We were so focused on attempting to achieve Inbox Zero Day 📨 last Friday that we missed getting the Product Update out!
We made a dent in our inbox, but we're still working on clearing it out! Before you resume your own Inbox Zero efforts, take a look at our latest product update. It's all about our October 4th release with 18 updates that include the redesigned Guest Review Form, improved Changeover and Gap Rules functionality, a new Airbnb Bulk Recalculate Charges tool and so much more to discover.
New Features
Redesigned Guest Review Form
OwnerRez Guest Forms (e.g., Quote Acceptance, Legal/Renter Agreement, Travel Insurance) have long been overdue for an overhaul to be modern and mobile-responsive. The Guest Review Form was a good one to start with due to its straightforward nature.
It's difficult to remember the old Guest Review Form now that we love the look of the new one so much, so here's the old version to remind us all of how far it really evolved.
While we didn't add any new functionality, the redesign features an added floating booking information card that will be a mainstay of all future guest forms. We also added a contact information pop-up.
And yes, it is mobile and device-responsive!
Users should remember that they can customize their header and footer form theming and edit the blue box text of their Guest Review Form by navigating to Settings > Branding & Legal > Form Messages.
From the Create Form Message dropdown menu, select Booking Review - Step (1) Enter Review Page.
Allowing users to edit the (blue box text of their Guest Review Form) Message Content body and Save.
Preview your Guest Review Form by navigating to any booking and clicking on Reviews > Request from Guest > Preview.
Do we have plans to redesign other Guest Forms? Yes, we're already at work on the Guest Travel Insurance Purchase Form!
Learn more by reading our Reviews Overview support article.
Improved Changeover and Gap Rule Options
Controlling specific Arrival, Departure, or Gap rules for potential holiday or special event bookings is imperative. Securing a cleaner available for a turnaround cleaning (check-out and check-in on the same day) on a holiday can be especially difficult.
OwnerRez has changed the Set Rules dropdown menu, which now includes one Changeover selection pop-up modal for Arrival, Departure, and Gap rules!
Here's the old Set Rules dropdown menu, with individual selections for Arrival and Departure. This was good, but users could easily miss adding either an Arrival or Departure rule as they were separate steps.By selecting Changeover from the Set Rules dropdown menu, users can now determine Arrival, Departure, or Gap rules in one process. Notice that we selected Thanksgiving Day 2023.
On the Changeover pop-up, we've selected Stay is allowed (no arrival or departure). This selection would allow guests to book and stay over Thanksgiving but not allow a guest to arrive or depart. Click Update.
And Thanksgiving day now shows No arrivals or departures allowed.
Users can now choose to require a Gap by selecting Gap required (no same-day changeover) or any other rule configuration by selecting It's complicated:
If users add a Gap rule, Gap required (no same-day changeover), to a night allowing guests to stay but not allow any changeovers, the Rate Calendar will display the Gap rule as follows.
And if a booking comes in that departs on that day, the Gap rule remains in effect by not allowing arrivals until the following day.
If that night is booked as part of an extended stay, the Gap will still appear on the Rate Calendar.
As a user, you no longer need to rush to the Rate Calendar to block a booking for a no arrival or departure when you don't want to support a same-day changeover. With this added flexibility, you can easily automate your preferred rules for each property.
New Airbnb Bulk Recalculate Charges Tool
Tracking Airbnb charges ensures accurate accounting, financial transparency, and compliance with tax regulations for your financial management and reporting.
As OwnerRez works toward eliminating the need for the Channel Bridge tool, we continue to expand our listing channel transaction toolboxes.
OwnerRez's new Airbnb Bulk Recalculate Charges tool allows users to recalculate current Airbnb booking charges, surcharges, taxes, and Value Added Tax (VAT) if applicable.
To use this tool, navigate to Settings > API Integrations > your Airbnb Channel > Bulk Recalculate Charges.
Only available to users that have enabled the Airbnb Transaction Sync, this new standalone Airbnb Bulk Recalculate Charges tool, which is limited to a bulk batch size of 100 bookings across all of an account's Airbnb connections, can be used for updating ongoing current booking charges and surcharges, not just historical bookings.
Read the Airbnb Transaction Sync support article to learn more.
Enhancements & Tweaks
Damage Protection Hopper Homes Channel Opt-Out Added
While OwnerRez's Damage Protection premium feature protects against any accidental damage a guest might do while at your property, some listing channels (Airbnb, Vrbo, etc.) offer damage protection programs or other coverage programs.
We've allowed our users to "opt-out" of OwnerRez's Damage Protection premium feature for those listing channels offering their own damage protection programs. Now, Hopper Homes has been added to that list!
Users can add Hopper Homes to their Damage Protection channel opt-out configuration by navigating to Settings > Financial > Damage Protection > Channel Opt-Out > and selecting Hopper Homes from the Channels dropdown menu.Learn more by watching the Damage Protection video and read the Hopper Homes Setup & Connecting support article.
Expedia URL Capture and Auto-Population
Vrbo API-Connected OwnerRez properties are often also listed on Expedia. OwnerRez has now started to auto-populate Expedia URLs, if found, to all Vrbo API-connected properties.
What does that look like for Vrbo API-Connected users? Expedia links will be displayed just below the Vrbo link with their respective icons.
Learn more by reading the Vrbo Overview support article.
Upgraded International Phone Number Input
Maintaining accurate and current guest phone numbers, especially international phone numbers can pose challenges due to formatting complexities.
OwnerRez has implemented international-friendly phone number input processes for all guest forms and in-app guest records.
When a guest or OR user enters a phone number, they can select a country from the phone dropdown menu to ensure their phone number is stored in the correct country code format.
What does this look like for guests?
It's important to note that whether the country code is entered or not, upon saving, OwnerRez will store and display the phone number in a clean format in-app.
Bug Fixes
Display Created Time on Oauth App Webhooks Grid. The Oauth app webhook grid did not display the time that an Oauth app webhook was initially created, creating troubleshooting difficulties for users and the OR team. We have fixed this issue by exposing and displaying the time an Oauth app webhook is created on the webhooks grid to Oauth app owners.
Don't Auto-release PayPal Secdeps on Channel Move. PayPal security deposits, which cannot be rescheduled, were auto-released when booking dates or property were moved by a channel. We've corrected this glitch, and PayPal security deposits will no longer auto-release when bookings are moved by a channel.
Fix Issue Where Total Host Fees Weren't Returned in /v2/bookings List API Call. Total host fees were not correctly returned in the API v2.0 bookings list API call. OR has corrected this bug, and total host fees will now be correctly returned in the API v2.0 bookings list API call as well as the single booking GET.
Fix Rare Edge Case Where Vrbo Sync Might Error for Some Stay-collected Fees. This edge case occurred when a stay-collected secdep had too many decimal places. This glitch was fixed, and Vrbo sync processes will continue to push Vrbo property stay-collected fees correctly.
Handle Case Where Airbnb Payouts Contains No Transactions. Airbnb API-connected users that had the Airbnb transaction sync enabled experienced an Airbnb transactions error, but the deposit was correctly synced. We have fixed this bug, and future Airbnb transaction syncs will process accurately.
Improve Default RA Has Wrong Language for Ages. The default OwnerRez Rental Agreement stated, "I am over the age of {PMINAGE} and assume responsibility for those in my charge under the age of {PMINAGE}" and there were other areas of the default Rental Agreement that referenced "children" as well. Still, we needed to change these areas to reference the entire group of guests instead of focusing on children only. OwnerRez has made the following changes to the default Rental Agreement.
- In the 3rd paragraph (from the top), changed "This Agreement applies to all members of the Guest's party no matter the age or affiliation." to "This Agreement applies to all members of the Guest's party no matter the age or affiliation ("Group")."
- Lower down, changed the sentence "I am over the age of {PMINAGE} and assume responsibility for those in my charge under the age of {PMINAGE}." to "I am over the age of {PMINAGE} and assume responsibility for all in the Group."
- Below that, changed the sentence "Acknowledging this, I accept complete responsibility for the minor children and myself in my charge and visit the property and equipment and engage in activities or events at my own risk." to "Acknowledging this, I accept complete responsibility for the Group, and the Group is visiting the property and using the equipment and is engaging in activities or events at the Group's risk."
Improve Validation Around Bounds Checking for Numeric Rules. If a user entered a "days before arrival" cancellation policy, that would result in a date further back than the DateTime.MinValue, while editing booking rules, an error would occur. This glitch has been corrected, and users can correctly enter a "days before arrival" cancellation policy while editing booking rules.
Parallelize Webhook Sending. OwnerRez's webhook sending was too slow, so we've optimized this action by processing and sending different webhooks in parallel to speed up the webhook sending procedure.
Remove Airbnb Amenities From Dictionary as Needed. OwnerRez was removing Airbnb amenities by not including them in the amenities dictionary. Still, that method was suboptimal as there were times that those removed amenities were incorrectly synced to Airbnb. Airbnb has changed its amenities logic, so OR has resolved this issue by including the amenity but passing it as is_present: false.
Show Correct Stripe Charge Transaction Identifier for Secdeps. This edge case happened when a user with multiple active Stripe accounts attempted to process a refund from the security deposit, but the Stripe account credit card information was no longer valid and the system did not allow the user to re-enter the credit card details because the original transaction was no longer active. This error occurred because the payment method used an older Stripe account (still active), but the source payment method ID was from a new Stripe account. We corrected this glitch to expose and display the correct Stripe security deposit charge transaction identifiers that allow users to process security deposit refunds correctly.
Use Channel/Listing Site Override When Quoting in Booking Widget. We recently added handling for passing listing site parameters through to quotes created by the widget (in preparation for Google Vacation Rentals), but we missed passing the listing site parameters properly for quotes displayed inline on the widget before the redirect. We fixed this bug, and are now passing listing site parameters properly.
Webhook Subscription Creation on v2 API. v2 API Subscription Creation Webhooks sent with invalid URL values were accepted, but our webhook sender service would throw errors every time it tried to send something to that subscription. This issue has been resolved by adding additional URL validation checks and will display the following error message, "The WebhookUrl field is not a valid fully-qualified http, https, or ftp URL." if an invalid URL value is sent.
