Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.
Opportunities? 🤓 Yes, please! Don't miss out on this product update detailing our November 1st release with 17 updates. These nerdy nuggets include improvements to the Damage Protection program feature, Email List Report Tags Criteria added, Check-in Arrival Window Rule addition, and much more!
- Enhancements & Tweaks
- Damage Protection Insurance Updates
- Email List Report Enhancements
- Require Check-in/out Time Rule and Check-in End Time Rule Added
- Increased Owner ID Visibility for PMs
- Streamline Property Disable With Future Bookings
- PM Lock No Longer Set for Bookings With Open Transactions
- Vrbo API Connections Now Initiate Trigger with Renter Agreement Channel Template
- Bug Fixes
Enhancements & Tweaks
Damage Protection Insurance Updates
OwnerRez's built-in Damage Protection offering, paid for on a per-booking basis, protects against accidental damage a guest might cause while at your property. Powered by RentalGuardian®, Damage Protection allows you to have such coverage without having to involve the guest at all. While there has been no change to the cost and coverages, we've updated the Damage Protection feature in several ways.
Coverage Names were changed to match what RentalGuardian now refers to the coverage levels as (e.g. Gold Standard, Gold Enhanced).
OwnerRez has also updated the program's agreement terms (which hasn't been done since Aug 2022 when the in-app agreement was added) to include Payment Terms, several paragraphs just above where the user is asked to sign.
The other big change is to allow users the ability to add damage protection when converting a Blocked-Off Time event to a Booking. During the convert to booking step, you can checkmark whether to add the default level of damage protection from the property's DP settings to the booking. As long as the dates are in the future the system will present this as an option.
Similarly, in the rare event that a booking was canceled that never had damage protection coverage, but is now being reactivated (but you've since turned on damage protection), the re-enable screen now has the same Apply checkbox option.
There was a Damage Protection bug that we fixed as part of this work, which you can read about in the Bug Fixes section below.
Haven't turned on Damage Protection yet? You can opt into the feature by navigating to Settings > Financial > Damage Protection.
Watch the Damage Protection Insurance Video to learn more.
Email List Report Enhancements
Sending marketing emails to previous guests can be an effective strategy for generating repeat bookings, and utilizing OwnerRez's Email List Report is a crucial component of that strategy.
We've improved the Email List Report by making some significant new changes.
- Tags have been added to the Email List Report criteria, allowing users to filter their report results.
- Report column names have been changed to be more intuitive, including:
- Latest Interaction Type
- Latest Interaction Property
- Latest Interaction Channel
- Latest Interaction Occurred
- Latest Interaction Arrival
- Latest Interaction Arrival Month/Year
Check out our Email Blasts support article to learn more.
Require Check-in/out Time Rule and Check-in End Time Rule Added
While not usually a problem with smart locks, coordinating guest check-ins with keyed locks can be challenging if guests arrive after business hours to pick up their rental keys in person.
And OwnerRez users who are Airbnb API-connected may have noticed the relatively recent addition of a check-in window on Airbnb's platform. However, users could not set check-in arrival window rules in OwnerRez.
We've now added check-in window property rules that allow OwnerRez users to set a check-in window. Users can add their property check-in window by navigating to their specific Property > Rules > Defaults > Check-in.
Increased Owner ID Visibility for PMs
Property Managers who juggle multiple properties can find attributing expenses and other transactions to specific property owners complicated. OwnerRez already has many import processes that expose Owner IDs (expenses, owner applicability, etc.), so we decided to add more visible Owner IDs in other areas as well.
OwnerRez has exposed Owner IDs in-app in the following sections.
- Owner pages that include the handy copy button
.
- Owner Configuration Dashboard
- The Owner ID is also included in exports when users use the Owner Grid Export tool.
Streamline Property Disable With Future Bookings
OwnerRez used to require users to manually cancel future bookings before disabling a property, causing confusion and inconvenience.
We've updated this process to automatically cancel all future bookings as a property is disabled.
PM Lock No Longer Set for Bookings With Open Transactions
Previously, when a booking was fully remitted on an Owner Statement it was automatically PM locked, which locked the charges, etc. There are now two situations where even if a booking looks to be fully remitted on Owner Statements, it won't be automatically PM locked.
- If there is a Refundable Damage Deposit (RDD) that is not yet released or kept.
- If Lynnbrook is the payment processor and there are no transaction fees on the booking yet.
Learn more by reading the PM Lock support article.
Vrbo API Connections Now Initiate Trigger with Renter Agreement Channel Template
When Vrbo Messaging was released in June, new Vrbo API connections did not automatically configure a request to complete a renter agreement channel template with an associated trigger creation.
When a new Vrbo API connection is activated by OwnerRez users, a renter agreement channel template with an associated trigger is automatically configured, just like when a new Airbnb API connection is activated. When the second listing channel is connected (Airbnb or Vrbo), it will be added to the first trigger using the same renter agreement channel template.
Learn more by reading our Channel Templates and Request for Contact Info (real email address) and Signing support articles.
Bug Fixes
Bypass Vrbo Channel Bridge Booking Header Single Item Endpoint. Vrbo removed an endpoint used by the OwnerRez Channel Bridge to download guest physical address booking information during the Channel Bridge export process. We resolved this glitch by creating a workaround solution to no longer populate the guest's physical address during the Vrbo CB export process. The guest's physical address can instead be populated during the renter agreement signing process. All other guest booking data will continue to be exported from Vrbo during the CB process as expected.
Don't Send User or Guest Payment Receipts for MoR Payments. OR users were being sent payment alerts for Booking.com (BDC) Merchant of Record (MoR) payments to OR users, which was superfluous as BDC manages the payments on their side. So OR will no longer send payment alerts for BDC Merchant of Record (MoR) payments. OR will also no longer send payment alerts or guest receipts for newly added MoR channels such as Hopper and Whimstay.
Don't Cancel DP When Canceled After Arrival vs Departure. Bookings with Damage Protection (DP) added that were canceled, either prior to or after arrival, had the DP incorrectly canceled as well. This issue has been resolved. Bookings canceled after arrival will still have Damage Protection.
Fix Timeout Issues With Vrbo Listing Import. OR users were experiencing intermittent timeout errors while attempting to add a property through the Vrbo Listing Import process. This glitch was fixed, allowing the Vrbo Listing Import process to run correctly.
Review Guest Form Design Tweaks. Following our October 9th Redesigned Guest Review Form release, we completed some clean-up tasks, including removing extra spaces, dashes, unnecessary parentheses, and padding.
Show Expense Category Columns Based on All Booking Expenses. Not Just Charge-linked. Bookings created by OR PM users encountered incorrect expense amounts displayed on statements due to a linking issue. The data was correct, but the statements listed incorrect expense amounts. This glitch has been corrected so that expense amounts will be correctly linked and displayed on statements.
Show Door Dodes If They Exist, Even if There is a Subsequent Error. On rare occasions, if a door code encountered an error, the error was displayed in OwnerRez, but the old door code was no longer visible. This could be problematic for guests as the OR user could no longer access the most recently generated and functional door code. This glitch has been corrected, and OR users will now be able to view the last door code generated even if there was a subsequent error.
Show Selected File on New Blog Header/category Teaser Images. When selecting image files for either Hosted Website blog headers or categories, users could not preview or view the selected images until they clicked the "save" button. However, after clicking "save," the page would close, and the user had to reopen it to verify that the selected image was actually saved. This bug has been fixed, and image files selected for either Hosted Website blog headers or categories will be visible correctly for preview before the users click on the "save" button.
When Syncing Airbnb Transactions, Look Farther Ahead for Upcoming Bookings. The Airbnb Transaction Sync process has been optimized to now check for any upcoming payments up to 7 days after the departure of a given booking.
Google Vacation Rentals: Taxes and Fees (Mostly Fees) Need to Calculate Applicable Date Ranges and Length of Stays. Private Beta Flat fees applied to the length of stay (e.g., deep cleaning fee for stays of 7+ nights) did not have a visible length of stay qualifier to configure. We have resolved this issue by ensuring that the Length of Stay qualifier fields are visible and configurable when adding Taxes and Fees.