Happy Internaut Day! 🖥️
There's uncertainty about its celebration date, with some sources citing August 23rd and others August 24th. But before mounting your internet search to solve this mystery, investigate our latest product update summarizing our August 23rd with 15 updates with lots of handy enhancements, including the ability to add Header Anchor Links to Hosted Websites, helpful new field codes, and some nifty new mouse interaction improvements to the Rate and Ribbon Calendars!
Enhancements & Tweaks
Header Anchor Links Now Available for Hosted Websites
Back in October 2022, OwnerRez announced that we'd added Header Anchor Link Added to Support Articles, and now they're available for Hosted Websites too!
Users can now add their own by navigating to Settings > Hosted Websites > their Hosted Website > the Webpage or Blog page they wish to edit and using the Rich Text editor toolbar to add linked anchors to their own Hosted Website.
You have been able to add links to other pages, but adding a link to an area on the same webpage or blog post is a little different.
You can add anchors anywhere on your website when entering text using the Rich Text editor. However, note that Heading 1-4 are the only heading sizes that work with anchors.
Add an Anchor to the specific section of your webpage that you wish to link to. Place your cursor in the first space to the left of the text you want to add your linked anchor and click the Anchor icon on the editor bar.
And the Anchor pop-up window opens. Add the Anchor name in the ID field, theme-parks in this example. Click Ok.
Then, highlight the text you want to create a link with and click the Insert/edit link icon on the editor bar.
And the Insert Link pop-up window opens. Note that your highlighted text is already in the text to display field, and select the correct anchor you added in the previous step from the Target dropdown Menu. Click Ok.
Users will see that an Anchor Icon has been added to the left of the text in the Rich Text editor. Click Save and Close or Save.
When the webpage or blog post is viewed online, those new links will be displayed in the URL address bar.
Users can link or share specific sections of your webpage with guests by clicking on the link on your webpage or blog post and copying the address URL.
New System Field Codes Added for Max Pets and Contact Address
Max Pets Field Code
Conveying a consistent description of the maximum number of pets allowed at your property could be difficult across all websites and messaging templates. Consistency in messaging requires careful attention.
We've added a new Max Pets field code, {PMAXPETS}, the maximum number of pets allowed by the property rules, that is part of the Property field codes.
Whatever pet rules are set in the property rules will appear when the Max Pets field code is selected. If your property rules have "Any number allowed" for pets, that will appear whenever the {PMAXPETS} field code is used.
Users can add text before or after field codes to flesh out and clarify their message.
For example, entering the text with the field code, "Maximum number of pets: {PMAXPETS}." would appear as "Maximum number of pets: Any number allowed." The same would also be true if users who do not allow pets at their property by using "Maximum number of pets: {PMAXPETS}" would appear as "Maximum number of pets: None allowed."
Segmented Contact (Guest) Address Field Codes
Maintaining Contact with your guests by postal (snail) mail offers that personal touch, stands out amidst all the digital clutter, and can foster lasting guest relationships. However, exporting Guest mailing addresses to a third-party automation solution (such as Zapier, IFTTT, etc.) sometimes proved limiting as the only field code options included single or multi-line addresses for guests.
OwnerRez has added more Contact (guest) address field codes for added flexibility, allowing users improved customization that's perfect for tailoring your postal communication.
These new guest address field codes include:
- {CADDRPRSTREET1}: The first address line for the primary address of the Contact
- {CADDRPRSTREET2}: The second address line for the primary address of the Contact
- {CADDRPRCITY}: The city for the primary address of the Contact
- {CADDRPRSTATE}: The state or province for the primary address of the Contact
- {CADDRPRPOSTAL}: The postal code for the primary address of the Contact
- {CADDRPRCOUNTRY}: The country for the primary address of the Contact
This means using the following guest address field codes,
Translates into a postal mailing address like this.
Don't worry, this update does not affect our pre-existing Contact address field codes, and the single multi-line Contact address field codes are still available. These new segmented address field codes will likely be helpful when users need part of the address.
Learn more by reading our Field Codes support article.
OwnerRez Website Search on Site Pages Added
Looking for general information about OwnerRez? We've had search capabilities for a long time, but our search index never covered our website's "site pages" (e.g., Features, Why OwnerRez?, Getting Started). Now it does, and we've added it as a filter option so you can filter your search to the site pages only.
When using the OR search function, select Pages from the dropdown menu.
With that selection, your search results will be limited to the Site Pages, which have a page icon.
Additionally, we renamed "Articles" to "Support Center" in the search dropdown menu to clarify what it filters to.
Rates and Ribbon Calendar Mouse Interaction Improvements
Users can edit their rates on the Seasonal and Rates Calendars by double-clicking a cell, and the Set Rates pop-up will open.
But that's not all! Now, you can click and drag in either direction on the Ribbon Calendar, or double-click on a date, to create a quote, booking, or blocked-off time with the dates already filled in for you.
Bug Fixes
Add Back Missing Vrbo Listing Import Items. Users may have noticed that Vrbo has changed their listing format over the past couple of months, and OR has been working to adapt the Import Vrbo Listing process to work as effectively as it previously did. With this release, we have added back the suitability, house rules, occupancy rules, and check-in/check-out rules into the Import Vrbo Listing process.
Allow More Tags in the TinyMCE Editor for Hosted Sites. When users attempted to add customized scripts or iframe objects to the TinyMCE Editor, those objects were deleted. We've corrected this issue and customized scripts or iframe objects added to the TinyMCE Editor will no longer be deleted.
Base Tax Cash Report on Deposit Date if Available. While the Taxes Detail report has been tweaked since the Deposits feature came out, the report showed the wrong dates when users configured the report with the Calculation Method "Cash." It showed the payment date instead of the deposit date, and it should only show the payment date if there's no deposit date and the user selects Doesn't Matter or No for "Deposited." This bug has been fixed on both the Tax Summary and Taxes Detail Reports.
Don't Allow Deleting Properties That Are Connected. OR validates that properties must be unlinked from listing and hosted sites before disabling and provides the appropriate errors prompting users to disable their API connections, but errors were not displayed when users attempted to delete properties. We have resolved this issue by adding validation checks just as we do for disabling a property.
Fix Issue Where Listing Site Setting Wasn't Saving on Rental Agreement in Some Cases. Occasionally, renter agreements configured and saved to apply to all listing sites, then subsequently edited and saved to only apply to a few selected listing sites, were still applicable to all listing sites, and the inverse occurred as well. This issue has been fixed, and any renter agreements will correctly save applicability to the specified listing sites.
Fix Issue Where Upload Photos in Bulk "Saving..." Button Not Clickable. When users attempted to add multiple property images and clicked on the Save button without waiting for the images to be processed, the "Saving" button with the endless spinning animation appeared to be clickable even though it was not clickable in this state. OR has resolved this glitch by disabling the Save button during the image upload process and only re-enabling the Save button after the image processing is complete.
Fix Issue With Address City/State Processing When Adding Guests Via v2 API. Guest address, city, and state information was not correctly synced to OR via the v2 API. This bug has been fixed.
Fix Vrbo Historical Thread Import to Mark Imported Inquiries as "Read." When historical Vrbo message threads were imported, they were marked as "unread," which may have caused some user concern. OR has corrected this glitch, and historical Vrbo message threads will be imported and marked as "read."
Handle Attribute to Vrbo With Multiple Active Channels. Users with multiple active Vrbo channels experienced errors when attributing a booking to a specific Vrbo channel even though they were connected to multiple Vrbo channels. The batch attribute process worked fine though. This issue has been resolved, and now, if the booking's property is linked to a Vrbo channel it will use it. If multiple active Vrbo channels exist, but the booking's property isn't linked to any of them, we show a friendly message: "Can't attribute booking to Vrbo because the property isn't linked to an active Vrbo channel."
Show Created Date as Queued Date on Messages (Rather Than Sent Date). The Inbox history for emails, SMS, and Channel messages displayed the Sent date as the Queued Date, which could be confusing. OR has fixed this bug to now display the Created Date as Queued Date so that users will be aware if a message is delayed in sending.
Validate That HA-XML Type/Key on URL and Authorization Match. Previously, we didn't check against the type of "linked account," so one channel could technically POST a booking to another channel if they knew the advertiser ID (since we only verified that the channel type/key on the URL was valid, not that it matched the linked account). It's never happened, but we work to keep things very secure, so we fixed it.