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But no VRBO or AirBNB review import yet, correct? By the way this is AWESOME, TA reviews were imported flawlessly
For anyone else wondering about that, it's based off of whatever TripAdvisor account you are currently logged into. Vacation Rental Tools is a browser extension, so it's working off of the information it has in your local browser. If you have multiple TripAdvisor accounts, you'll have to open TA in a separate tab and log out of/into the different accounts and then come back to the VRT extension to do it again.
Ok, found how to switch the TA accounts... tthanks
I have 2 separate TA accounts, and one VRBO account. So I downloaded reviews from one TA account (for cabin #1), worked beautifully. But now how do I switch to download for the other account? Or from VRBO? When i open tools., it shows connection to 1st TA account.
As great as our new Reviews feature is, we knew from the moment we released it that we would have to follow it up with some tools to help get reviews into the system faster.
Manual entry sucks! You don't want to have manually copy/paste every review you get into OwnerRez, so we set out designing ways of making it easier. To that end, we have two big things to announce.
You can now import reviews in bulk using Excel.
The import screen is similar to, and located near, the other import screens and pretty self-explanatory. Take a look at this support article for all the details:
Storing Reviews by Importing Them in Bulk Via Excel
But even though you can import via Excel, that still means you have to manually fill in the Excel spreadsheet, right? That's where the next part comes in!
Introducing the new "Vacation Rental Tools" lab project!
For awhile now, we've been dreaming up a way of providing better tools and tighter integration with listing sites while not having to wait on listing sites to develop that access on their own.
"Vacation Rental Tools" is our answer to that problem. It's a Chrome extension you can install in your browser that will provide you extra features for the listing sites you work with. And it's free for everyone to use whether you're an OwnerRez customer or not!
Visit the new website at http://VacationRental.tools or take a look at these support articles:
If you use TripAdvisor, you'll be able to use Vacation Rental Tools to download an Excel file of all your TripAdvisor reviews in a click of a button.
That same Excel file can then be imported into OwnerRez in another click, meaning no manual entry.
Hundreds of reviews moved from TripAdvisor to OwnerRez in just a few seconds. Awesome, right?!
Get ready for more great browser tools coming to Vacation Rental Tools and help us spread the word!
@BlueMtnCabins... good point on the how's. Most of the new features are automatically added. I just wrote up an article with more details on legal agreements here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/renter-legal-agreements
For the header/footer, that's referring to the Forms header/footer setting in Settings > Theming. While overhauling renter agreements, we realized that the header/footer was applied to quote checkout forms but wasn't applied to some other forms like the security deposit signing form -- so now it will be.
@Wendy... Right now it's copy/paste, but we're working on an import tool.
meant to say copy and paste each one....
Thank you! You guys are great! Have been wondering about the importing of reviews, is there a way to have them downloaded from the different ad sites or do we manually copy past each one?
Thank you for your continued improvements and enhancements of your program.
Wendy
Also, "facebook" does not show in a dropdown when i am trying to point inquiry/book widget to it.
Awesome, question off the bat: How do i do these:
Overhauled renter agreement section
Allow setting agreement to sign when generating a link for the guest << not sure what this is?
Add listing site criteria on renter agreements so language can be altered for different listing site policies << where do I set this?
Add verify contact info page on signing link (including booking checkout custom fields) << where do I set this?
Require email address to be not a listing site double blind on contact info verification << where do I set this?
Apply theme header/footer on booking forms
Following up on the Gallimaufry post from June, and July/August, here's what we've got for September.
Gallimaufry (n): A collection or hodgepodge of things with no apparent unifying theme.
One of the bigger features we've already announced was tracking and displaying reviews. We've got more to announce on reviews in the next couple of days, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
New listing sites
More docs on renter agreements can be found in our Renter Agreements and other legal agreements support article.
And all of the other stuff...
I want to be able to select a date range under the criteria tab for a discount I am creating. I understand that I could just create another season and select that but I think it would be easier to be able to select the dates under a tab. For example my rates are the same 10/8 through 4/4 and I want to select the October dates and offer a discount and I have plans for a different promotion for November and I dont want to have to create a different season for each promotion period. The season and rates page can get confusing enough. Thanks
Very nice! It works well and will certainly help me a lot. Thank you!
I wonder if eventually it can be in the ics output file as a real date showing on my ics import (I use google calendar to aggregate dates for everything). I suppose it would be hard though as you do not want it to show as a reservation. I suppose you could create the date for the ICS file using the check-out time for that day (cleaning day) and the standard check-in time for that same day.
Anyhow not really important. Just thinking out loud.
It is now nice to record the date into the system as a real date.
Glenn
I do not have a luxury of 3 hrs as I have a lot of same day turns...Will try 2 hrs.
We just pushed out a new release that includes the cleaning date. You can set it on the Info tab and it will show there, on the Overview tab, and on the calendar.
No workflow or blocks around it yet, but hopefully having the value in place will help! :-)
Yes, that's exactly what grace period does. It's subtracted from check-in and added to check-out.
You may want to do more than an hour just to be safe. I use a 3 hour grace period on my properties -- I'd rather give the guest a bit of flexibility in case they forget something at the property or something like that, rather than them having to call me.
Question about grace period: I set 1 hour - will that cover upcoming Daylight savings time change? Right now the ERL gives me some warning on their site about 1 hr difference...Does 1 hr grace go before-and after the set time? thanks
Hi Barb,
Good morning!
Yes, it will! Our current widget doesn't show the owner response and that is vital if you're showing a critical review. We will make sure to add that. We'll also be adding the listing site it was left on with a filter option so that they can see where the review originated (talking about the widget).
The import/export features we're working on will pull in all that information - yes. There is actually a lot more information we've found like helpful vote count, private feedback, user avatar and more. We will store as much of that information as we can.
~Michelle
This is great news--thank you! The sample page didn't show owner responses, but will the system allow the posting (& eventual importing of) the reply to the review?
@BlueMtnCabins: Not yet, no. That's on the list to do, but honestly it's towards the back of the list. We want to mostly stress the collection and storage parts of it, right now, because so many of your reviews will be on other marketing channels. And that's what you want to push - guests leaving reviews on other listing sites. That's where the lion's share of your booking traffic comes from, so continue pushing guests to leave reviews on TA, VRBO, Air, FB and Google. The big engineering focus for us is in making easy way to export/import those reviews FROM those sites so that you can store it all back in OR and then show it on your website (or do other things with it - biz intelligence, reporting, automation). If guests left reviews on your website, that's great, but those reviews can never be pushed out to TA, VRBO, Air, FB or Google so they have limited value.
Love it, one question- is there a capability for guest to submit a review or not yet?
Have you ever looked at the reviews you get on TripAdvisor, VRBO, Airbnb and Facebook, and wished you could collect and store those in one place? And show them on your own personal website?
Now you can collect, store and display your reviews in OwnerRez through widgets and hosted websites!
One of our users stored 20 reviews and put the widget up. Take a look.
We've built quite a bit of functionality into this, based on forward-thinking, and we have some upcoming features designed where we will be making the storing/entry part of this vastly easier (automatic imports, etc). But no need to wait! You can get started with this feature right away!
Take a look at the following support docs to get started.
Yes that would be a great start!
For us small guys that do not have cleaners with unlimited capacity, managing cleaning and bookings becomes a key factor that we need to be very on top of. A year ago or so I got a booking that ended on a Saturday. I got a following booking soon after that began on the Sunday. I hadn't had time to check with the cleaner and when I did, she told me she had no more capacity to clean that weekend (Saturday or Sunday) regrettably. That turned into a significant problem and now I am careful to ensure cleaning can happen before I accept any new bookings following a booking so that I can block accordingly. Anything that OR can do (even starting with a cleaning date for the reservation) will certainly help! :-)
Great to hear all of your different workflows! There are so many different ways to work with cleaning staff -- that's why we haven't got into this yet. We want to make it flexible. I think we've got a good plan now...
We're going to start easy -- just the cleaning date Glenn mentioned, as that won't lock anybody in to a certain process. If you want to set the date and push it through to emails, go for it. If not, then continue with the current situation.
Same thing on the cleaning workflow. There's a lot of variance on who sets the cleaning date for OwnerRez purposes -- cleaner, owner, or cleaner just does it and doesn't report a date. The eventual housekeeping module will support any of those modes, and then also support the cleaner log in to mark the booking cleaned and add any notes, photos, checklists, etc.
Different strokes for different folks. If I send them bookings as they come in, they'd be annoyed because I am bombarding them with emails that will slip thru the cracks and will be lost in the shuffle. Also my Oct, for example, has been booked for at least 2-3 mos.. I will hardly have anything but couple of fill-ins coming for my properties till at least Nov, if that. Realistically I only have a few weekdays unented plus Christmas on one of the properties thru the rest of the year. The cleaners do not have infinite availability, but they have more than one set of workers and if needed they just ensure that all cleanings are covered. If it works for yours with set date, then great, but for ex., I have a check out on the 15th morning and next check in on the 17th afternoon. I have no idea what their plan is, whether they will clean on 15th, 16th or 17th. So what would I mark as cleaning day? I leave it up to them as long as they know that check out is on 15th and next check in is on 17th, they can figure it out between my properties and other properties and cleanings.
Interesting neither of my cleaners would go for that sort of process. It has nothing to do with short notice bookings which I do not take either.
If I was to hold on to my reservations and only inform them once a month, I would get a lot of push back from them. Like you, I don't really care when it is done, but only that it is done before the next guest. However If I only doled out my new reservations to them once a month, then I would be inherently 'assuming' that they can meet the schedule as laid out in these new bookings. Lets say I acquire a month of bookings for October (right now it is Sept) and say have - in my package of bookings - a back to back on Nov 11th. I am now 'assuming' that they are available Nov 11th. My cleaners (for both properties) have many other customers and my actually be fully booked up on schedule that day and cannot clean. If they cannot clean, what do I do? I prefer not to make such assumptions on their availability.
Hence both cleaners have asked me to inform them *right away* when I get a booking and that is where the the nicely automated OR email comes in. They mark the booking in their own calender's and decide on when they clean and then let me know so I can book gaps in my calendar availability accordingly. I use the their cleaning date to block the calendar. 50% of the time they can commit to cleaning the same day (back to back situation if needed). But 50% of the time they may need an extra day.. or two. (availability block on the calendar is needed)
It sounds like your cleaners have somewhat infinite availability (perhaps due to size and/or small customer base)... I am jealous ;-) Unfortunately mine have a fairly large-ish customer base and therefore have some constraints on when they can clean. Hence they like new bookings immediately so that they can schedule in their calendars and tell me what is do-able and what is not. Also, based on volume, they occasionally ask me for a list of bookings and the cleaning dates that they have told me.. just so we are in sync and there is no miscommunication with a missed block or anything. A cleaning date on the report from OR would be nice as you can see...
So I do not view my request for cleaning dates as 'borderline pestering'. I do it more for them and for them to manage and ensure their schedules align with my property availability. If I could only find cleaners with *infinite availability*, then all would be good and I too would not worry about cleaning dates... ;-)
Cheers
Glenn
It has nothing to do with late bookings and I do not accept bookings for a date within two days as well.
I actually do not concern myself with "when" usually. I also do not book on less than 48 hr notice. If I do get a booking request on such short notice, I text housekeeper and verify that she can accommodate cleaning in time, so only then I will accept the booking. I do not "block" days for cleaning and I do not think my housekeeper cares about OR notification emails - I disabled them. Most of my bookings are well in advance. Basically, I give housekeeper the reservation schedule for upcoming month, and it is up to them to plan their cleanings accordingly in time. I do not check exactly when it is done, as long as it is DONE in time for next guests. If I was asking them when particular cleaning will be done, that would be borderline pestering. The only times I ask is if I have someone who wants to check in early, but I ask for info - if cleaning is done, I will say to the guest "fine, you can check in early". if not - then answer is No. The only "disruption" is "last minute" booking which I handle via text and follow up with email. I just do not think that cleaners would actually log into some portal and mark their cleanings there. They are not my employees, but those of cleaning co. They technically are not reporting to me.
BlueMtnCabins said:
Interesting. If i have more than one open day between reservations, it is the housekeeper, not I, who determined WHICH would eb a cleaning day: I am not her only client, so I send her list of reservations/dates and she plans between my turnovers and her other clients' turnovers. Of course if it is a same day turn then cleaning is that day, regardless. what I am trying to sya is I persoanlly do not see an urgent need to "assign" a specific cleaning day/date.
Interesting. If i have more than one open day between reservations, it is the housekeeper, not I, who determined WHICH would eb a cleaning day: I am not her only client, so I send her list of reservations/dates and she plans between my turnovers and her other clients' turnovers. Of course if it is a same day turn then cleaning is that day, regardless. what I am trying to sya is I persoanlly do not see an urgent need to "assign" a specific cleaning day/date.
Chris Hynes said:
Yep! We'll be adding a cleaning date as part of our next update to PM and the portal stuff. Fear not, the cleaning date itself on the booking will be part of the base package.