It's great when new features or updates are released, but if they are, they shouldn't break existing workflows. I'm not putting this as a Feature Request in that forum, because I'm only asking for things to be LEFT ALONE the way they were. Put another way, I want the functionality back that has been taken away from us with the introduction of the new Confirm & Pay form.
Under Custom Field Definitions, there are a couple of things which affect the Confirm & Pay form:
1) First is the ability to include the Custom Field Definition in the Confirm & Pay form so the guest can enter the needed information. Great. That's the way I want it.
2) Next is an Order number entry which determines the order of the fields on the Form, another good and needed feature. And
3) Description. This is a bit of text that in the previous booking form would appear UNDER the field where the guest would enter their information. It is there to provide help and an explanation about what is being requested.
Based on how the Description text appeared on the form when I set it up three years ago, I used the description field to insert instructions into into the form about how I needed the various fields filled out by the guest. This is especially important because there are no controls provided to me as the OR user, to control how these form fields appear (date, type, size, etc.).
I would love to show you a picture of what my Booking Form USED to look like after my creative use of the Description fields, but I can't now, because it's been replaced by the new form. (OwnerRez, if you can give me the old form back in a snap, PLEASE DO SO for obvious reasons as explained below, at least until you can fix the issue you have created!)
Because whatever I entered into the Description of a Custom Field showed on the form BELOW the field, I used it to provide instructions that guided my guests through the proper completion of the form. I put space in between the lines of text in my descriptions, in order to have the comments spatially relate to the correct fields, either above or below the text. In some cases, I would put the instructions for completing a field in the description of the item BEFORE that field, so they would instruct the guest about what to do in the next space.
So with a description entered like the following (note the empty lines before the text begins):
It would show up in the form kind of like:
Note how the text is spatially related to the field underneath it, and separated from the one above by an empty space (created by a couple of blank lines in the description).
In fact, in one instance, I put information in the description about the field above it (meaning the description for that particular Custom Field), then put a couple of blank lines of space and then added more text that related to the next Custom Field underneath.
In this way, I guided the guest through completing the form, with text IN the form, related to each part the guest had to complete.
Why is this important? In some instances, I would have the guest put more than one type of information in a field. For example, in my GUEST LIST Custom Fields (Something OwnerRez SHOULD have, but lacks), I ask the lead guest to not only put the guest's name, but also the age group that they fit into; adult, teen, child, infant.
Or in other cases the instructions are vitally important. For example in one part of the form, where the guest is to place their initials in the fields, the instructions and that part of the form looked kind of like this:
Notice the text underneath the Credit Card Cardholder Agreement Section? Pretty important right? It's important that it be visible so that when the guest initials it, they can't later claim that they didn't understand what they were committing to and launch a credit card chargeback in a dispute. I WANT that text THERE! I NEED that text there!
And using the Description field in Custom Field Definitions it was there. There was text like that for all of the items.
Note also the instructions at the top telling guests to Initial the following fields. It's important to tell the guests what to do at this point, because... well... guests can be kind of dumb and will screw up things if they can, but also, the design of the form NOW doesn't make it obvious that this section is different from the previous ones. My text and instructions and spacing throughout the OLD form accomplished that.
Now look at the mess we have:
Could we possibly have a more boring, unimaginative and unhelpful form design?
Worse, the critical information the guest HAS to see when completing the form is all hidden underneath the little 'info' buttons, as in this example.
This is NOT good enough! For legal and liability reasons, the text needs to be displayed right by where the guest initials their agreement to these specific parts of the terms and conditions! In fact, my Credit Card Processor DEMANDS the text shown above along with the specific place where the guest separately indicates their acknowledgment of the Credit Card terms. I have given them screenshots of what the form looked like and it was necessary as part of their even agreeing to accept me as a client!
For those of you who operate a vacation rental business in your own country, this may seem like a bunch of over-the-top nonsense. For those of you who are a 'foreign national' to where your business is located, you KNOW just how difficult things can be and the hoops we have to jump through! This is NOT an inconsequential issue!
Yes, I can just go through all of my Custom Field definitions and correct and adjust them so they make sense based on the new form design. I know that.
There are other points that matter here:
1) When OwnerRez makes a big change like this, it can have unexpected consequences. This is an example of it. But the issue I want to draw attention to is that never did OwnerRez warn me/us that we should go and review the new versions of the forms they introduced THREE months ago. Instead, they just announced that they had updated the forms, which I (I guess now stupidly) thought would be just fine and have no real effect on me other than to improve how the forms looked. It never once occurred to me that they would CHANGE THEIR FORM AND FUNCTION!
I have been having guests using this form for four months, and had no idea they were being handed this hot mess to find their way through, and in a format that no longer protected me as it once did. I only found out about it today because a confused guest contacted me to ask for clarification on part of it.
2) Changing all of my Custom Field Descriptions will NOT put back the text into the forms where I need it to be. Yes it will pop up in the little info boxes if a guest hovers over one, but that is NOT good enough to protect me legally and limit and control my liability, and bulletproof me in disputes and chargebacks.
3) I understand that the powers that be may not want to get rid of the little info circles to hover over. Fine. Keep them. But I still need (desperately) the function/ability to put specific descriptions and info IN THE FORM (not just in an introductory paragraph at the top) the way I had it before! OwnerRez, please put this functionality BACK into the software.
Why post this here rather than just send the request to support? If someone else had experienced the same issue and shared it here, I would have found it, possibly months ago, and been able to take action on it sooner. Perhaps others did have the same issue, but did not share it here, and others, like me, wouldn't find out about it until later.
Finally, hopefully this thread can be a reminder to others to always repeatedly check your workflows, particularly after major changes are done. Don't just assume everything is working just fine!
