Start-Up Help

[gonesouth]

I am relatively familiar with hotel software having set up and run four different kinds of commercial software including one that runs as a Joomla extension. However, your room and rate type structure defeats me. WHacker, who uses PHPResidence has been forceful in recommending it. (He threatens to whack me about the head and ears if I don't try it! ) Unfortunately his property lends itself to running with all rooms as their own room type so he has not tried building a complicated room type and rate structure.
Meanwhile my property has 18 rooms with three different bed configurations, plus some rooms allow smoking while others do not. And we allow pets such as dogs and cats in some rooms at an extra charge and not in others. We also have a few cots(extra beds) which are permanently assigned to particular rooms and are not moved. A simple count of possible permutations gives me 9 possible room types. Also we charge extra for third, fourth, and fifth people in rooms which permit that, but not extra for children under 16. So, I will have many questions on that part of the setup.

First, does naming the rate (example 'Non-Smoking King') perform the same function as Room Types does in most programs?

Is rule 1 with its 'motivation' section used to control which rooms smokers are assigned to, or is it more usable for only offering pet-allowed rooms for customers who want to bring their dog? How does one do that? Or is there for some other purpose?

How do people typically handle the question of children? Can you set up a box for number of adults and a separate box for number of children?

I'll stop here for now and ask more later as i learn more.

Thanks

Jim

[gonesouth]

Further Questions:

I tried making a reservation, and process did not ask me about the motivations. How does that work?

When I look at the reservation template, and also the email, it was reversed from the usual order in North America - name first, then street address, then city, then region, then country, then postal code...... Is there some way to switch this around?

The form is designed for the street number to be given separately from the street name........I suppose the way to change this is to get to work on the templaate?

[gonesouth]

My day to answer questions, so I might as well answer my own!

First, does naming the rate (example 'Non-Smoking King') perform the same function as Room Types does in most programs?

ANSWER: Not really. rate-naming is more flexible, as a room can qualify for several rate. For example my 'Pet' rooms have a rate, but they also are the last rooms to be assigned according to their bed configuration. i.e. the regular Queens go first, then my Pet Queen, unless someone requests a Pet Queen first. The best way to think of rates is not as rates, but as the items which appear in the drop down box on the 'Check Availability" page for the guest to choose from. So, you could add a River Tour rate if you want, it doesn't have to be a room.....

Is rule 1 with its 'motivation' section used to control which rooms smokers are assigned to, or is it more usable for only offering pet-allowed rooms for customers who want to bring their dog? How does one do that? Or is there for some other purpose?

ANSWER: I haven't a clue. Marco's documentation talks about it as being useful when you use rental agencies, but we work first-come, first-served with the only agency we use so I have no idea what it is for.

How do people typically handle the question of children? Can you set up a box for number of adults and a separate box for number of children?

ANSWER: I'm guessing in Europe you don't either charge for, or count children......In our case we have to know the exact number of people in a unit in case of a fire. I have to be able to give the firemen a list of rooms and the number of people to pull out of each - it saves them time and saves lives as they don't waste time checking for people who aren't there and can move on to the next room. If I don't have that list and there's a fire I will be working in future at the Crowbar Hotel........end result. A notice on the booking page that we will adjust the rate at checkin as children are free, and we will continue to use other software for our official checkin process.

When I look at the reservation template, and also the email, it was reversed from the usual order in North America - name first, then street address, then city, then region, then country, then postal code...... Is there some way to switch this around?

ANSWER: Probably re-working the template, but I just eliminated the address, and will get that info later. Makes checkin slower, but it's a limitation of the software.

The form is designed for the street number to be given separately from the street name........I suppose the way to change this is to get to work on the templaate?

ANSWER: live with it!

[marco]

Hello Jim,
There is a feature planned for 1.1.1 that would help you setting up your rates. The feature is giving the possibility to mark an extra cost as incompatible with some apartments, so that for example when people chooses the extra cost "pets" or "non-smoking" the assignment will exlude incompatible rooms.

Rule 1 can be used for agencies as it warns you when you are inserting a reservation in one of those periods, so you can call the agency and tell them that the period is now occupied. It can also be used to select where and when a user can insert reservations (so you can give the access to the agency as a php-residence user).

For chieldren you could create an extra cost (also with value 0) called "number of children under x years" and asking for how much must it be multiplied.

For the street you could just skip the number field and insert it into the street field changing its name to "address" (in internet templates you can change all default phrases).

Marco

[gonesouth]

Hi Marco,

Thanks for all the replies. When I wrote the original post I was looking for the function you are thinking about for 1.1.1. Since that time I figured out that by attaching a room to two rates it achieves the same thing, especially when the pet zero cost option is only compatible with the pet rate. (For anyone else reading, if you don't follow PM me. I'm guessing Marco knows what I mean) On the other hand being able to make both rate and certain apartments incompatible with an extra gives a whole new world of flexibility.

I understand that Rule 1 can be used to warn of agency conflicts, but is it possible to have you explain how it is used in detail. I simply don't understand what settings i would use to make it work.

The problem with children is that I still need to consider them as extra people from a bed and room capacity point of view - I don't want the guest to select 4 people and 2 children under 16 and mean a total of 6 people (4 adults and 2 children)in a room with two double beds. I'll do some testing there.

I see on the street box. it's just a text field anyway.

Thanks for the help.

Jim

[marco]

If for example you have given to an agency 2 apartments in September, add 2 rules (one for each apartment) with the September period, you may use the name of the agency as motivation for both. Now when you insert reservations those apartments and periods will be occupied only when strictly necessary and you will be warned before that.

Marco

[gonesouth]

Thanks, Marco. I tried it as you described and I understand it now. Looks like a good way to put a reminder in for the desk operator.I will try to write an explanation for the wiki over the next week or so of how to use it now.

For your new features list, if I could make a single rule 1 apply to all rooms for a given date or time period, it would be useful to remind the desk to send the email that offers a special deal for that period. If I have to put it in 18 times it gets a lot less useful.

For example I could write an email "Oktoberfest Special" - Room, dinner, tickets, and wine $299 per couple which rule 1 would remind the desk operator to send whenever a request comes in for a room during Oktoberfest.

Thanks

Jim