest's credit card for any damages, even if they canceled the card during their stay.
Better Handling of Already Reserved Security Deposits When Booking is Changed or Moved via API
Life happens, and sometimes guests must change or move their travel dates. OwnerRez makes scheduling and rescheduling security deposit holds for direct-bookings easy for users when the booking is changed.
When it's an API booking, and there's a scheduled security deposit hold already reserved, but the guests change or move their booking via that API, OwnerRez users were not getting a warning to fix the security deposit.
Those days are over! If a guest changes their reservation on the API-integrated listing site (e.g., Airbnb), OwnerRez has implemented the following protocol:
Improved Security Deposit Failure Handling
Sometimes initial security deposits fail. This can create an unfortunate chain of events for owners and PMs.
Sometimes guests will decide to take it upon themselves to create a new security deposit, separately and unrelated to the scheduled one. Talk about confusing! And the confusion can continue if the new card actually succeeds.
And sometimes OwnerRez users get in the mix by visiting the payment processor's website or dashboard directly (mostly Stripe) to release a security deposit, causing even more complications.
We identified some changes to help clear up these troubling issues before they arise.
Occasionally guests don't understand the process of Security Deposit Holds and expect to get a refund transaction into their account. However, since security deposit holds are just an authorization hold on their funds, there is no charge to be refunded. It was simply an authorization on the account, and when the security deposit hold is released, there won't be any refund transaction. The best way to handle these situations is to educate guests about security deposit holds by including information about security deposit holds in your guest messaging.
Lastly and most importantly, OwnerRez recommends that security deposits are best handled in the OwnerRez app, when possible, to process security deposits consistently. Security Deposits can be set in the individual Properties > Rules > Change > Security Deposits or handled on each booking's transactions tab.
Learn more by reading our Security Deposits Overview support article.
Words matter, and sometimes the little things drive us nuts! 😜 This is an example of that.
We have changed the Quote/Booking Change Screens check-in and check-out drop-down lists phrase displayed from "use from property" to now show "use property default" (appears at the top of the drop-down lists).
We believe the new phrase "use property default" is more accurate than the older phrasing.
As more and more guests search for direct booking options for their vacation travel accommodations, having a direct booking website becomes more important. And it's even more essential that your website be mobile responsive and have a sleek professional design.
With that in mind, we tweaked the tile layout search results display for multi-property hosted websites. We recognized that the tile layout when displaying just two properties looked funny.
So we have improved the tile layout results to use auto-repeating columns or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) grid auto-fit for all you more computer-savvy users.
See the examples below for both the 3-property and 2-property tile layout results.
Considering creating your own direct booking website? Learn more by reading our OwnerRez Hosted Website support article.
Earlier this month (February 10th to be exact!), we debuted our improved Rates Calendar. Part of that enhancement included removing the Delete button, which we knew would be jolting.
Why did we remove the Delete button anyway? Because referring to it as "delete" was inaccurate because deleting is not what was happening when you used "Delete." Instead, you were removing any override set on that date, whether rates or rules, and reverting to the default rates/rules from the season or property. Now that the additional set rule options were added, it's clearer to set to "use the default..." under each individual rates/rules setting.
We have added a helper link in the Rates Calendar tab, explaining just that if users go looking for it. It appears after highlighting one or more dates on the Rates Calendar. And is in the "Set" drop-down on mobile view.
Want to learn more? Read our Rates Calendar support article.
Allow Setting the Expense/Commission Settings for AirCover Resolutions in Channel Bridge. Channel Bridge was creating an "other surcharge" charge for AirCover resolutions, which made it impossible to configure the commission/expense because it's not a charge. We have fixed this issue so that when users run Channel Bridge for Airbnb, the query will look for a surcharge with "AirCover" in the description. If found, Channel Bridge will set any AirCover resolutions as the surcharge for the resolution (vs. other surcharge) and apply the Property Manager's settings.
Channel Blocks Should Not Trigger Before Arrival Triggers. This was an edge case where a channel booking produced a trigger email sent to a property owner as an owner block. This rare occurrence happened because the channel picked up the initial webhook calendar block at 8:01:00 and converted it to a booking at 8:01:40, but not before the owner block email was triggered. This bug has been corrected.
Don't Push Taxable Base for Airbnb Luxe Listings. It has come to our attention that Airbnb Luxe property listings cannot set a taxable base rate (i.e., you can't set partial taxability based on category) in OwnerRez. We will no longer push taxable base rates for Airbnb Luxe listings.
Display Sent Title on SMS Communication History and Tag Manual Sends of SMS Trigger as Manual. We noticed the Sent title (or label) missing from each SMS entry in SMS Communication History. We have corrected this and also fixed it to correctly show when an SMS (text) trigger was manually sent on the Messages tab of a booking.
Fixed Florida Rentals Link to Portal. The step 4 link on the Florida Rentals API Integration Setup Instructions was incorrect. The link was corrected and now sends users to the correct URL to add their OwnerRez Account ID to their Florida Rentals integration.
Fixed Issue Where Description Could Be Inadvertently Deactivated While Editing. There was an edge case where a default property description could become deactivated during editing. The bug has been fixed.
Fixed Issue Where Surcharge Booking Field Criteria With Yes/No Answers (Has Holiday) Didn't Validate Correctly. A bug was identified affecting users' attempts to create a surcharge that included a booking field criteria "Contains a Holiday." The surcharge would fail to save and display the validation error, "Value must be either "0" or "1" for Contains a Holiday." This bug has been corrected.
Fixed Spelling Error of Occurances to Occurrences. The "occurances" spelling error was corrected as "occurrences" in-app on the Travel Insurance page.
Handle Case Where Lynnbrook Payment is Neither Voidable Nor Refundable. A user experienced an edge case where OwnerRez showed that the guest was refunded their refundable damage deposit (a type of security deposit equivalent to a payment) from Lynnbrook group. In this case, the payment at this step was neither voidable nor refundable, so it attempted both operations and failed. This bug has been corrected.
Prevent Publishing If There's a Pending Address/Name Sync. We identified a bug that could occur if an OwnerRez user updates a property type or address and promptly attempts to publish the property on Airbnb before these changes are entirely synced in OwnerRez. We have fixed this bug and it will now display the following, "Sync is currently in progress. Wait for it to complete and then come back to publish." if users attempt to publish their property before syncing is complete.
Remove '5-star' From Review is Submitted System Alert. When users created a delayed guest review under five stars, the system alert email subject and body still displayed "A scheduled or automatic 5-star review for "X Booking" was sent. This inaccuracy was fixed by just removing "5-star" from being mentioned since such reviews can be less than five stars.
Setup Wizard Properties Page Typo. There was a typo on the Setup Wizard Properties Page where the word "have" appeared twice in a row when adding the first property to an account. This typo has been corrected.
Smoothen Email Two-Factor Authentication. Are we tired of talking about the OwnerRez Two-Factor Authentication? Absolutely, but we are committed to getting this vital security feature right for our users. In this update, we extended the authentication codes to work for 10 minutes, made the Verify button the default (vs. send another code), and now track the expiration duration on the client side, so the authentication code isn't considered expired too early if the client's system clock is not accurately set.
Tax Report Explicit Alphabetic Ordering for Columns. Tax Report header columns were displayed in reverse alphabetical order. This bug is now corrected and the Tax Report header columns show correctly alphabetically, A-Z.
How do you change the color of the caption in the carousel?
How long after emailing ECBYO can we expect to see our integration take place?
@Chris Hynes -- thanks for the quick reply. To clarify, I'm not trying to set both to the same. It is the latter of your comments. I am trying to reduce the number of steps/clicks. In most of our cases, we block both arrival and departure for the required days. Right now we have to select the dates>Set Rules>Arrival>Select Option>OK and then repeat everything again (except Select Dates) for Departure. It would be easier to have Set Rules>Arrival/Departure (or Set Change Over as you suggested) and then have 2 columns of Radio buttons for the 4 choices for each Arrival and Departure. That way the user could select just arrival, just departure, or both all in one step. Reduced manual workload :-)
Great to hear that the rules will be added to upload feature -- please announce when its done. Completely understand get the feature out ASAP and then iterate. When the import is implemented, it would be great if there is a filter option for the rules but we can easily do that in the exported data. I assume like the manual process it wont be overwritten by Pricelabs, etc
OwnerRez team: I can see that there's comments to now add scenarios where if X equals M, but Z doesn't happen, allow T, unless G is less than M, then allow A. I can appreciate that it's just not always feasible to program every permutation that can be dreamt up. So, I just wanted to express my appreciation for adding this feature! It's working great and is wonderful.
I have no rules that prevent coming or going on specific holidays. I DO have same day turnover limitations where someone checks out on Thanksgiving (US) or Christmas I do not allow same day turnover. Is there an algorithm somewhere I can setup that scenario?
@Wendy -- can you clarify a bit on the setting: are you wanting to set Arrival/Departure to the same value (both allowed or both not allowed)? Or more looking for a "set changeover" that lets you pick "both, neither, check in only, check out only"?
We do have an export/import for the calendar rates -- you can see this on the spot rates tab. But it doesn't support the arrival/departure rules yet. We're working on an update to add those rules there as well.
Can you make a slight adjustment to the UI so that instead of Arrival and Departure be two separate choices it is Arrival/Departure and the pop-up has both sets of Radio buttons - that way when we are setting 2 restrictions on the same days we can set both at once... will save a lot of time.
Is there a way to upload all these restrictions via CSV so that we can have a file that we update each year and will allow to set similar rules for multiple properties at the same time - conversely, allowing us to download a CSV of these Rules will allow to double check all properties are set and create a template of modifying and uploading
In the meantime you could possible add multiple property select to the Advanced Select option along with the combining Arrival/Departure above it would save a lot of time.
Also, can you confirm that this overrides all other settings including seasons - you already confirmed above that this will not be overwritten by Pricelabs rules.
Thank you for consideration
PS not sure if I should write in here or in the recommendations area.
Shawn H says:
Hi Dori123 - you can do either or both already. Just select Christmas Day on the Rates Calendar and set either or both to "not allowed" individually as they (Arrival and Departure) are separate settings. If one or both are already set from the season-level, you'll need to disable or delete that season, or override the season with the opposite setting.
Shawn:
I would like to set an Arrival / Departure Rule for a date that would automatically allow either but not both. This would be for set dates like Dec. 25, Jan 1, etc. If I understand correctly, your solution would have me set "no arrival" on Dec 25 after I get a reservation that departs Dec 25, or alternatively, I could set that date to "no departure" after I get a reservation that starts on Dec 25. This is not ideal, as it is not automated. I would still have to consult my list of "no flip" dates and remember to change the setting if I get a reservation that lands on one of those dates. And if I get any cancellations that affect those dates, I have to hope I'd remember to manually back out the setting
I would love to see the code allow Arrival only if No Departure that day, and Departure only if No Arrival that day. But not both. Let me know if I and the others misunderstand.
Blocks and season rate overrides on arrival/departure are overrideable. If you combine them it makes a singular expression for the entire set of rules. Seasons, blocks, etc all combine together so no there is no priority system.
Take for example
The combined rules comes out like this
Then if you try to make a quote/booking you would get this message
You can still override over the combined block created.
I'm with Danica ^^^^ I can set one or the other but with this setting, one is not dependent on the other. If I disallow both arrivals and departures, I have essentially blocked Christmas from both.
I currently manually block the opposite day depending on which reservation comes in first. If a guest is departing Dec25 I block that night for no arrival, and vice versa, to prevent holiday turn-around.
I guess this setting gives me the option to set a policy that allows folks to either arrive or depart on holidays. Or, I can keep doing it manually and hope I don't miss one.
So the question is, is there a way to prioritize the setting based on an existing reservation?
Stacy:
The arrival/departure settings on the Settings> Rates page (shown above) will not be changed by PriceLabs settings. You can, also, go into that Settings>Rates page and override the seasonal departure settings for a particular night.
I do a lot of upselling currently but sm interested in what others are doing!
On Thursday, 2/23, join us live with The Host Co to discuss what every rental manager needs to know about adding more revenue with elevated amenities and services…without adding extra work for you or your team.
In this webinar, The Host Co team will discuss what “instant amenities” work best, how to quickly create your own offerings and add them to guest messaging, and go over how much money can be made from upsells (hint, it can eclipse your nightly rate).
The session is free to join, but you must use The Host Co webinar link to register.
You can find all our upcoming and past webinars on our Webinars page.
Joshua, it depends on the holiday. Many holidays change dates every year so recurring seasons wouldn't work. Also, you have to have a 1 day season in order for that to work which is tedious. Setting it on "the entire Christmas" holiday period (eg. 5 or 10 days) typically doesn't work because that means that no one can arrive/departure on any of the days of that season. You typically want to pinpoint some exact dates to exclude arrival/departure, not entire seasons. But yes, if your season is 1 or 2 days, you can do it that way as well. That might mean you have multiple overlapping seasons.
It seems seasons would still be better to control Arrival/Departure rules otherwise you will have to add the rule every year. With seasons, you can make it reoccurring for most holidays with the exception of maybe Thanksgiving
It seems pretty much the same as before except for all of the rate lines? Am I missing anything? Any way to push reviews over?
@Shawn. above regarding Dori's comment on Christmas.
I am not following how your solution works. Assume I don't have anything set at the season level. Christmas is just a random day in the middle of a rate season. I can allow an arrival IF I don't have a departure on the same day. I can allow a departure IF I don't have an arrival on the same day. One depends on the other. if I simply set either or both (arrival and/or departure settings) to "don't allow" I don't think it accomplishes the intention. Can you please elaborate further?
On this day in 1985, U.S. Postage first-class stamp prices were raised from 20 cents to 22 cents. 🖃 Today the cost of a stamp is 63 cents!! 💸
Thank goodness for email! Sending emails to guests is even faster, easier, and less expensive than good old snail mail. And by using OwnerRez's System Messages, Email Templates, and SMS (text) messaging, you automate and streamline communication with guests across all channels, allowing you to focus on the important things--like growing your business and brand!
And on the topic of automation and streamlining, read on to review the February 15th release with four updates that include an OwnerRez Zapier Integration tweak and Channel Bridge History improvements!
We're working to lessen your need for Channel Bridge over time, but while it's still around, we're trying to make it more useful. For those who may not yet know, OwnerRez's Channel Bridge is a Chrome browser extension that allows you to log in to your listing site accounts (e.g., Vrbo, Airbnb) to bridge data over to OwnerRez that is stored there, rather than relying solely on the limited export functionality that the listing site offers. With Channel Bridge, you can download your account data and upload it directly into OwnerRez in a few steps.
OwnerRez users work extremely hard to get reviews. And if you're like most users, you ask your guests to post reviews and when they do, you want to use them in other places. It can take a decade (or more!) to build a good list of reviews, and the more you have them, the stronger your reputation (and easier your marketing) gets. You should collect and store all your reviews so that you can use them on your OwnerRez Hosted Website or the Reviews widget.
But we know that our users are busy and can sometimes forget when they last imported reviews from their listing site accounts. And while the OwnerRez Channel Bridge History was tracking and displaying booking import histories, that same history wasn't tracking review imports, only exports.
Wonder no more about when that last review import was completed. Now Channel Bridge History includes review imports, noting the date the previous import was completed and the status of that last Channel Bridge!
There are two new columns also - Account ID and Account Email - which helps users especially with more than one account know which Channel Bridge files went with which channel account.
Learn more about OwnerRez's Channel Bridge by reading the Channel Bridge Overview support article.
OwnerRez offers an abundance of Integrations to assist owners and PMs in operating their vacation rental businesses. One of our most recent integration partners, Zapier, asked us to sort our API List Results by most recent data first. So we now sort in descending order by ID Description. Adding this capability benefits our users using Zapier to make Zaps and doesn't presently hinder any other integrations utilizing our open API, so we went for it.
Want to learn more about integrations or Zapier? Read our Zapier support article and Paul's Zapier Integration Public Beta Now Available! blog post.
Allow Selecting of Earlier Years on the Right Side of the Reports' Date Range Picker. We continue to make the date picker better. The Reports' Date Range Picker now allows users to select prior years from the right side of the Date Range Picker. This is especially helpful when a user selects Custom Range before choosing the needed dates.
Improve Deposits Form Number Parsing and Adjustments. We noticed that users saw some anomalies while recording deposits.
Will the settings we do here for # of nights and arrival/departure override Pricelabs settings or vice versa?
I really hoped you all would also offer an Arrival / Departure Rule that would allow one or the other, but not both! Lots of people either arrive or depart on Christmas day at our ski place, but I don't want the cleaning staff to have to do a flip clean that day. Pretty please, can you add this functionality?
Hi Dori123 - you can do either or both already. Just select Christmas Day on the Rates Calendar and set either or both to "not allowed" individually as they (Arrival and Departure) are separate settings. If one or both are already set from the season-level, you'll need to disable or delete that season, or override the season with the opposite setting.
