Newsletter 22/8/2013

Upgrades

Clubs that started with us before the beginning of last year were due for an upgrade to get the latest features, planned for spring when your booking systems are quieter.  However we have now upgraded all clubs owing to a deadline from Paypal – changes to their system required us to upgrade everybody so your Paypal transactions would keep working.  Clubs that started with us since the start of last year have been on the latest code release continuously, so now everyone has all the features released this year.  Please take a look at the changes below and check them out on your system.

Price Influencer

This feature allows you to charge less for weekdays.  We have enhanced to to give a further discount conditional on a minimum number of nights in the booking, and further enhanced it to allow for midweek discounts requiring longer bookings, e.g.  a 7 night booking can attract a discount that applies to the weeknights in a booking.  One way to use this allows you to make the weekend free for 7 day bookings, another way allows you to give 5 weeknights for the price of 4.

Additional payment option

We have added a payment gateway for direct credit card payments, i.e.  not via Paypal.  This uses the eWay gateway.  If you are happy with Paypal, no need to change – for smaller clubs Paypal is the cheaper option.

Member’s “pay outstanding balance” page

Now has more complete information on payment methods, based on parameters in your site config pages.  Includes EFT details, online payments, cheque payment details etc.  These details are only shown if your configuration indicates them.

Admin override start/finish rule

You now have a configuration setting to control which level of admin access is required to override the start/finish rule, e.g.  the rule that forces both nights of a weekend to be booked.  Currently set to Admin, the highest level only.  Previously this was inconsistent.

Secure document storage

You can now store documents for committee access on our server.    Let us know if you want to use this facility, so we can enable it for you.

Help text improvements on home page

We have revised the help text in various spots on the home page – the booking matrix.  What you see depends on your configuration, i.e.  multiple lodges, book by bed or room etc.

Link to edit booking

After Admin makes a booking, the booking ID on the confirmation screen (step 4 of the booking pages) is now a link, so you can edit a booking directly.  You would only need this on occasions where you need to override something or perhaps correct a mistake.  Saves you having to drill in and search for that booking from scratch.

Login Timeout for admin

After feedback from booking officers about being logged out (for inactivity) too fast, we have increased the timeout to 2 hours.  Unfortunately this setting seems to have gremlins and isn’t working for everyone.  If you are having this problem, and have not mentioned it to us, please let us know.  Equally, we would love to hear if it’s working OK for you.

Bug fixes

• When you report bookings by date booked (typically to find unpaid bookings that might need cancelling), the “edit booking” button now works.

• After login, you go direct to the booking matrix instead of to a confirmation page.

• You are no longer logged out after creating a waitlist booking.

• Improved pop-up information on rooms with no single beds.

• Fixed bug in waitlist that caused bookings for vacant rooms to be unnecessarily waitlisted under certain circumstances.
• Some clubs don’t CONFIRM bookings even when paid, requiring booking officer approval for all bookings.  For these clubs, we fixed a bug that CONFIRMED bookings when members paid their outstanding balance.
• Availability page (not used by most lodges) which shows a quick summary of room availability has had some improvements and fixes, viz lodge unavailable periods handled correctly, special periods now show.  Still working on making this functional for multiple lodge configurations and book-by-bed.  Will also incorporate waitlist bookings
• The bookings report now allows you to select WAITLIST bookings for reporting
• Fixed a bug in the step 1 room description pop-up for rooms with no single beds
• Fixed bug when WAITLIST booking moves from step 2 to step 1 and altered to non-WAITLIST status
• Invoice now generated automatically when booking moves from WAITLIST to TENTATIVE or CONFIRMED, fixed a bug that generated an additional invoice for CANCELLED bookings when a WAITLIST booking was upgraded from the CANCELLED page.
• When sending bulk emails, the #codes which substitute in values from your configuration pages now work as per the options in the drop-down choices.