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It isn't looking optimistic for being able to automate Channel Bridge, because of increasing security restrictions and the way it has to operate as a browser plugin. While theoretically technically feasible, automating it would be not as stable and reliable as it would need to be to not annoy the heck out of everybody.
But the good news is, for Airbnb at least the API is out of beta and has no minimum-property restrictions. We recommend that every OwnerRez user who lists with AIrbnb to switch over to using the API right away, unless there is a specific reason why this won't work with your business workflow.
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb
I just sent in a support question for this.
I could even use this for every booking. I use channel bridge after every booking (and airbnb is the worst since it only sends dates to owner rez)
Please-Please create this feature.. for Christmas :)
Thank you
VacationDaytona said:
I dont really understand the difference between regular rates and spot rates.I believe that spot rates can be thought of as an override to "regular rates". And spot rates are specific to a given date.
When you look at the Rate Calendar do you see the rates you expect? I would expect that the Rate Calendar will show regular rates in your case. And then if you wanted to modify a few days you could do so directly from the Rate Calendar, and I would *think* that would create a spot rate.
You should always be able to download your rates regardless of whether they are regular or spot rates. Try going to Tools/Import Export and then look for two places where you can Export Rates/Seasons or Export Spot Rates.
I dont really understand the difference between regular rates and spot rates.
Seems like 1 trumps the other - so not sure which I should change - so I just adjust my regular rates.
I currently adjust rates weekly - but agree it would be nice to download my changes or see a history to see where I started with the rates for the next year.
Would be nice to have some specialized custom fields that are dynamic.
For example, I would love to include some real time metrics about my property in emails that are sent to guests.
For instance, here are some examples:
E1) We currently have these available dates still available for the current season - Email us if you are interested!
<field would insert either a table of dates or preferably a calendar snapshot of availability>
E2) We've gotten XX 5-star reviews in the past year, can we ask you to add another?
<<XX would be replaced with the count of 5-star reviews>
E3) Not free, but would be nice to include a current weather forecast 2-3 days ahead of an arrival. Seems like you could do that with the api at https://openweathermap.org/price
E4) etc .... I bet there a lots of useful informations that would help to make emails (or eventually texts) more dynamic and interesting.
Not sure if this is needed or practical, however it seems like there may be situations where the use of custom fields would be useful to personalize property descriptions based on the different OTA sites. Specifically, I could use it now to include a paragraph in VRBO about the need to collect additional taxes 8.5% after booking.
Can y'all add a field in triggers to prevent a trigger from executing if the checkbox for 'guest has a problem' is checked?
I use the guest has a problem field to flag guests that I don't wish to host again. So with this enhancement I can avoid sending a followup email asking for reviews or for future rebooking.
If there's another way to do this already please advise !
Maybe I'm asking for too much here, but would be nice if OR would keep track of every pushed nightly rate/min nights.
For instance, let's say I'm really organized and I push spot rates every monday throughout the winter season. By summer I have pushed rates maybe 20 times for the months of Dec->Apr. For the earliest Dec dates I might have only pushed them 1 or two times, but for the late April dates I might have pushed them 20 times.
Would be nice to have a graphical view for every single day showing how and when the rate changed. This would also be a nice way to check that nothing crazy ever happened to my rates.
I'm thinking of a vertically oriented calendar with one date per row, and next to the given date is a small sparkline type of chart. If the sparkline is flat and then drops by 50% it's obvious that I kept rates high and then cut them in half. Or maybe it would show a few rate reductions. Hovering over the sparkline should show exact values.
Maybe there is an easier way to portray this, haven't given it too much thought. I just like the idea that there is a track record of when spot rates were updated, and how they changed. The fact that some dates will have just a few updates and other might have many complicates this.
In addition, another feature I'd like would be that OR only pushes changes. At the moment everything gets pushed, and it's really hard to identify what I might have changed. If I have a session of 30 minutes where I'm using the rate calendar across multiple units I might have made 30 or more tiny changes/tweaks. But I can't see just those changes in the detail before pushing. Would be nice if OR could recognize which changes were made since the last push, and then just show those in the list. That would make me more confident that I didn't accidentally change dates that I didn't intend to change. And that there are the changes I thought I made. As an example, if I accidentally am looking at the wrong property (easy to do) I could mistakenly change rates, but I'd detect it when I went to push rates if I glanced at the details of each property before pushing any. I'd certainly notice if I thought I'd changed rates for every property but one ended up with no changes.
Valerie R said:
Thanks for the suggestions about adding custom fields.But back to the original topic...the screen shot below illustrates why I made this suggestion. If we were able to link email templates to particular properties then when sending an email from a booking instead of seeing a long list of templates (like in the screen shot) the system could only show those templates linked to that property.
https://snipboard.io/Kq2DNE.jpg
Valerie - It likely possible to replace all of the individual emails you have that are specific to a property with a single version, and then use the custom fields. I think it would be a lot easier to manage that way, because if you want to add something that applies to all units then you would add it in one place rather than in your email for DP, CMR, BB, etc. I guess I'm just restating my prior post suggestions, which is that custom fields are the way to go to avoid duplication.
But maybe the OR guys will have a way to do what you're asking...
Thanks for the suggestions about adding custom fields.
But back to the original topic...the screen shot below illustrates why I made this suggestion. If we were able to link email templates to particular properties then when sending an email from a booking instead of seeing a long list of templates (like in the screen shot) the system could only show those templates linked to that property.
https://snipboard.io/Kq2DNE.jpg
Thanks, Lydia!
Yep! The confirming reservation, followup, etc. actions are things we're starting to think about. Our current idea is to establish a booking status and show by color on the ribbon so it's easy to see if it needs items to confirm, payment is overdue, etc. No ETA yet, but we're working on the planning.
If you have a custom field that's only used on some properties for trash instructions or other special case things, that's fine too -- leave the other properties blank and it'll render as a blank in the email. Just make sure the surrounding design of the email is fine with having a blank there or content and you'll be good to go.
Yep, that makes a lot of sense -- making the availability display for sharing a built in feature instead of having to manually set up widgets and juggle URL's.
We've got plans for a housekeeping/staff module upcoming next year (yeah, I know we were talking about it this year, but the Airbnb API preempted that). With that it'll get at a lot of those detailed reports and displays for staff and cleaners.
Will keep this in mind as we get closer in the planning process!
Valerie R said:
Hi Rich,I was thinking today of sending a few feature requests for OR to consider when I remembered this earlier suggestion you sent. Re-reading it, it seems you are asking me to go to "Say No to VRBO Service Fee" and "Short Term Rental University" to submit feature requests for OR. Is this correct? Where can I find these forums? I don't see a link here in OR, only "Feedback" which is why I thought this was the place for such suggestions.
Hi Valerie,
I don't really know why I responded with those facebook groups. Very sorry, I can only imagine that I was trying to respond to someone else's post and got confused.
If you scroll down the page when you are reading forum posts here you'll see other forums, the appropriate one for a feature request is called (drum roll) feature requests ;-)
Sorry about the confusion!
Is this something where you could create a template the check in for all properties, but offers the specific reminder for those properties where trash needs to be put out? Just an idea. I think some of property management gets creative because we have many different ways to accomplish a similar task. I like the way you are thinking about this.
Valerie - there are no links to those places you mention because they are groups on Facebook. Seems like this Forum is the best place if you have questions for OR programmers/staff. Only other place you can go for general advice from other OR users (not from OR employees) is a Facebook page called "Unofficial OwnerRez Support Group." That page is NOT managed by OR.
Hi Rich,
I typically set a reminder for the items below. I've created custom email templates and set a trigger so that these reminders are automatically sent to me at the desired times.
CONFIRM REZ ITEMS (used to check the booking 21 days before arrival to make sure we have everything needed before sending the Check-in packet: paid in full, signed rental agreement, copy of ID)
FOLLOW UP: reminder to refund security deposit (if applicable) and send a follow up letter depending on which site the booking came from)
PAYMENT IS DUE: reminder for me to be aware of a payment that is due in case I need to trigger the payment or to check to be sure it is scheduled to be sent automatically
PAYMENT IS DUE (FINAL): reminder for a booking that has more than two payments; this one is for the final payment. (I had to create this reminder in OR because the system would not let me use the "PAYMENT IS DUE" template on the same booking twice. It presented an error that said the template was already in use.
Hi Rich,
I was thinking today of sending a few feature requests for OR to consider when I remembered this earlier suggestion you sent. Re-reading it, it seems you are asking me to go to "Say No to VRBO Service Fee" and "Short Term Rental University" to submit feature requests for OR. Is this correct? Where can I find these forums? I don't see a link here in OR, only "Feedback" which is why I thought this was the place for such suggestions.
Thanks Rich, for the suggestions. I also love the custom fields for the bookings. But this won't help me much in the situation I am describing.
For instance, I have 2 properties that I might need to send an email to a guest to remind them to put out the trash for pick up. I'd rather send them a reminder email than include the information in the Guest Instructions, because it is my experience that guests don't read those instructions unless they are looking for some piece of information in particular (like the address of the property or the wifi information). Plus this would not apply to EVERY guest, just the ones who might be staying during dates that include a trash pick up day.
This is why I made the suggestion originally.
One more thing occurred to me, maybe there could be two flavors of this new field, one being just the link and the other being a screenshot image of the calendar along with the link, and some words about checking the link for latest updates.
People love a graphical view, this would be an awesome addition to OR!
I’d put it in every template email that’s sent to non guests, such as
Me
My wife
Coowner sister in law
Cleaner
Daughters
Each of the non guests have an interest in knowing how many bookings there are. My daughters for example are keenly interested in knowing when one of our units remain unbooked as a weekend approaches.
Sister in law gets a standard email at every new nook in in her co owned unit.
My experience is that few people use bookmarks on their cell phones. Heck, even I have none. So the next best thing is that I give them, and myself, a link in a lot of emails. So all they need to do is search on their phone for a recent email from me and they can see the ribbon calendar.
Obviously there is a workaround, just creat an account custom field. But to me this is an obvious good thing to have for all the reasons I’ve given.
So what is the business purpose you'd intend to use this for? Just trying to understand your goal.
Ken T said:
Can you provide more specific examples of exactly how you're trying to use this? You can send guests to the URL for your website if you have one, that way they can see all your properties if you have more than one.I don’t have a website. This is just a suggestion that would make it easier for all users to access the OR hosted ribbon.
I didn’t even know it existed until recently, and even when I did it took me two minutes to find it.
I suspect many users of templates along with the insert fields have periodically scrolled thru the list of all insertable fields just looking for interesting ones, and this one would be very interesting. Even to users with a website.
Can you provide more specific examples of exactly how you're trying to use this? You can send guests to the URL for your website if you have one, that way they can see all your properties if you have more than one.
I frequently like to include a link to the OR-hosted ribbon for each property. Would be nice if there was a custom field so that I could insert it automatically. Obviously I could create a custom field and just use that, but seems like most users would appreciate the convenience of having it in the insertable fields lists.
Unfortunately not. Hopefully next year sometime.
Chris,
Any update on the text messaging feature?
Scott
Please please please. This feature is a must have. In my area, beach house weeks are multiple thousands. Guests don't want to front such a large amount a t deposit, and I don't want to leave a large amount to the final payment. I need at least three payments.
Hopefully this is a simple addition, now that I'm using the Rate Calendar for 100% of my rate & min night settings, I could save a mouse click if there was a link directly in the Rate Calendar page.
And for anyone not familiar with where to go next after changing rates/min nights it will be a nice way to guide them to the correct place to push rates. The first few times I used it I had to poke around until I found the place.