General Help and Questions

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I was setting up a Season which requires bookings around the 4th of July to do a couple things - have a 4 night minimum and not check in or out on July 3rd, 4th or 5th. Looks like I can't set it and forget it because the "Day Restrictions" on whether check in/out is allowed will need to be changed each year. Is there a way to set DATE restrictions so the season would roll from year to year?

Also - once I set these seasons, which parts actually transfer to VRBO and ABB when I push rates?

Thanks!

Honestly, these triggers that send out template emails are one of THE most helpful things. I probably have 6 or 7 different emails that go to guests with confirmed reservations. Plus I've been able to write templates that are specific to winter driving or summer use of the pool, and then set the trigger to only go out based on the "season" of the reservation.

I also very much appreciate the ability to limit who gets a trigger. For instance, it's nice to be able to say someone who hasn't paid in full won't get the info on how to use our door locks or access the Wifi.

Thank you! I'm still baffled by the last two Evolve bookings haven't synced. That's why I'm having to create these inquiries/quotes/bookings manually. So weird. It's been working fine until just recently.

Nope, just skip over the emailing part of the quote by clicking the "Change Charges" button to go over to the quote. Then click the "Convert To Booking" link in the yellow box at the top-right.

Hmm. Can you send over the file and a screenshot with the error to help@ownerreservations.com? We'll have a look.

Email templates you want to go out for every booking like a 7 days before arrival welcome letter can be done as triggers.

If you want to schedule a one-off for a particular booking, go to the bottom of the Emails tab of a booking and you can use the Add Scheduled Email button to schedule them there.

Currently, these must be an email template in the system -- you can't edit the message just for a specific booking, you have to set up an email template first.

If I create a quote from an inquiry, do I have to EMAIL it in order to then "convert booking" from the quote? Because I can't email quotes to people who have already paid through another site. (I hope I'm explaining this the right way)

Thanks Chris!

You can convert a quote to an booking, but you can't convert an inquiry to a booking. If you want, you can go to an inquiry and create a quote from it, then convert that quote to a booking.

I got a booking through Evolve that never synced with my OR calendar. So, I forwarded the booking confirmation email to to my OwnerRez email address. Doing so created an inquiry, but I can't figure out how to convert that inquiry to an actual booking on my calendar. I could swear there used to be a "Convert To Booking" button somewhere but dang if I can find it. Anyone know?

Thanks!

Hello,

I am testing using OR and have not been able to find any information about the ability to schedule an email to be sent at a future date? I understand about Email Templates and that we can send an email from a booking using a template, but are we able to schedule the emails for future dates?

I have several emails for each booking that need to be sent at various times throughout the life of the booking. Can we schedule them in advance? (I am asking about emails that we might not necessarily want to set with a trigger.)

If the answer is "yes", how/where can we see those scheduled emails? Are we able to edit the queued messages?

Canceled on both. I suspect it has to do with refund somehow. I think Airbnb kept their service fee.

Yes, we have plans to add an ID upload option via custom fields like the other custom fields during the renter agreement signing. That would be just an image, though, without verifying.

@Chris -- interesting idea on the third party verification. I think Safely is now here: https://safely.ai/ -- that looks like some sort of combined verification + damage protection insurance, but based on their site I'm not sure they're actually looking at an ID.

I see there are others that do ID verification like: https://www.trulioo.com/product/id-document-verification/ -- they will do similar to Airbnb where you send a snapshot of front and back of drivers license and compare to a selfie.

I think you really need to retain the ID for chargeback defense -- that's going to need to be sent with the documentation packet. An attestation of "yes, I verified the ID" is going to be weaker than actually showing the ID that matches the card.

Is it a case where it's showing canceled in Airbnb but not canceled in OwnerRez? The CB import looks for that when it goes to process as a sanity check.

Can you send over the file and a screenshot with the error to help@ownerreservations.com? We'll have a look.

Yep, the rule will send out those reminders when needed. There are a couple different cases of this:

a) If a guests books with a credit card (not PayPal), then the secdep will be automatically scheduled and they won't need a reminder they'll just get a receipt email when it's reserved
b) If it comes time for a security deposit and there's no scheduled one, the system will send the "Send Security Deposit Reminder to Guest" template which includes a link so the guest can enter their card (or put on a hold via PayPal)
c) If you want to ask for a one-off secdep, go to the Transactions tab of the booking and do Request > Security Deposit. This will use the "Send Security Deposit Request Form to Guest"

You don't need to set up a trigger for the System Messages type templates -- those will be sent by the system at the appropriate time. You only need triggers for new custom messages you add for things like pre-arrival welcome letters.

We were pushing out an update earlier this morning -- this is now fixed and you'll be able to update those charges.

Entered a booking this morning for an owner. When I delete the charges for the stay, I am receiving an error message in red. "Error updating charges. Charges have not been saved. Please review the following problem and try again: A error error occurred. Try refreshing the page. Anyone know how to do this?

I have discovered it while back and did not bother to report.
I had an airbnb booking canceled and refunded (good will refund). Now when i run CB import, it chokes on that row. I edit the spreadsheet to remove that row, and then import works. You may want to look into it. There is a workaround (deleting a row) but a minor annoyance.

No, I believe it is a property rule. Go under property> Rules. It is there when /how sec dep has to be reserved etc.

Adding my support for this... Chris L has it exactly correct, in today's environment guests *should* be concerned about sending their private (eg: driver's license) to some owner/landlord. A good solution would be a 3rd party that maintains the ID and provides some assurance about the identity of the person signing the agreement.

I really don't know how to implement this, but it would be a game-changer feature for OR to add ;-)

OK - I was using "security" and "damage" interchangeably. So what I was talking about was the "security deposit" - the one where there is a hold against the guest's credit card. With that said, I still am not sure about:

There are two System Messages that relate to obtaining the deposit:

Send Security Deposit Reminder to Guest
This email sends the guest a reminder that their security deposit is due.

Send Security Deposit Request Form to Guest
This email asks the guest to authorize or schedule a security deposit with a link to an online form where they can enter their payment information.

I have actually modified the first message that reminds the guest their deposit is due. I've also gone into my Surcharges & Discounts and set up the deposit and I verified that it shows up on a quote and is not taxed

Where I'm clueless is finding the trigger for this. Do I have to set up the trigger?

Also - why are there two different System Messages. Wouldn't we want to remind the guest that their deposit is due and at the same time give them the Request Form?

Booking.com was the worst about canceling, all but one reservation canceled. PLUS there site is NOT set up to handle homes. We stopped using them.

There was no API integration previously. You're referring to Channel Bridge, but that's not API (strictly speaking). Channel Bridge is a sophisticated screen scraping tool that simulates you (the Airbnb user) to crawl and grab data from your account.

We have been working furiously on a real API integration with Airbnb at a partner level. It's done now, and we're certified with Airbnb but adding users on a beta one-at-a-time basis as we work through some bugs and testing.

Start reading here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb

You're gonna wanna be on it 😊

Last time I tried it only allowed to push rates and import bookings. Is there any new features to it now?

We have addendum agreements for special events. For this, we use Docusign, inside their platform they have an option not only to electronically sign but you can request the signer to attach an IMAGE or in this case an ID. This allows guests to attach their photo right into the legal agreement, that way we have it stored in a file. It is super helpful however we would love to have it all inside OwnerRez!

There isn't any kind of task list in OR itself, but I have some email triggers that email me a reminder to do things like send guests a welcome message on the booking platform (I've found that with Airbnb, guests often don't see the emailed welcome letter as they are expecting all messaging to come through the Airbnb platform instead), contact guests who haven't signed my rental agreement, etc.

The set-up is a little unintuitive (you create a new email template and put your own address in the To: field instead of the template defaulting to the guest's email address) but it seems to work for my needs.

Thirding this! I love that OR offers electronic signing of rental agreements, and ID verification would really be the capstone of risk reduction and chargeback defense.

I do ask guests to send me a photo of their ID, but occasionally I get a guest who is a little concerned about exposing info to a stranger via email. Honestly, I'd rather have a trusted third party service that maintains secured servers and a strict privacy policy verify the ID and just tell me pass/fail anyway than have to worry about handling guests' PII myself.

I've seen this offered a few other places -- I thought I saw that Guesty offered it, but I can't find it now, but maybe it was another software provider. I've also seen a couple of third-party options; one was clearly a high-volume option and when I contacted them, they had a huge minimum requirement and so it wasn't feasible, but I just found this one on a Google search: https://safelystay.wixsite.com/safely/property-managers -- they have an API that OwnerRez could hook up with. I'm sure there are others.

I'd love it if the system would either enforce that name on the card, the name on the ID, and the name of the person signing the rental agreement matches or flag bookings where there isn't a match so I can investigate further.

At the very least, though, I'd almost rather have OR give guests a way to upload or email ID directly to the system so I can keep it inside OR instead of having to sift through emails in my personal inbox to find the right one. But integration with a third-party ID verification system would be even better!

Yes, I know it is still there. Just not as convenient. ; )

It's still there! Just moved to a different location -- go to Tools > Email History.

It's still there! Just moved to a different location -- go to Tools > Email History

Yes Monica, Most of us are missing that and hoping for a reinstatement!