What are the pros of Ownerrez? Trying to like it.

What does it do better than hostaway? The app is so tiny it's hard to use, wouldn't be as bad if you could quickly link to individual monthly calendars. 

I know about the small fee hostaway charges for direct bookings, and their inbox isn't the best. Haven't been able to try ownerrez new inbox because not yet API connected. 

I really like that it's privately owned, other than that hoping someone can chime in that's used both and can share their experience .

EDIT:

I'm new here so I'm discovering things.

+1 for OR: Using Tag automations. This appears like it will come in really handy.

EDIT 2:

I've had some time to play around with Ownerrez and here are my takeaways.

Hostaway has a clean and modern feel to it, and a decent amount of customization but it pretty much ends there. So much glitchiness. I haven't noticed this at all in OR, it seems to work without any hiccups.

Reasons-

1) The Hostaway app is very glitchy. The calendar looks nice when it works. I usually need to completely close the app out and reopen for it to update.

2) Also, the Hostaway app is super limited. Most of the time I need to go to the native website to do anything.

3) One of the biggest selling points of OR is they use a web app, meaning you can do anything on a tablet or phone that you can do on a PC.

4) So far, OR seems to have more capability in general but I haven't tapped into all of it yet.

5) Add on's Pricing- for example Hostaway charges a whopping $8 per lock with smart lock integration. OR is half of that. 

6) Subscription pricing is less for OR.

7) OR is privately owned. I won't go down this rabbit hole of private equity run companies.

8) Trigger capabilities in OR. I would like to see this improved on though as it has so much potential.

9) Customer support. It's true that Hostaway has quicker responses, however it ends there. I don't ever seem to get the answer i need or the problem solved.

10) In response to my own comment on being hard to see OR on a phone. I realized you can pinch zoom with a webapp haha. You can't on a regular app.

Hope this helps. I'm sure I'll learn more as I'm still new to Ownerrez.

EDIT 3:

I'm Frustrated, there's so much that I wrongly assumed Ownerrez would be able to do.

Initially I was excited about OR because of it's responsive webapp, pretty good built in website options, the promise of a unified inbox once Api connected, and it's lists of features  (that turned out to be very rudimentary). 

I hope OR takes this message constructively as I want to continue to use this, however I'm not going to wait for years. As soon as what we're looking for comes along we'll switch, or maybe it's out there and we haven't found it. With AI speeding everything up I'm sure it won't be long. I probably wouldn't have made the switch if I'd known what I know now.

1)The unified inbox isn't truly unified. Texts and emails are still separated. 

2) Zero customization of the list view columns, and a scroll bar at the bottom of all places. Their doesn't seem to be any interest in fixing this surprisingly.

3) Way too much navigation is required when setting up templates and triggers

4) Way too much unnecessary clicking when navigating. 

5) Setting up templates is time consuming - no ability to even copy.

6) Setting up templates - no ability to create a single template that works for all channel types. Rich text should just be optional for email.

7) Door locks integration is very limited. No ability to send low battery notifications. Schlage supports this so why isn't it implemented??

8) When setting up triggers, there is no way to set one up for X hours before arrival. Instead we are forced to create 2 templates for each channel type, total of 6. 

9) On top of this, no ability to organize templates into folders. It's a hot mess.

10) No ability to use many basic tag automations. We're forced to use zapier for such basic stuff.

11) No ability to have any meaningful levels of access for employees.

I could keep going but you can just look at the feature request list and see how long ago stuff has been requested and ignored. I suspect people gave up on voting for features because there doesn't seem to be much activity.

I know some of this is planned or in development, but how long does OR plan to take? I've seen many in the planning or development stages that were requested years ago.  By the time everything is dialed in, this software will be for the dinosaurs.

For now I feel like i need to stick with OR because of the weeks involved in set up. It's a hard pill to swallow that it won't work for us after investing so much time.

Maybe there is a plan to hire more development help? Because that's what appears to be needed. I would gladly pay more for a better product.

1)The unified inbox isn't truly unified. Texts and emails are still separated.  -  correct, OR is not an email app; maybe they can in the future? However, channel messages, texts are all in the inbox

2) Zero customization of the list view columns, and a scroll bar at the bottom of all places. Their doesn't seem to be any interest in fixing this surprisingly. - not sure what you mean - which columns? There may not be interest in fixing as few to no users ask for it?

3) Way too much navigation is required when setting up templates and triggers 

4) Way too much unnecessary clicking when navigating. - not sure what you mean - seems subjective

5) Setting up templates is time consuming - no ability to even copy.  - Windows or any OS copy/paste works, but ye, thes ability to copy would be nice 

6) Setting up templates - no ability to create a single template that works for all channel types. Rich text should just be optional for email. yes there is such ability. I use some of the the same templates for vrbo, airbnb and booking.com

7) Door locks integration is very limited. No ability to send low battery notifications. Schlage supports this so why isn't it implemented?? don't know, I use erentallock, battery lasts a year at least, will take your word for it

8) When setting up triggers, there is no way to set one up for X hours before arrival. Instead we are forced to create 2 templates for each channel type, total of 6. not sure what you mean. You can create one trigger and specify applicable channels (listing site)

9) On top of this, no ability to organize templates into folders. It's a hot mess.

10) No ability to use many basic tag automations. We're forced to use zapier for such basic stuff.  not clear what "basic tag automation" is for you. I have tag automations to send cleaners a reminder for same-day turn days, send me a text reminding me to set thermostats, send guests a suggestion to purchase travel insurance, and mark those that did purchase insurance. 

11) No ability to have any meaningful levels of access for employees. edit: in development https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/team-access I think I have seen this as "requested" feature - check the requests forum - might be in the works already. But currently, you can already have team members (that have limited access that can be by property, by owner (if you are a PM) w/different permissions  ; you can also give full staff or read-only staff access. 

 2) It's only an issue on desktop and a smaller screen such as a laptop. If you go to list view, the right side is cut off. I'm forced to scroll down to the bottom, then scroll right, then scroll back to the top. If we could hide or resize the columns that would fix it. Or just put a scroll bar at the top. I think this one bugs me the most because we use list view so frequently and seems like an easy fix

4) You're right it's subjective. Its a personal preference.

6) thanks for pointing that out.

7) Wifi locks (encode) consume batteries much quicker than zwave or zigbee so it's a real issue.

8) We need to have employees given permissions to respond to messages without having access to financials. Hopefully this will be in the update.

1)The unified inbox isn't truly unified. Texts and emails are still separated.  -  correct, OR is not an email app; maybe they can in the future? However, channel messages, texts are all in the inbox

2) Zero customization of the list view columns, and a scroll bar at the bottom of all places. Their doesn't seem to be any interest in fixing this surprisingly. - not sure what you mean - which columns? There may not be interest in fixing as few to no users ask for it?

3) Way too much navigation is required when setting up templates and triggers 

4) Way too much unnecessary clicking when navigating. - not sure what you mean - seems subjective

5) Setting up templates is time consuming - no ability to even copy.  - Windows or any OS copy/paste works, but ye, thes ability to copy would be nice 

6) Setting up templates - no ability to create a single template that works for all channel types. Rich text should just be optional for email. yes there is such ability. I use some of the the same templates for vrbo, airbnb and booking.com

7) Door locks integration is very limited. No ability to send low battery notifications. Schlage supports this so why isn't it implemented?? don't know, I use erentallock, battery lasts a year at least, will take your word for it

8) When setting up triggers, there is no way to set one up for X hours before arrival. Instead we are forced to create 2 templates for each channel type, total of 6. not sure what you mean. You can create one trigger and specify applicable channels (listing site)

9) On top of this, no ability to organize templates into folders. It's a hot mess.

10) No ability to use many basic tag automations. We're forced to use zapier for such basic stuff.  not clear what "basic tag automation" is for you. I have tag automations to send cleaners a reminder for same-day turn days, send me a text reminding me to set thermostats, send guests a suggestion to purchase travel insurance, and mark those that did purchase insurance. 

11) No ability to have any meaningful levels of access for employees. edit: in development https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/team-access I think I have seen this as "requested" feature - check the requests forum - might be in the works already. But currently, you can already have team members (that have limited access that can be by property, by owner (if you are a PM) w/different permissions  ; you can also give full staff or read-only staff access. 

 2) It's only an issue on desktop and a smaller screen such as a laptop. If you go to list view, the right side is cut off. I'm forced to scroll down to the bottom, then scroll right, then scroll back to the top. If we could hide or resize the columns that would fix it. Or just put a scroll bar at the top. I think this one bugs me the most because we use list view so frequently and seems like an easy fix that would have no negative effects. But I'm not a developer.

4) You're right it's subjective. Its a personal preference.

6) thanks for pointing that out.

7) Wifi locks (encode) consume batteries much quicker than zwave or zigbee so it's a real issue.

11) We need to have employees given permissions to respond to messages without having access to financials. Hopefully this will be in the update.

Here you go, levels of access update https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/team-access?page=3#77570

Dan,

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Those who have been here a while know that we are very passionate about the product, release a large number of updates (actively weekly updates with monthly product blog posts that summarize them), care about our community, and build a lot of internal tooling to connect with users.

I appreciate you writing up this list and the back-and-forth. I agree with pretty much all of it, and, frankly, most of it is well known internally, has been discussed, and some of it has been tasked/scheduled.

(PS. There's some great little QOL (quality of life) ones on your list too like being able to customize list columns.  Last year, we put out sticky sort and saved filters for lists, so that was a step in this direction, but being able to customize columns has been back-burned for a while.)

The issue is the large number of features we are working on at any point in time. It's not that we don't care about this stuff or drag our feet.  It's that we are working on a wide roadmap, ranging across 8 "verticals" like PM, Channel Management, Websites, Accounting, and so on.  We have invested heavily in engineering - it's one of the largest teams in the company with 8 senior engineers.

Our burden is not just getting out new things but also circling back and maintaining the older things that tend to go stale or made need updates (ie. maintenance debt) over time.  We spend a lot of time in sysops, monitoring logs, watching for spikes, and adjusting features without users ever realizing what we're doing.  You mentioned that "OwnerRez seems to work without hiccups" which is what we are known for: fast speed, everything just works, not buggy.  That isn't magic.  That's the result of a lot of hard work behind the scenes to make the app feel and perform that way.

We're glad you're here, and thank you for contributing to the conversation.

Dan,

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Those who have been here a while know that we are very passionate about the product, release a large number of updates (actively weekly updates with monthly product blog posts that summarize them), care about our community, and build a lot of internal tooling to connect with users.

I appreciate you writing up this list and the back-and-forth. I agree with pretty much all of it, and, frankly, most of it is well known internally, has been discussed, and some of it has been tasked/scheduled.

(PS. There's some great little QOL (quality of life) ones on your list too like being able to customize list columns.  Last year, we put out sticky sort and saved filters for lists, so that was a step in this direction, but being able to customize columns has been back-burned for a while.)

The issue is the large number of features we are working on at any point in time. It's not that we don't care about this stuff or drag our feet.  It's that we are working on a wide roadmap, ranging across 8 "verticals" like PM, Channel Management, Websites, Accounting, and so on.  We have invested heavily in engineering - it's one of the largest teams in the company with 8 senior engineers.

Our burden is not just getting out new things but also circling back and maintaining the older things that tend to go stale or made need updates (ie. maintenance debt) over time.  We spend a lot of time in sysops, monitoring logs, watching for spikes, and adjusting features without users ever realizing what we're doing.  You mentioned that "OwnerRez seems to work without hiccups" which is what we are known for: fast speed, everything just works, not buggy.  That isn't magic.  That's the result of a lot of hard work behind the scenes to make the app feel and perform that way.

We're glad you're here, and thank you for contributing to the conversation.

Understood