Myallocator: Reviewing External Bookings

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Plan Availability: ✓ Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise  | ✓ Flex |
Locate: Reports > Booking Index > External Bookings
Prerequisites:

• Admin permissions or restricted permissions to access the Booking Index and RSS and iCal Feeds.
• Your account must have access to items (Inventory > Items), which is a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront. 
• This integration is not yet supported with products (Inventory > Products), which is a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront. 

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

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Once a booking has been made through one of your third-party channels, it is automatically added to Checkfront and your available inventory is updated.

To review your External Bookings, go to Reports > Booking Index in your Checkfront Dashboard and click on the External Bookings button, as shown above.

 

Note, that only new bookings from myallocator sync in Checkfront under External Bookings. All bookings made prior to the connection with Checkfront and myallocator need to be manually entered into Checkfront.

 

The External Bookings page is a list of bookings that have come in through the myallocator integration.

Select information is displayed for each record including...

• the Source of the booking (e.g. myallocator).
• the Channel the booking came through (e.g. booking.com).
• the Customer's name and email address.
• the Amount and currency of the booking.
• the quantity (Qty) of the booking.
• the Item/Product booked (Description).
• the Start date and end date of the booking.
• the date Modified, where applicable.
• the status of the Booking (e.g. NEW).

 

To import a new booking, start by clicking on the button under the Booking column. This opens a modal with the booking details displayed.

Verify that the booking details shown match the original channel booking processed and click Import Booking if you are happy to proceed.

 

Next, you have a chance to make any changes to the booking details before importing the booking.

Click Add to Booking when you are satisfied with your changes.

The Next button becomes active and you can click on this to accept the booking.

Once the booking has been accepted, the Booking button displays the Booking Code pre-fixed by a checkmark (✓ XXXX-######). You can click on the button to view the booking details.

 

Once the booking has been created, the booking is considered a Staff Booking. By default, the status of the booking is set to Pending. You can change this in System Defaults (Manage > Setup > Configuration > Staff Status). Learn more here... Setup: Configuration

 

When new myallocator bookings come through and myallocator is set up to automatically lock inventory (see Setup in Checkfront), the Unlock option is present on New external bookings. 

 

The inventory associated with this booking is locked to prevent the inventory from being booked by someone else. Unlocking this booking runs the risk of creating an overbooking.  Staff should be provided with training or instructions on when or under what circumstances a new, external booking should be unlocked.

 

 

External Booking Updates All booking edits are sent from myallocator to Checkfront. However, this only updates the 'external booking'. If the booking has already been imported, then any changes to the external booking are not reflected in the imported Checkfront booking. The best solution is to disable booking edits in all enabled channels in myallocator, such as Booking.com. If you proceed with this solution, this means that the Guests need to contact you directly for any changes. Another option is to not import external bookings (under Reports > Booking Index > External Bookings) until after your guests show up at the reception and check-in. With this solution, the inventory is blocked in Checkfront, even if you don't import the external bookings. However, Checkfront Notifications are not sent to Guests until the booking is imported...something to consider when making your decision.  If you want to allow edits, and need to import your external bookings, then the third option would be to manually edit the Checkfront bookings when any changes are made. This is providing you are notified (by either Booking.com or MyAllocator) that a change has been made to a booking. After receiving such a notification, you would then need to edit the booking in Checkfront to match the changes that were made.

 

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