If you follow our blog, you know we release product updates nearly every week. Sometimes our product update posts have a lot to say; other times they just list bug fixes.
To help our faithful readers, and save room on the blog schedule for other things, we've decided to condense our product update posts to a monthly digest. We will continue releasing updates at the same speed (i.e., weekly), but we'll talk about a month's releases in a single post. Here's the one for March (well, half of March anyway)!
Enhancements & Tweaks
Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel (Meta) Tracking Added to the Global Landing Page and Redesigned Guest Forms
OwnerRez users can use Google Analytics and Meta Pixel (Facebook) tracking to gain valuable insights into potential guest interactions and marketing campaigns related to their vacation rental websites. Google Analytics and Meta Pixel are great tools for any vacation rental business and best of all, they're free to use. You can set things up under Settings > Advanced Tools > Analytics Tracking.
We've now added both Google Analytics and Meta Facebook Pixel tracking to the OwnerRez global landing page, the redesigned Guest Review and Guest Travel Insurance forms, and will also be applied to all remaining Guest Form redesigns!
What does this mean for you? If you are tracking guest interactions through Google Analytics and Meta Pixel (and we hope you are!), know that all of our new guest forms and the global landing page are now included as part of that tracking, whether that be a page view on a hosted website or widget, sending an inquiry, viewing a quote, or a full conversion to a booking!
Bug Fixes
March 20th release with 15 bug fixes
Add the editing of property photos to mobile. While users could make changes to photo captions on mobile devices, they could not properly view or make those changes. We resolved this issue so users can now properly view and change photo captions on mobile devices.
Airbnb Messages From Guests are Marked as Read. Airbnb guest messages to OwnerRez users were incorrectly marked as read. OR resolved this glitch to ensure that Airbnb guest messages to OwnerRez users will be correctly marked as unread.
Booking Widget Validation Message Error Should Not Tell Guest to Contact OR. When guests inadvertently pasted in and submitted HTML into the notes field on the hosted website booking widget, the displayed validation message incorrectly directed guests to contact OwnerRez rather than the host. OR fixed this bug, and the guest-facing validation message will no longer direct the guest to contact OwnerRez when guests inadvertently paste and submit HTML into the notes field on the hosted website booking widget.
Changing Charges With an Invalid Rate, Sets the Rate to 0 and Keeps the Original Amount. Entering an invalid value (e.g., #, *) in the rate field when surcharges on a quote or booking were edited resulted in the Rate being incorrectly set to 0. Still, the Amount column showed the original amount. OR corrected this issue, and if invalid values are added; users will receive a validation warning of "Invalid value for rate, only numbers and percentages are allowed."
Disabled Properties Show up on Channel Publish Page. Disabled properties were incorrectly displayed on the Publish listing page for applicable channels. Disabled properties will no longer be displayed incorrectly.
Door Codes are Changed When Moving a Booking. Moving a booking with integrated door codes to a different arrival or departure date would result in new door codes being generated.OR corrected this so that the same door code previously generated would be used for the new booking dates.
Duplicate Columns in Owner Statement Expenses Cause Crash When Exporting. Duplicate columns added to the expense section of an owner statement and exported to Excel resulted in errors. We resolved this issue, and users will be prevented from adding duplicate columns to the expense section of an owner statement.
Google Vacation Rentals (GVR):
- Cannot Always Edit GVR Channel When it Has LQA Errors. Some users with GVR Listing Quality Analyzer (LQA) errors were prevented from editing their GVR listing channel. We fixed this bug, allowing users to edit their GVR channel settings if the LQA identifies GVR errors.
- Global Landing Page Drops Some Fees When Changing Dates or Guest Count. When changes in dates, number of guests, or number of pets were made by guests on the global landing page, the recalculated charges did not reflect GVR-specific surcharges, resulting in incorrect charges. We fixed this bug, and if any date, number of guests, or number of pets changes are made by guests on the global landing page, the recalculated charges will correctly reflect and be included in the total charges.
- Global Landing Page Reverts to Show Brand Name at Times When it Should Always Show Channel Origin. The upper blue global landing page callout incorrectly displayed the property brand name rather than the source listing channel, as expected. Fixed!
- LQA Should Skip Pet Fees for GVR. GVR does not publish pet fees, but users can still charge pet fees after a GVR booking. The Listing Quality Analyzer (LQA) incorrectly identified pet fees as errors for the GVR listing channel, which prevented users from integrating with GVR. We corrected the LQA issue to skip pet fees.
- LQA Should Skip taxes That are Not Applicable to the Channel That is Being Checked. The Listing Quality Analyzer (LQA) incorrectly identified taxes applied to other listing channels as errors for the GVR listing channel, which prevented users from integrating with GVR. OR fixed the LQA glitch to skip taxes applied to other listing channels.
Property Search Widget Does Not Retain Property URL After First Page. Property search widget results were incorrectly populated with the wrong property webpage URL after proceeding to the second page of results rather than custom property URLs configured. We resolved this bug to ensure that the property search widget custom property URLs configured will be correctly applied after proceeding to the second page of results.
Spot Rate Import Fails When Importing an Excel Sheet With Some Empty Rows. Spot Rate imports encountered import failures when the Excel sheet contained empty rows. OR corrected this issue, and duplicate columns will no longer result in export errors.
Triggers That Send Emails to Guest With a Double-Blind Email Address Do Not Link to the Guest. Email messages sent to guests with double-blind email addresses (e.g., listing channel proxy email addresses) with triggers failed to link to the guest ID. We fixed this glitch to ensure that email messages sent to guests with double-blind email addresses with triggers will link to the guest ID.
March 27th release with 19 bug fixes
Airbnb Remerge Threads Contact Thread on Booking. Some Airbnb API-connected users who were upgraded to the updated Airbnb messaging threads encountered older bookings that did not have contact threads established, resulting in channel trigger failures. We corrected this glitch, and Airbnb messaging threads will be correctly remerged upon booking.
Always Save Trigger Retry Settings. When specific trigger retry settings were added and saved with the additional setting of "Create this trigger in a disabled state - I will activate it later," the trigger retries were not actually saved. OR resolved this issue, and trigger retry settings will be correctly saved.
Calculate Commission on Channel Fees Expenses When Payment/refund Fee is Set. Commissions on channel fees that had an expense were not calculated if no payment/refund method-based fee was configured. We fixed this bug, and commissions on channel fees with an expense will be correctly calculated.
Decrease Execution Time of Calendar Sync Service. To improve the runtime of the OwnerRez calendar sync service, we have increased the number of background concurrent calendar sync tasks.
Fix Bug Causing Phone Numbers to Not Save on Quick Find Or Create Guest Modal Form. When users create a new guest and enter guest contact information, the phone number field is not saved on the Create Guest Modal Form, forcing users to manually reopen the Guest Modal Form and manually re-enter the guest phone number. We resolved this glitch, and guest phone numbers entered into the Create Guest Modal Form will be saved correctly and as expected.
Fix Duplicate Deposit Creation for Airbnb Payouts Without Corresponding External IDs. Some Airbnb payouts without corresponding external IDs generated duplicate deposit transactions. OR corrected this issue, and Airbnb payouts without corresponding external IDs will generate accurate deposit transactions.
Google Vacation Rentals:
- Fall-back to Global Landing Page if Hosted Site Not Configured for Website URL in Listing Metadata. Some users who did not have their hosted website URLs configured (or had disabled it) for their properties did not have the option to use the global landing page for their Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) listing channel Landing Page. OR resolved this issue so that user accounts will use the global landing page for their Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) listing channel Landing Page by default.
- Extra Guest Charges Set to Correct Approved Application Setting on Date Ranges. Valid extra guest surcharges configured were not correctly passed to Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) because the parameters that display applicability were different than all the other StayDates parameters that Google uses, resulting in the extra guest surcharges being marked as invalid. We corrected this bug, and valid extra guest surcharges will be correctly passed to GVR.
- Global Landing Page to Show the Correct Number of Reviews. Some property reviews were not correctly linked to their associated property, resulting in incorrect review counts displayed on their global landing page. We fixed this bug to ensure that the correct number of reviews will be displayed on the global landing page.
- Show Error Details on Property Mapping Page When Image Sizes are Blocking Property. The GVR Property Mapping Page was not correctly displaying image size error details which prevented their GVR listing from being published. OR resolved this issue, and the GVR Property Mapping Page will now correctly display image size error details.
Import Lynnbrook Reversals as Refunds. Lynnbrook reversal transactions were incorrectly imported as adjustments rather than the correct refund transactions. We fixed this glitch to ensure that Lynnbrook reversal transactions are correctly imported as refund transactions.
Introduce Processing Delay on Vrbo Threads to Guarantee Message Thread Will be Available on Vrbo Side. Occasionally, Vrbo message threads did not have contact threads established for a booking, resulting in Vrbo booking messages not always being available on the Vrbo platform and triggers fired for unconfirmed Request to Book (RTB) bookings. OR has implemented a Vrbo booking processing delta delay (the smallest time unit one could measure) to ensure that Vrbo message threads have contact threads correctly established.
Property URLs For Hosted Site Widgets Will Generate Valid Links for "Show All on First Load" Correctly. Property search widget results were incorrectly populated with invalid property webpage URLs after proceeding to the second page of results rather than the correct, valid property webpage URLs to show all on the first load. We resolved this bug to ensure that the property search widget will generate valid property webpage URLs to show all on the first load.
Remove Duplicate Errors and Warnings for Vrbo Currency Listing Quality Analyzer. Users that had their property listed on multiple listing channels encountered duplicate Vrbo currency errors and warnings on the Listing Quality Analyzer (LQA). OR fixed this issue, and users with a property listed on multiple listing channels will receive accurate LQA errors and warnings.
Reviews Grid for Missing Last Name of Airbnb Users Will Use Guest Name. The OR reviews grid displayed only "a Airbnb user" if the guest's last name field passed to OR from Airbnb was empty. We corrected this bug, and guest names will be correctly displayed on the OR reviews grid.
Send to Airbnb Contact threads for All Entities. Airbnb contact threads without entities encountered message send failures. OR resolved this glitch, allowing Airbnb contact threads without entities to be sent.
Show Airbnb Channel Details on Deposit Failed Alert if Applicable. Airbnb channel details passed to OR were not included in the Deposit Failure system message email alert sent to users. We corrected this issue, and if applicable, full Airbnb channel details passed to OR will now be included in the Deposit Failure system message email alert sent to users.
Tax Reports Detail Columns Match Selection Criteria Accurately. The Tax Summary and Tax Details reports handled the "Any stay during period" selection inconsistently, with the Tax Summary report including financials for bookings with the departure date on the first date in the date range entered, while the Tax Details report did not. OR changed the Tax Summary to no longer include bookings where the criteria range starts on the departure day of booking.
Hubitat Lock Integration Private Beta Coming Soon:
- Fix Door Code Being Put in Error State When Daily Sync Service Ran and Encountered a Non-fatal Error. Hubitat integrated door lock codes experienced an error state when the daily sync service encountered transient non-fatal errors. We fixed this bug, and if Hubitat integrated door lock codes encounter transient non-fatal errors, the door code will not show as invalid, and will continue to work in message templates.