Feature Requests

Sort by

• Newest Reply
• Newest Topic

But it doesn't block the day of cleaning you still have to do that manually? 

Okay, thanks for that info, Ken. It just seems mystifying to those of us non-techies who see a huge roster of other channel managers already hooked up, ones with totally inferior product to OwnerRez, why they have been able to get set up but not OwnerRez.

I can't go into further detail beyond what I've discussed before, but, this is not the case, and our discussions with Google are moving forward.

It's very frustrating. It seems that OR has just made up their minds they don't want to connect us to Google Vacation Rentals, connects us to channels with little traffic and no bookings instead.

Please allow us to generate daily reports of checkouts and a trigger to send them to who needs them. 

Ideally I'd send one at the beginning of the week with the following week's checkouts and a daily report of that day's checkouts. 

https://support.google.com/hotelprices/answer/11946834

There are channel managers such as OR already doing this for their users by bundling them together to get onto Google Vacation Rentals. Look at GVR's support article They specifically list all of these competitors to Ownerrez that can currently get properties on GVR if you have fewer than 5,000 properties. Does OR not have 5,000 properties?

• Adchieve
• Avaibook
• Avantio
• Beds24
• Bluetent
• BookingPal
• Eviivo
• FantasticStay
• Feondi
• Futurestay
• Homerez
• Kigo
• Kross Booking
• Lodgify
• Octorate
• NextPax
• Rentals United
• Reservit
• Stays.net
• Uplisting
• VRBookings

Goes onto say:

If you're already working with a connectivity partner that's not listed above, encourage them to follow the steps outlined in this guide. If you'd like to become a connectivity partner with Google, or if you think direct integration is the right path for you, follow the same steps to get started.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I'm looking at building my seasons up at the moment.

What I would like to do is have a date option where I could select the second Monday of a month rather than a specific date of a month. I could then set up multiple years and maximise my seasons by the days I have check in on.

As it is the season dates will change day every year.

Our STR is in Mexico too and yes, they all use Whatsapp. This would be very helpful!

It would be cool to be able to set an alarm to go off for each booking. For example if they need to pay a pet deposit, set an alert to tell you it's time to charge them two weeks before arrival for pets.

There is a specific option of becoming an "official business" on Google which then allows you to have a listing that provides direct booking and reviews. It also serves to have you found on their front /landing pages when people google for a location. 

BUT there are very specific criteria a business must fulfill before Google recognizes it as a business- and more specifically as a Vacation Rental Business allowable on Google:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY- You must have more than your one VR. People get around this be dividing their homes into rooms and then call themselves a lodge. Sometimes folks just give it a go and list their home any way..hoping the google police will not discover them. I survived 5 years that way...but then my listing was pulled, I lost my reviews and all my lovely Google posts that upped my SEO. (actually all Google reviews were not really lost as I always copy and paste my reviews in my website.
2. Must have a sign on your building front- which in my case is against our HOA. They require a photo showing not only the sign but distinguishing landmarks/street signs to show where and on what street that building is.
3. You must also show proof of BEING a business, e.g. EIN tax documents

see: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177#zippy=%2Cineligible-businesses

Well, yes, and I don't blame you - but, unlike Airbnb, Vrbo does not pass us that information.  :-(

yea that's a good tip. But it's a manual step I wouldn't mind cutting out.

But you can - go to the Transactions tab of the Booking and scroll down.  There's a Fees section.  If you have Airbnb bookings, you'll see that Airbnb fees appear in there.  Vrbo doesn't send us their fees, but, you can manually add them to that section once you know what they are.

Currently there is a gap in tracking Net Payments when it comes to VRBO api bookings. OwnerRez pulls in the payment processor fee (Stripe for example) but it has no visibility to the 5% pay per booking fee that I am paying VRBO at the beginning of the following month. Hence it does not add VRBO commission fee to the "Host Fees" category. Since I am now on the hook for remitting taxes to the state with VRBO once integrated, it would be easier for me to run a report for my taxable sales in OwnerRez that is accurate and factors in the 5% VRBO commission (or whatever your individual commission is). As it stands, I have to take an extra step and multiply my net sales by .95 to account for the 5% that VRBO is going to collect.

This could be achieved fairly easily I believe by adding a setting to the VRBO api where we can input our commission percentage to apply against our VRBO bookings. 

Tons of other channel managers are hooking their hosts up to Google Vacation Rentals.

If it's supposed to be so difficult, how are they able to do it?

In regards to the unique TouchStay links pushing to OR... I've been in touch with Andy. Here is what he said:

"About pushing the link back to OR, we are going to discuss with the OR team, there was some limitation on their side the last time we spoke but we'll be revisiting it. If we do it, this year for sure. But if/when I can't say for sure at this stage. Sorry!"

🤞 it will be rather sooner than later!

Our recommendation is to put the unique TouchStay link in a custom field on the Booking, and the generic one in a custom field on the Property. This way you can embed a generic link in property descriptions and quote templates, and the unique link in booking templates.

To automate inserting the TouchStay link on a Booking custom field will require TouchStay to modify their integration. If you reach out to them and let them know that we have released a Fields API for setting custom field values, perhaps they'll be able to add that feature.

Beyond exposing the option in the API as we have done, there is nothing further we can do to achieve this feature.

Yes, we've seen many use cases for defining separate headlines and/or descriptions for each OTA. We're planning to release a new feature to support that. We're really close, but I can't give an ETA.

The 50-char limit makes this even more important.

And I have to respectfully disagree on the valuenof a shorter heading. Guest scan search results and title is the 2nd best way to grab them with the property features (photo is #1). 

We experimented on our listings and we found engagement and click-thru much higher with longer titles. I believe this is mostly due to the markets we are in being so large. The OTAs, especially AirBNB, don't seem to really understand large vacation markets.

Guest profiles (avatars) for OTAs are different too. Vrbo more family oriented, larger groups than AirBNB. So we need different titles.

The problem is the custom expiring  url for each guest guide book is still not being pulled into OR from touchstay. You can only use a generic unexpired link in OR messaging set as a fixed custom field in OR. All this makes the ability to pull OR fields into touchstay a bit pointless until this loop is closed. 

Great if you only want to use touchstay messaging but I would rather keep all messaging in OR as it just gets way to confusing. The OR inbox is not fully unified anyway without adding another place to check if messages have been sent.

Thanks, Paul, for confirming the current functionality and laying out the best way to get this accomplished today.  I've been pinging Joe Jones, TouchStay's COO about this feature for the last year.  He's definitely aware that automating through thru the current API with OR would be VERY helpful.  Yes, we can copy/paste each time we get a new booking, but it just adds 1 more manual step whereas automating it through the API would be AWESOME.  Joe indicates that's still happening sometime in the future - just hope it's sooner than later.  :-). 

Mike

Hi Mila,

Each of your guide books has a live website link that you can share with your guests. For a fast and easy way to download all those links simply click the button and choose the download format. (screenshots below) If you have a single property and don't want to use the download option, head to the Invite and Share tab of each guide to find the Quick Share link. Touch Stay does not currently send the guidebook links back into OwnerRez. You will need to create your own email templates/triggers inside OwnerRez and then add your guidebook link/links. I would suggest creating a custom field code for your guidebook links, then just add the field code to your email templates. Here is a doc on field codes:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/custom-fields

We're actually planning to do more or less the opposite - when you change the checkin/checkout time to something other than the default, a tag automatically gets added.

Yes, this is already in the planning stages.

Not worth the time and energy on owers/mamangers end.

Over this busy season, and thinking about workflow, it would be very handy to be able to auto-assign tags to various items.

For example: Bookings to PropertyA would get tags of "Need Drivers License" "Need Parking Pass" "Must Send RA Addendum"

A rudimentary task system where we can then show items with these tags for task assignment. When complete, we remove the tag.

Another example would be if we do an AirBNB bad review, add that tag to the booking and the guest contact record.

Lots more power in tags, but I am sure you know that. Just putting my 2-cents for future features.

Chuck

Dori, 

Several years ago we tried bookings. Has the EXACT same experience with them, so after 4 years NOTHING has changed, so history tells me its not going to change. LOTS of cancelations, poor guest quality, payment issues, all the same as you are describing. My advice, cut your loses, save your valuable time for a platform that really cares, they DONT! Good luck! 

Hello,

I was looking for exactly what you were asking, did you find a solution? Did Touch Stay build the feature you were asking or if you found a solution, I will appreciate your help.

thank you

Mila

Would be great if we could add a tag, late check out tag for example, and the booking check-out time is automatically updated to the desired. Would save time and works well with smart locks that automatically reschedule the access code.

Would like to see this get some more effort. Been waiting for a while.

I agree about segments not needed at our level.