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I just went into the OR calendar and it is showing up.

ok

We're looking into a caching issue. Others are commenting that the main calendar view is "sticky" and takes a couple of hard refreshes before showing new bookings. One of the latest releases may have caused this.

F5 on the apple seems to be brightness, not refresh. I completely logged out and back in, still nothing.

Grid shows there. Shows on that calendar as reserved.

Just not in the Main BOOKING screen.

Try that refresh thing I mentioned earlier. F5 and Ctrl + F5 several times. Do you see it in your grid view?

Funny thing is that VRBO is showing booked. It's OwnerRez that doesn't show it.

OwnerRez calendar

Can you be more specific here? Do you mean the main booking calendar in OwnerRez isn't showing it, or one of the calendars on the listing sites (VRBO, HomeAway, etc) isn't showing it?

If the owner finalizes it, it will show a message saying that on the booking overview page. If the guest accepts and completes the quote, it will say that instead. Now, if the owner pretends to be the guest and accepts it using the payment form, there's not really any way for the system to know that.

BTW, as I stated, I did the actual ACCEPTING for the above transaction. My calendar is not showing it booked. Everything else is. Do you know why?

Claudia

So, if I wanted to know if the guest ACCEPTED the booking or the owner did, I would have to ask you?

Claudia

On the overview page of the booking, the little blue summary bar states whether the guest accepted the quote themselves or whether you manually added the booking in the control panel. Is that what you mean? On our side, we do track an audit trail on who made the booking/payment request so we can see if the guest did it on their IP address or the owner did.

I went through the process myself, on her behalf and approved it. Now it is showing booked.

My question is, does it say anywhere on OWnerRez that it was ACCEPTED by the owner and not the guest? That would be nice to have, if something arises and you want to know that it was them and not you that accepted.

Claudia

Ok, I see the transaction activity. The guest is incorrect. She attempted to submit payment a bunch of times, but they were all declined. I will contact you offline with more details. Her quote is still open, and no booking record is in place, because her payment was never successful.

PS. For anyone else reading this thread, there it never any delays in bookings showing up. They show up immediately on the calendar or list as soon as they are successful.

I just noticed something. This may or may not have anything to do with it.

She booked this item and then an inquiry came in to the system by her. This inquiry, I don't know when it actually was to come in. Was it days ago, when she first inquired? Or, is it a new one that she entered? Doesn't make any sense that it would come now.

Claudia

Ok. I am going away tomorrow and I am preparing to go. I would like to resolve this, ASAP, so I don't have to worry about this.

Claudia

Ok, I will look into it and get back to you. I'm running behind today so it might be an hour or so.

Here is the information...

Quote # 16179

Claudia

No to all of the above!

Tried refresh, looking at grid, looking at emails sent. Everything has no evidence of being booked.

Claudia

While looking at the main booking calendar, try refreshing the browser several times. It might be a caching issue. Hit F5 on your keyboard 5 or 6 times. You can also try Ctrl + F5 which sometimes forces more of a browser update.

Also look at the grid view. Do you see it showing up there?

Do you see outbound emails that were sent to the guest under the new Email address? Have you received any emails yourself?

A customer just said she booked online, but it is not showing as booked, at all. IS there a delay?

She called her credit card company and they confirmed that she charged her account in the right amount. They even knew who it was going to. However, no history of this on your system.

This was about 60 minutes ago.

Please check to see what is going on.

Thank you,
Claudia

We're going to put out a blog post about this - a lot of users have asked the same question.

In a nutshell, the "opened" flag does not represent 100% of the opens. In fact, it represents very few.

The way we can tell if someone has opened the message is by using a web beacon. A web beacon is a tiny 1x1 pixel image that is added to each email message. When the image is opened, a request is made to our servers allowing us to see that it happened.

The problem is that many (most?) email clients nowadays have images disabled by default. You may notice that little message above your message: "Do you want to enable images?" A lot of people never turn that on. If it's off, there's no way for us to tell if the message was opened.

I sent out three emails through OwnerRez yesterday. While it says Opened from the ones that came to me as CC, their's still say SENT. Does this mean they still have not opened the emails? Isn't that strange that not one of the three opened their email?

Claudia

I'm talking about everything we have scheduled relating to email. It could actually take longer than that - we have a lot scheduled.

There will be numerous small releases as part of that. We aren't going to wait and release it all together. It will be released bit by bit, every few weeks.

I agree that pictures are important. You are certainly not the only one saying that. Many others have too. The only issue is figuring out the best way to do them. The best way of accommodating them is still being debated.

Hi Michelle,

Are you saying that email will probably be completed within 3-4 months, or did I misunderstand that?

As for the pictures in the email, does that mean you are thinking of not putting that in? I think it is important to remind guests which property an owner is referring to. "A picture is worth a thousand words", and this is so true!

Claudia

Except for minor one-offs, we're working on email-related features for the next several sprints. It will probably be a good 3-4 months before we switch to another big area because there's a lot of email-related stuff we need to do.

I can't promise exact dates for templates or mail merge but that's a huge part of this. Nearly everything you've asked for, as it relates to email, has been scheduled except for the embedded pictures part. That's still up in the air.

However, we also have to respond to things we see as we go along too. For instance, just this morning, after only a few minutes of being out, we've already noticed some things we need to tweak about the new email area. Columns that should/shouldn't be on the main grid. Filter options, etc.

I don't currently answer with the quote response. Only if I know it isn't going to book. I just go in and create the quote, but don't send the email through your system.

I am very anxious to see the things you mentioned. Is that the next implementation? Or there is something before that?

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

Even though you don't respond to inquiries, you will see all the notifications that go out on your behalf. For instance, the quote email or the various bookings ones (confirmation, payment received, etc).

Even in the first 30 minutes of being released, I'm already hearing from users about the benefits they're seeing, like when a bounce occurs on a guest's email address (you actually see it now!).

Having a good email system is a VERY important part of VR management. We've let it languish for too long.

-Michelle

Thanks, Claudia! We had to refactor quite a few things relating to email so that we had a solid foundation to build on. I know you're looking for customizable templates, tags and auto-responders. All coming, don't worry. ~Sam

Great job guys. While I don't use the outgoing mail much, at this moment, I can't' wait to see when I would be able to use it with customized emails! It will definitely make my life a lot easier. I would be able to respond to my inquiries in a snap, using your system. At this moment, I have to go into my email and do everything manually.

Claudia