Teamwork makes the dream work...and OwnerRez is pumped to be a part of your team! 🙌
Let's celebrate the power of teamwork, and its undeniable impact on achieving your success, and OwnerRez's Team Access improvements in today's product update detailing our June 21st release with 28 updates!
New Features
Broken Link Protection for Hosted Websites
OwnerRez has now added Broken link protection for all Hosted Websites!
Broken link protection is crucial as it ensures a seamless guest experience, boosts your website credibility, improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings, and prevents your potential guests from encountering frustrating dead ends or outdated information.
Our broken link protection is now enabled as a default and includes the page ID in URLs so that links won't break if the property name or individual webpage slug changes. Existing hosted website users might have noticed the ID numbers in their URLs before, but now we've created this feature so that users can manage it.
Users also have the ability to disable the Broken Link Protection by navigating to Settings > their Hosted Website > Change > Options > Broken Link Protection.
Interested in an OwnerRez Hosted Website of your own? Learn more by reading the Hosted Websites Overview support article.
New Read-Only Mode for Staff Users
Back in November 2022, OwnerRez rolled out Team Access and we continue to make improvements to the Staff Member Team Access feature!
In the past, Staff Member Access allowed complete OwnerRez access to everything in your OwnerRez account, including bookings, payments, emails, etc. Staff Members were basically a clone of you, allowing the Staff Member to see and do everything within your OwnerRez account. That could be risky since granting such a significant level of access would require a substantial amount of trust in your staff.
But now we've added the much anticipated Staff Read-Only Team Access permissions! The advantages of read-only permissions include enhanced security, data integrity, reduced risk, version control, and allowing for significant training without the ability for your trainees to make changes to your OwnerRez account.
Learn more by reading our Staff Member Access support article.
Enhancements & Tweaks
Direct-Link Anchors Added to the OwnerRez Support Videos Page
OwnerRez Support Videos are a rich resource for OR users and now you can easily share specific videos by first clicking on the anchor link next to the video you want to share and then copy the URL address to share with staff (or yourself for later).
Be sure to check out our regularly updated OwnerRez Support Videos for yourself!
Extra Permission Options for Portal Users
OwnerRez has added more permission options for their portal users. Users can now grant increased booking and financial items to their Portal Team users allowing them to view the following.
- Booking Files. In specific Bookings, Portal Team users can view the Booking Charges and Transactions sections if granted by the OwnerRez user.
- Detailed Financials. In specific Bookings, Portal Team users have access to the Guest Balance and My Net Financials section links if granted by the OwnerRez user.
Learn more by reading our Portal User Access support article.
Increased Currency support for Stripe Integration
What may have started off as an edge case or bug for one of our users soon became an important enhancement for our Stripe integrated users. After looking at it, OwnerRez determined that it was of the utmost importance to update the following international currency code options for our Stripe integrated OwnerRez users.
- Afghan Afghani AFN
- Azerbaijani Manat AZN
- Belarusian Ruble BYN
- Malagasy Ariary MGA
- Mozambican Metical MZN
- Romanian Leu RON
- Serbian Dinar RSD
- Sierra Leonean Leone SLE
- Surinamese Dollar SRD
- Zambian Kwacha ZMW
Any Stripe-integrated users previously using Romanian Leu (ROL) were auto-updated to the Romanian Leu (RON).
Learn more about this payment processor by reading our Stripe support article.
Better Ways of Dealing with Failed Webhooks for Your OAuth App
We love hearing about new apps and scenarios using OwnerRez and OAuth Apps lets developers create apps that can be granted access, with permission only, to OwnerRez accounts. If you're curious, we follow the OAuth 2 Authorization Code Grant: RFC 6749-Section 4.1 (web application flow).
But we realized that webhook errors were not providing enough information to assist in solving those errors. OwnerRez has added better search/filter options that offer more visibility and helpful information about any OAuth App on the grid, including a quick entity type/ID lookup tool for partners.
Additionally, the OwnerRez email alert now directly links to the failed entity as well.
Interested in learning more? Check out our OAuth Apps support article.
Bug Fixes
Added a Friendly Message on Attempting to Register WP Plugin With a Non-external Site Token. When users attempted to connect the WordPress plugin with a token that was not related to an External Site it would fail. OR has added a more friendly failure message with instructions on how to correct the error.
Allow Using Raw Card Billing Info on Multiple Stripe Accounts Even if it Was Originally Sourced From Vrbo 3DS Token. When OwnerRez users changed a property from one Stripe account to a different Stripe account, the credit card details received from Vrbo that included a 3DS2 (3D Secure 2.0, an authentication solution designed to protect customers when they shop online using credit or debit cards) token were no longer reusable. This bug has been fixed so that any Vrbo 3DS tokens can be reused whether the host/user changes their property from one Stripe account to a different Stripe account.
Changing a Custom Field Used in a Property Description Now Triggers a Channel Sync. Users that changed custom fields used in channel property descriptions were not updating correctly without a manual full sync. This bug has been fixed and any custom field changes will now trigger a full listing channel sync.
Consider Bunk Bed as 2 beds for Airbnb Bed Total. Airbnb counted bunk beds as only 1 bed leading to incorrect bed counts for OwnerRez users that are Airbnb API connected and had properties with bunk beds. This bug has been fixed to now match the same logic as Vrbo with a bunk bed equaling 2 beds for Airbnb bed counts.
Door Code Generated Should be Deleted When Booking is Canceled. This edge case occurred when a pending booking was subsequently canceled in OR but the integrated lock never canceled the door code. This bug has been fixed to now delete integrated door codes for pending bookings that are subsequently canceled.
Enhance OwnerRez Blog Comments to Match the Tooling of OwnerRez Forums Replies. While the top page dropdown selector for blog post comments worked correctly when users clicked on page 2 at the bottom of a blog post, users were taken to the blog post instead. This bug has been fixed and blog post comment navigation will now work as expected.
Fixed Error on QuickBooks Property Settings When Missing Rent Item. OwnerRez QuickBooks users experienced crashes on either both or one of their QuickBooks settings and connections if the configured Rent Item no longer exists in QuickBooks. This bug has been fixed and OR users should no longer experience crashes on either QuickBooks settings or connections if the configured Rent Item no longer exists in QuickBooks.
Fixed Host Fee Not Updating on Airbnb Transaction API. The Airbnb Host Fee was correctly displayed in the Expense tab of bookings, but the Host Fee was missing from the My Net Financials section of the booking Overview tab. This bug has been fixed and Airbnb Host Fees will now display correctly on both the My Net Financials section of the booking Overview and the Expense tab of bookings after users enable Airbnb Transaction Sync.
Fixed Hosted Site Blog Posts From Rendering Two H1 Tags. Although hidden and appearing correct, Hosted Website Blog Posts were rendering duplicate H1 headers which could negatively affect search engine and, perhaps more importantly, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results. This bug has been fixed and Hosted Website Blog Posts H1 headers will now render correctly.
Fixed Portal Users Cannot See Tags When They Should Be Able To. Team Access Portal users that had permission to view tags, but did not have permission to view guest contact information, were not able to view any guest tags. This bug has been fixed to now allow portal users to view guest tags when they have permission to view tags.
Fixed SMS X-Ray Javascript Error. We noticed that the SMS (Short Message/Messaging Service aka Texting) X-ray button was not working correctly revealing a JavaScript error. This bug has been fixed and the SMS X-ray button now works correctly.
Handle Missing Surcharge in Airbnb Channel Rate Tester. If an OR user attempted to do the Airbnb channel rate tester with a surcharge that couldn't be matched, the Airbnb channel rate tester threw an error. This bug has been fixed to skip unmatched surcharges in the Airbnb channel rate tester and the Airbnb channel rate tester should work correctly.
iCal Should Respond With an HTTP 404 Error Code if User Account is Closed. This was an edge case where a former OwnerRez user had closed their OR account but the listing channel iCals was still publishing bookings within the OwnerRez system. This bug has been fixed and iCals of closed OwnerRez user accounts will now correctly respond with an HTTP 404 error code telling the requester that the requested page is not available.
If There Are No Reviews, Don't Set Up Hosted Site "Product" Metadata for Google Crawler. Even though the website displayed correctly in Google search results, users of OwnerRez Hosted Websites that have no reviews were receiving errors from the Google Search Console. This bug has been fixed and users of OwnerRez Hosted Websites that have no reviews should no longer receive errors from the Google Search Console.
Improvements to Team Access User Interface (Staff and Portal). OwnerRez does not allow a single email address to have both a Staff and Portal Team Access account but we needed to clarify that for our users. We have fixed this bug by notifying OR users that attempt to send an invite in-app to an email address that already has either a Staff or Portal Team Access account associated with that email address advising them to delete the other Staff or Portal Team Access account associated with the duplicated email address and to create a new Team Access invitation.
Look for Booking Correctly When Finding Air Other Account Thread. Multiple Airbnb accounts can have access to an OwnerRez conversation thread, such as a host and co-host. When OR was responding to a message, we responded from the last account that appeared on the conversation thread, which wasn't necessarily correct. This bug has been fixed to now respond from the user account attached to the booking.
Prefill Default Data for Property Import Excel Template. The Property Import Excel Template was incomplete, including not having the default minimum age of 21 prepopulated data as an example in the template, leading to subsequent import errors. The Property Import Excel Template has been updated now allowing for the Import Properties process to operate correctly.
Redirect Portal Login Attempts to the Standard Login if Non-portal User Credentials. Portal users that attempted to log into a portal that they were granted permission to were not able to complete the two-factor authentication (2FA) process and were experiencing login failures. This bug has been fixed to now display a warning with a redirected OwnerRez log in URL link with 2FA allowing portal users to complete the secure two-factor authentication (2FA) process login.
Send Webhook Failure Notice to Oauth App Developers Only After the Final (10th) Webhook Attempt. OwnerRez was sending webhook (automated messages sent from apps when an event occurs) failure notices after the first failure instead of the 10th failure (as originally designed) even if the webhook later succeeded which was confusing to OAuth (Open Authorization) App Developers. This bug has been fixed to only send webhook failure notices to OAuth App Developers after the 10th webhook failure occurs within a 24-hour period.
Several Improvements Around Airbnb Listing Publishing and Rate Push. If users experienced more than one Airbnb listing sync content error, any changes made (description, rates, rules, etc.) would not be fully pushed to Airbnb until later in the day. This bug has been fixed to detect availability/rate and listing/rule errors separately allowing for more specific Airbnb sync content errors that are easier and more efficient to clear.
Show Password Field on Lock Again if Needed. In some scenarios, some Kaba lock integrated OwnerRez users were not able to input their password because the password input field was not displayed on the Kaba lock configuration. This bug has been fixed and Kaba lock integrated OwnerRez users will see the password field and be able to input their password.
Split Serbia vs Montenegro in Country List. The country dropdown list that is available on most, if not all, OwnerRez address input forms was out of date. We have updated the country list for completeness and accuracy.