How do you celebrate National Fun at Work Day?
Here at OwnerRez, we have a weekly Book Club 📖 (Atomic Habits is our current read) and regular GUaM 🏋️ (Get Up and Move) sessions. But even when we're having fun, like celebrating our ten-year anniversary at our company retreat in the Dominican Republic, we're always working hard! Read all about it in this Product Update detailing our January 24th release with 19 updates, including Booking.com Messaging now in your inbox.
- New Features
- Booking.com Messaging Added to the Inbox Public Beta!
- Glamping Hub as an Official Channel Coming Soon
- Enhancements & Tweaks
- Hubitat and Igloo Door Lock Integration Improvements Private Beta
- Bug Fixes
New Features
Booking.com Messaging Added to the Inbox Public Beta!
Booking.com messaging has arrived in your inbox!
For those accounts connected via API to Booking.com (BDC) anyway, native in-app messaging is now available (on a go-forward basis). Corresponding with BDC guests directly in OwnerRez allows users to unify their guest messaging even more. With OwnerRez's guest conversation view and channel templates/triggers, you can save time and automate more of your messaging to be delivered via the Booking.com channel (or "on the platform").
If you already use Airbnb or Vrbo messaging in OwnerRez, you'll be pretty comfortable with the inclusion of Booking.com messaging.
OwnerRez has worked diligently in collaboration with Booking.com to ensure the seamless appearance of your channel messages within the OwnerRez Inbox. Users can navigate to their Inbox by clicking on the CRM dropdown menu and selecting Inbox.
New Booking.com messages will be listed in the Inbox. Note that the Via column indicates where the messages are from.
Clicking on each message opens the message in the Conversation View. When users open the Conversation View, they can see any comments that your Booking.com guests have added, allowing them to respond directly to their BDC guest within OwnerRez.
Booking.com messaging history works on a go-forward basis starting January 26th (or when you connect to Booking.com via API).
Update your channel triggers today to include Booking.com as an additional listing site to make use of this time-saving automation!
Do you see "echo" messages (i.e., something you sent the guest) coming back from Booking.com? That is probably happening because you have a trigger in OwnerRez sending an email template to your Booking.com guests.
To fix: Go in and switch that trigger (or create a new one) to send a channel template to Booking.com guests instead. This will be a cleaner experience for the guest and stop the echo message from happening.
If you use the same email trigger for different types of bookings, put "everything but Booking.com" on the trigger criteria like you do for Airbnb. Then, make sure that a channel trigger is sent.
The reason the email one creates an echo is that when you email the Booking.com guest, it sends a message to their platform email address (e.g., xxxxx@guest.booking.com), which lands in the messaging system. The messaging system strips out the text and adds it to the existing messaging thread. OwnerRez is then alerted by Booking.com that a new message was added to the thread, not realizing that it was the email you sent. When you switch to a channel trigger, this will stop because the message will be created on the thread directly by OwnerRez. No emails will be created on either side.
Glamping Hub as an Official Channel Coming Soon
Be on the lookout for our upcoming integration with Glamping Hub as an Official Channel.
Enhancements & Tweaks
Hubitat and Igloo Door Lock Integration Improvements Private Beta
The upcoming OwnerRez Hubitat and Igloo Door Lock Integrations are moving along! We've updated the following in both integrations. The Schlage locks integration also benefited from many of these updates!
- Lock Batch process updates
- Better handling of multiple locks at the same property
- Improved error messages
- Enhanced Door code lock Sync and Regeneration processes
- Timezone normalizations
- Upgraded Property dropdown menus
These updates, made under the covers, may seem insignificant to users, but they lead to improved API responses and usability. It also brings both integrations much closer to being opened up for public beta!
Bug Fixes
Booking List Export Does Not Export Booked Dates Correctly in Some User Cultures. Booking exports initiated from the Booking List View exported dates in a text format rather than the expected date format for those cells. We fixed this glitch, and Booking exports will export the dates column in the correct date format.
Cap Maximum Advanced Reservation to 360 days for Booking.com v1.1 API. The Booking.com v1.0 API allowed users to send availability information outside the supported 360 days without returning an error. OR corrected the Booking.com v1.1 API to cap the maximum advanced reservation to the supported 360 days.
Door Codes are Generated in Some Cases Even When Generate Codes for Blocks is Disabled. OR encountered a regression where door lock codes were generated for blocks despite the user disabling door lock code generation for blocks. This regression has been resolved, ensuring that door lock codes will not be generated for blocks if the user has disabled door lock code generation for blocks.
Filter Out Child Rates From Booking.com Property Mapping UI. Child Rates were improperly displayed in the Booking.com Property Mapping user interface. We resolved this issue, and Child Rates will no longer be displayed in the Booking.com Property Mapping user interface.
Filters on Team Grids (Portal and Staff) Have Confusing and Inconsistent Persistence Behavior. Both the Portal and Staff Team Access filter grids' Clear and Reset buttons were not acting as expected and continued to display filtered results based on conditions previously set by users. OR fixed this glitch, and the Portal and Staff Team Access filter grids will now act as expected and correctly.
Fix a Typo in Owner Statements. Owner Statements contained a typo where the word "booking" was duplicated on some expense descriptions. OR corrected this typo in Owner Statements, and the word "booking" will no longer be repeated.
Hubitat Common Locks Fail to Sync Properly. Hubitat connected common (e.g., shared main entrance) and multiple (e.g., front and back door) door lock mappings failed to sync correctly. We resolved these issues to ensure that common and multiple-type door lock mappings sync correctly.
Large Number of Properties on Portal Access Display are Cut Off on Some View Ports. Some Portal Team Access users with access to accounts with large numbers of properties encountered a visual bug that truncated or cut off the list of properties. OR corrected this glitch to ensure that Portal Team Access users can view complete lists of all properties.
Optimize Bookings Ribbon First Load. Booking Ribbon calendar loading times were slow for OR users with many properties. We have optimized the Booking Ribbon calendar metadata build loading times to ensure that accounts with large numbers of properties load faster.
Portal user > Reset Password Button Fails in Some Cases. Some Portal Team Access users encountered Reset Password failures because the Reset Password email incorrectly included the inviteId field instead of the id field. We fixed this bug, and Portal Team Access users' Reset Password emails will now contain the correct id field.
Remove Mention of Renter Agreement From {BBINFO}. The sentence contained in the {BBINFO} field code, "An electronically-signed copy of the renter agreement will be emailed to you." has been determined to be unnecessary as the {BBINFO} field code pertains to a high-level overview about billing shown to the guest in the confirmation email and has been removed.
Review Date Incorrectly Updated on Subsequent Airbnb Webhooks. Updated Airbnb reviews displayed the channel review period expiration date rather than the expected actual written date on the updated review. We have fixed this bug to display the exact written date on the updated review correctly.
Schlage Logic to Match Existing Code to Booking Fails. An OR user with a Schlage API-connected lock encountered door lock code generation failures due to a timeout error. When the system attempted a retry, they received a "The requested access code name is already in use on the device" error message because the door lock code already existed. OR corrected this glitch to now attempt to match an existing code on Schlage locks upon retry.
Send a System Alert When a Deposit Fails to Import Correctly. OR deposit import failures failed to send system email alerts to account users. OR resolved this issue to ensure that deposit import failures will send system email alerts to account users.
Show Cancellation Policy As-of-date in Travel Insurance Section on Quote. Full Cancellation Policies were incorrectly displayed within the Travel Insurance section of quotes rather than correctly displaying the effective Cancellation Policy as of the time of the quote. We corrected this bug to display only the effective Cancellation Policy as of the time of the quote.
Treat Nofie as Request To Book for Airbnb Request To Book Requirement. Nofie API-connected users who attempted to complete a Request to Book (RTB) Airbnb API connection encountered errors stating that they had to switch their Nofie API connection to RTB to meet Airbnb's requirement. However, Nofie was incorrectly listed as Instant Book, leading to this error. OR resolved this glitch, and Nofie will be correctly listed as Request to Book (RTB).
