Feature Requests

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Yes, it would simplify things like this if the channels would remove the restrictions and property minimums...but I can't imagine VRBO would be so eager for ALL of their listings to start processing payments on their own instead of using VRBO's system.

Having recently integrated my VRBO account with OR, I think the greatest benefit for me (even more than the simplicity of managing all aspects of my properties from my OR dashboard) is having all of the payments processed through MY merchant account instead of through VRBO's payment system.

I hadn't anticipated this and LOVE it! No more worrying about VRBO refunding a guest without my knowledge or permission and no waiting for VRBO to send the payment to me.

If VRBO dropped the restriction to use a channel manager from 5 properties to one, then just imagine how many payments will be leaving their system and how much less control they would have over the reservations.

Anyway, I'm really happy that I made the decision to use OR's channel manager and integrate my VRBO account with OR.

It IS interesting that Airbnb allows accounts with only one listing to use the channel manager, AND Airbnb still processes the guest payments; Airbnb does not allow the host to process the payments through their own merchant account like VRBO does. That is a huge difference....and I wonder how long it might be until VRBO decides to copy Airbnb (which they seem to want to do often.)

Hi Beth,

Yes, I have the same situation as you, multiple properties with property-specific information that can't really be combined into one generic message and custom tags.

For now, (until we can associate email templates to specific properties so that when we need to send an email template on a booking we are only presented with those templates associated with that property instead of ALL of them), I've changed the way I've labeled my templates to help weed out templates I don't need to see.

I did this by adding a prefix of "y (auto)" to each email template that is linked to a trigger and sent automatically. I chose "y" because it was near the end of the alphabet so would put the template at the bottom of the list and added "(auto)" to remind myself that it is a triggered message.

This leaves all of the other templates without the "y (auto)" displayed at the top of my list. I identify each property's templates by using its property code at the beginning of the template name so that all of the templates belonging to that property are grouped together.

Each property has 5-6 email templates that can be manually sent for each booking so this makes it a lot easier to see those templates quickly when sending rather than having to scan through the list of 110 templates (currently) to find the one I'm looking for.

Maybe this suggestion might help anyone else facing the same situation.

Hi Chris,

Here is an example of what Rich S is describing:

https://snipboard.io/YXU6IO.jpg

Hi Tim,

Perhaps you could create a booking custom field for "Misc" or "Notes"? Then, when you run the Daily Checklist report you'll be able to see those notes.

I have a similar custom field we call "ETA" (estimated time of arrival). If the guest lets us know when they expect to check in we add that information to the ETA custom field on that guest's booking. Then each day when we run the Daily Checklist report we can see that information if the guest is checking in that day.

Hi Richter Vacation, can you describe in more detail how you were able to add a field to request more information from the guest? Was it in the rental agreement itself or on a separate form/email template?

Unfortunately, Square doesn't support cards on file or passing in card numbers which is required for API integrations with HomeAway, booking.com etc. They only support the model where you send a Square form or embed to the guest and they key in their card numbers that way. That's why we haven't gotten to adding support for Square at this point.

Lynnbrook has different pricing models depending on your volume and mix of cards, so they can get you the best price for your situation, which is why they don't have a published price that applies to everybody.

If you want a processor similar to Square, look at Stripe. They're also 2.9% + 0.30 like Square.

Can you please add SquareUp as a credit card processor???? I would guess many of us use them. (Ps: dismissed Lynnbrook because they don’t publish their fees).

What would you actually use this for? There are several hundred individual data points for each property if you include them all - that would be one huge and clumsy spreadsheet! And if you didn't include them all, you'd still have to go back and review the listing manually anyway.

An annual review is an excellent idea and a good practice. The best way to do this would be to check your Hosted Website's listing for each property, if you have one, because that will always show exactly what is in the OwnerRez database.

It would be nice to be able to run a report which will show all the listing details for a property. We could use something like this for our yearly property audits to make sure all listing details are current and up-to-date. This would also highlight any new listing feature/detail fields that have been added/modified during your system upgrades.

We could also use a blank one for when we are on boarding a new property.

Yes, we're seeing more and more requests for this feature, so it'll probably come along eventually.

Take a look at "Tools" then "Email History". Use the "Filter" tab at the upper, left to narrow your results.

Would be nice if there was an easier way to block dates for check-in & out. For example, I don't want anyone checking in or out on a holiday, but there's no place in the holiday settings to show that. That seems to mean I have to set up a season for every holiday, every year, because the day-of-week or the date changes each year. Maybe you could add something on the Holidays page with generic check boxes to allow in/out day of, day before and day after. Would love check boxes for every holiday, but that may be too much. Thanks!

Its great that we can see the history of emails that are related to a reservations.

It would ALSO be good to see the history of emails related to an email template or Trigger. This is useful when we need to change or update a template and may need to see who received it BEFORE we changed it so we can send an update to them. At the moment, that requires going through each reservation -- or does it?

The OwnerRez rental agreements are designed to be signed electronically, so they don't need to be printed out.

However, they're really HTML and can be rendered into PDFs, so it's possible to design an agreement that could be printed out and physically signed.

Would love a report that could be downloaded for each guest for a registration form, where it populates name, email, check-in and check-out dates and space where I could add policies to the bottom, etc. Print to get guests to sign when they check in.

It would be really good to have the S&U tax report break out the taxes for each day or the month. In our jurisdictions, taxes are due in the month they are incurred. So, if a booking crosses month boundaries you are supposed to pay the taxes of the days in the month. Also, makes it easy to document the tax payments should the jurisdiction ever do an audit. Print out the report and show the check register.

figured it out, with the field thing--it isn't IN my agreement but on the form that they fill out.

In my town, the guest has to provide all of the names of guests as well as the ages of anyone under 25. I had a field for that in my original booking agreement, but don't seem to see how to add that to the one I am customizing for this site. Also, my Pet addendum has several spots for them to initial and I'm not sure where I can put those fields. My only other option is to send an additional email asking for guests names, but I'd rather not do that.

Yes, we've been seeing more requests to make the calendar stripe configurable. That's probably something you'll see eventually.

It would be fantastic to be able to add notes to the calendar, such as "early checkin" or "water heater repairman coming today", etc without blocking the date. Want to make it REALLY FANTASTIC and possibly less work to code? Overlay a Google Calendar on top of the booking calendar!!! Then we can put whatever we want on the Google calendar and see it overlayed with bookings. I am getting excited just thinking about it. I know we can already do the reverse, but it's not as good because in google calendar we can easily click on bookings and navigate right to what we need

The booking calendar colored ribbon currently shows the guest name and number of guests in parenthesis. Can I suggest you also include on the ribbon:
The listing site it came from.
A hyperlink to the reservation on the listing site.
A hyperlink to email the guest.
A "fully paid" indicator.

Obviously this would get crowded, so you'd probably have to make it user-configurable

Chris - I don't have a good example to look at at the moment, but I recall them using the color red along with a short text warning. Sticks out in a very obvious way when min nights is > gap.

Yes, we agree... it's on the development list. We have a number of improvements we want to do to the Triggers, and that's one of them.

Hi Valarie,
I have a a similar situation with different specifics. In my case every condo has a different wifi password, some have mini-split a/c units and some have central air...it was crazy trying to get the right instructions to the right guest without a 10-page arrival note. I simply couldn't use the same for all.

For these situations that require personalized or specific info, I created "Arrival Info" templates "by property" versus sending to all. This way I can adjust just that unit if the password changes - or if anything else in that specific property changes. If you have 20+ properties this may be a big task but hopefully you only have to do it once. I have 14 and I find this to be the easiest and most "property specific" way to address the nitty gritty property-specific details. For example, I have 102 Arrival Info template but also have 202, 203, 204, etc.... It has been a lifesaver to be able to send very detailed info. And, the guest truly thinks you have sent them a custom email meant just for them.

Good luck! Happy to help if needed. Beth

It would be nice to be able to trigger an email based on NO REVIEW RECEIVED so we could send a "reminder", just for example at the 10-day mark, for a guest to leave a review. Not critical, but nice.

That's an interesting idea. How do VRBO show it? That calendar already gets really busy, perhaps with an optional overlay.

You don't really need to worry about that in OwnerRez though -- instead set the min nights in gaps rule on the property. When you set that rule, if there's a gap where the min nights are longer than the gap, it'll reduce the min nights to the the length of the gap.

For example, if you've got a 5 night min and a gap of 3 nights, and you set min nights in gap to 2, it'll reduce the min nights to 3 in that 3 night gap.

Would be nice for the calendar to highlight inappropriate min-night settings, such as 3 night minimum set on a single open night.

VRBO started doing this a few weeks ago and it's hugely useful, even moreso with OR because the Rate Calendar by default shows multiple months at a glance.

Right now there's only one listing site/channel per booking so there's no way to set a combination of VRBO and also EVOLVE -- you have to pick one or the other and key your triggers based on that.

We do have plans to rework this into a two layer setting with channel and source separately so the tracking can be more detailed. No ETA on that yet though.

Yep, both the "last pushed" date and the "push all" are things we've got on the list.

I really wish the channels would just remove the restrictions and property mins on API's and we could just directly hit API everywhere -- that'd simplify all of this immensely!

That's a good one! Noted.