ASSD - Ho(s)tel Management Software PMS 3

What's New in Version 2.11 – 19 March 2014

 

A)        All Users

 

1.History & Audit Trail of Reservation Notes/Memo: The field is now disabled and does no longer allow free editing by default (you can reverse this - depending on user level - via s_reser/memo and s_reser/i_button_m). Instead the user should double click the field to get an empty text input field. This way the user is able to append new memos. They are stored with user name and a timestamp in the main memo field that is no longer fully editable by those users. This gives an audit history of reservation notes.

2.Reservation Web Booking Number - Matchcode 2: Field increased from 15 to 20 characters.

3.Room Plan – New Move Rooms: New way to change rooms on the room plan: instead of drag and drop to a new room you can just drag within the same line, the system remembers the guest with room (shown in a box in the right top corner), then flexibly scroll to the new room and click into column ‘Bed’. This makes it much easier to move rooms over multiple scrolling pages safely. If you click outside the grid, the action is aborted. Both old and new way to move a room have got a new popup message box that allows the user to cancel the operation. This new message boxes can be disabled for both features by deleting the label (msgbox87, msgbox88).

4.Flexible Printer Setting: Via menu Settings, Default Printer the default printer can be specified based on computer, Windows user, ASSD user and terminal client name. This default printer is used for all printout forms that are stored without printer environment! For small POS receipts there is a different default printer setting. It’s only used for bills where ‘receipt’ position 32 is set to Y.  

5.Current Default Printer: Instead of using the Windows default printer, the user can change the default printer within ASSD PMS with the right mouse button printer dialogue. This is convenient if a number of different documents should be printed on another printer than the Windows default. This setting is valid for the current PMS session until a full restart of ASSD PMS or new login (if an ASSD default printer has been configured). The current default printer is used for all printout forms that are stored without printer environment!  

6.Auto Room Assignment Room Type Improvements: If no gender is split, three new fields can be used to create a certain number of twins/doubles, triples or quads (people in room stored with the reservation). Note: the existing ‘Private’ box, is able to create single rooms for those not affected by the new feature.

Templates can be configured with a room type. So the template can influence the price charged based on room types. The new field can be filled with up to 5 characters (=room types). The first room type will be used for single occupation, second for double, third for triple, fourth for quad and fifth for five and more people within the room.

CRS2 articles can send room templates (if all the same - ‘rtypeused’) or block auto room assignment (if conflicting - ‘*conflict’). CRS2 articles can send the number of twins/doubles, triples and quads (d12, d34 and d56) – if XML private. Optionally they can send a room ‘used as’ (if no conflicts – ‘rtypeused’).

7.Internet Bookings: The plan colour of an imported Internet booking can now be specified independently (optionally).

8.Price Calendar - Edit Prices - Select On Click: Input fields are now highlighted on entry or click. This simplifies changing the prices.

9.Guest Ledger - Night Audit: Guest Ledger articles are now stored as payment records to avoid them to appear as revenue (only if setup as an article number other than ‘00’).

10.Children %-Discount and Different Article: Children Article Replacement allows now % and articles replacement at the same time e.g. 120%10 --> Article 120 with 10% discount. Note: all % child logic needs ‘article exchange’ to be filled e.g. with ‘99’.

11.Articles as Payments: Special articles (e.g. web deposit/commission) can be stored as payment records despite among normal invoice positions. Could be helpful for deposits. Default value for field ‘articlepay’ as comma separated list of articles (no blanks!). Those articles are also excluded from the booking value on tab ‘Terms’ (as well as deposit account articles and US sales tax).

12.Room Plan Manage Agent Allotments: New special edit mode for allotments (new button ‘A’ at bottom/left): Allows opening of agent allotments via mouse click, drag and drop rooms, right mouse path split, etc. In edit mode allotments start with ‘#’ followed by customer number. Note: allotments are shown simultaneously with bookings – so ignore overbooking message during allotment edit mode. You can disable or restrict this feature via button label ‘cmdquota’.

13.Copy Reservation from one Property to Another: Via a right click on the ‘+’ button a reservation can be copied from one property into another (two buttons copy and paste appear, another click on ‘+’ deactivates the feature again). Note: because it’s copied and not moved you should set reservation type to ‘deleted, cancelled or moved’ or delete it before switching and copying into another property -> to avoid ending up with two reservations. Rooms, meeting rooms, activities and bills are not copied – just reservation, prices and meal plan.

Also supports switch boards/meta with separate databases.

14.Meal Plan on Departure: A meal plan can be configured to create additional meals on departure day. 4 means till lunch, 6 till dinner. Regardless starting meal on arrival. It allows packages that start with lunch and end with lunch.

15.Guest Form Active Reservations Descending Order: Now shown in descending order.

16.Guest Form Tab Memo/Statistics - Open Reservation: Click on reservation number of ‘History’ to open corresponding reservation in a new reservation form. This also works with Switchboard/Meta in multi property environments.

Click on reservation number of ‘Active Bookings’ to open corresponding reservation.

17.Do Not Rent List Message: Automatically retrieved Internet bookings trigger ‘do not rent list’ on first edit.

18.Activities Default Day: Possibility to set default activity date to arrival instead of arrival + 1: menu Labels – actdate – put a point ‘.’ right to the label (e.g. ‘Date selected:.’).

19.Users - Change Password and Complexity: Normal users with no access to the user database are now able to change their passwords by themselves via new menu. Minimum security can be forced via ‘usercode3’ external validation (default: minimum 6 characters and must contain between 1 and 3 digits).

20.Users - Initial Password Setup: If the user name and password are identical, it’s assumed that it is an initial password and the user is asked to set a new password on first login. This can be enforced via field validation (m_signon, usercode2): From Y to Y.

21.Users - Password Expiry: If the user or password have not been updated for X days, the user is asked to set a new password on next login. This can be enforced via field validation (m_signon, usercode3): From Y to Y. X days is numeric default value (m_signon, usercode3).  0 means that this feature is disabled (default). 1 means that the password should be changed daily. A reasonable setting is e.g. 60.

22.Users - Limit Property/System: Feature to limit the allowed systems and/or properties for login. For the systems you can specify all full qualified folder paths. This allows also limited access to certain computers within a network. The property restriction requires that the user is either allowed to access the own default property or if not set, the general default property of this system. The property limit doesn’t limit menu Query/Mailmerge/Reports.

23.Users - Unit Grouping: New field unit. Each user can be assigned to an organizational unit. Such users see only users that are assigned to the same unit. If they create new users, they are also assigned to the same unit.

24.Users - Disallow Drag & Drop of Rooms: New field prohibits drag and drop of room allocation in room plan.

25.Dual Screen Problem Fixed: Two screens no longer load a screen with 9000x9000 and invisible login window.  

26.Invoices - Automatic PDF Archive: Every time an invoice is created a PDF copy is created in the background automatically. General setting ‘iarchive’ for path to folder. Optional: ‘receipt’ position 31: N prevents printing of original document, X prevents any printing.

27.Portuguese Government Certification: ASSD PMS is now certified by the Portuguese government as legal billing software. If activated, all invoices are RSA signed with SHA-1 signature.

28.Menu Transactions New Info Tab: document number, series, void reason and method, void reference, RSA message/signature.

29.Automatic Internet Booking Retrieval (risauto): Conflicts are written into an error file: risautoerror.txt. In the past a message box was shown that caused risauto.exe to hang.

30.IBAN & BIC added for SEPA: Guest Data: bank code increased to 11 characters (for BIC). Account number increased to 35 characters (for IBAN).

Bank payment table s_dta has got two new fields IBAN and BIC.

31.Reservation 7th User Field: A new flexible user field is available.

32.Packages per Reservation Path: Now multiple packages can be used in a single reservation. The package description field is made invisible on tab ‘Stay’ (‘incdes’ to make it re-visible). The description is now shown above. The new space is used for a new feature ‘package per path’. Field name ‘incl’ (to disable).

33.Packages as Add-ons: Packages can be marked to be put on top of normal invoice (and not instead of). Menu Articles, tab ‘Detail2’, ‘Also for inclusive package’.

34.Form Title Property Name: All forms show the current property name. This makes it easier to work with multiple property forms open at the same time.

35.Product Scanner: Articles can be stored with EAN code and scanned for billing.

On the billing tab of cash register and reservations a barcode reader is supported.

Start character to be defined via ‘barcode’ (default 254) and ‘barcodea’ (1=SHIFT, 2=CTRL, 4=ALT). For reservations it can be defined that all products are added via the price tab (‘bartabp’ set default to 1). Via a default value for ‘barbill’ any EAN code can be defined to emulate the billing button. So the user can scan an EAN code instead of clicking the bill button.

36.Cash Register – New Buttons – Flexible Size and Location: 60 new cash register buttons per page are available. Buttons are grouped by 4 for each of the existing 20 ones resulting in 3 new series: 21-40, 41-50&71-80, 81-99&60. Buttons can now be disabled. The new buttons are disabled by default if not created. Buttons can be configured in size and location. Old buttons default is 68x63 (w/h). New buttons are 34x32. Recommended activation: set existing buttons (01-20) size to 34x32 and create new buttons.

37.Cash Register Table Plan: Simply use the new flexible buttons to create an individual table plan layout. Any button can be used to create and select table bills. Simply use ‘#’ as the first character of the main action (article).

38.Cash Register Button Second Action: e.g. to move back to a certain button set or add a second product.

39.Cash Register ‘Undo’: button is removed by default. You can re-activate it via parameter s_cash/cmdedit.

40.Cash Register Auto Save: Tries to save the data on X or button Quit closing. If saving fails quits anyway. The purpose is to avoid that data is accidentally lost especially with table management. To still quit without saving you can make the validation to fail e.g. via an undefined receipt type.

41.Cash Register/Reservation Open Drawer with Button: Open Cash Drawer via any button in cash register or reservation: simply assign article ‘*drawer’ to a button.

42.Cash Register Buttonset Background Colours: Work now with Windows Themes.

43.Internet Deposit Date: Deposits (e.g. Hostelworld commission) are now imported with arrival date and no longer with empty date. This improves the reporting e.g. via ASSD-BI.

44.Other Business Reports: Unless everything is selected via service date or empty service date, an empty service date ‘from’ is set to 31/12/1900. This avoids confusing data if the service date ‘from’ is empty and the ‘to’ date set to a particular value e.g. for balances of an account.

45.Prices from Guest Type: They are now taken from customer reservation’s guest type instead of customer guest.

46.Zero Bed Rooms (e.g. Parking): Apart from Meeting Rooms and Activities there is now another way to maintain an inventory for restricted products: rooms with zero beds. Because of zero beds they don’t count for any room statistics. Book them via checkbox ‘Fix’. Automatically put on invoice via ‘Article per room’. In room plans that are set to ‘bed level’ those ‘rooms’ are omitted because of firelist, etc.

47.Blocks Improved: all 15 room types are supported, a default value can be set for the blocks tab (guestcodeb). Allotments can be considered in blocks (gcodebfeat/quota). Block view can be based on guests instead of beds (gcodebfeat/fill – no room type support). Block calculation is now a function that can be used in price formula and pmsi web interface.

Blocks with flexible Options definition: Configure all ‘Options’ reservation types flexibly via a comma separated list (gcodebfeat/regcode) – default is previous hardcoded value “21”.

Blocks allow multi assignments. One guest type can be assigned to multiple blocks. To avoid those additional (duplicate, overlapping) blocks to count to the total blocks they can be omitted from total calculation by starting control field with ‘*SUB’ (guestcodeb).

Blocks can be configured for guest numbers in addition to guest types. Simply add guest numbers with leading # to the comma separated list in the control field (guestcodeb).

48.Availability Tab Guests: New third list type that shows guest numbers also for allotments instead of bed numbers.

49.Price Plans Zero Price: a price of 0 e.g. restrictions displays as blank (instead of 0.00).

50.Shifts - Synchronize Service Date with Shift Date - Billing: create a numeric default value ‘jdayno’ that represents the minutes after midnight where the previous day shift is still allowed to bill (range check Y-Y). As a result the service date of all payments, of manually added revenue (e.g. cash register) and end of shift discrepancies (cash & items) will be set to the shift date and not to the current date. Reports for payments based on service date will match all shifts for a particular date range. For voids this is applied only to payment records that are neither deposit nor A/R. Accounting transactions are not affected.

51.Shifts – Set Rollover: Global setting supervisor ‘jdayno’. Allows you to delay the switch over to a new shift date in minutes e.g. 60 means that a new day is not open before 1:00 in the morning. In combination with ‘jdayno’ validation you can now create a time Window that enforces the date change to happen in between: e.g. between 3:00 am and 4:00 am. So before 3:00 am yesterday is still used. After 3:00 the shift date is set to today. After 4:00 am the system stops people from doing transactions and enforces an end of shift procedure to switch to today.

52.Accounting - Show Customer Debts (A/R): set the reservation number entry for the corresponding accounting transaction to “A” (instead of “Y”) and a fully sortable list of open A/R is shown. Click in header to change the order. Double click on customer number to set or reset customer filter. You can select reservations for quick access (click in column Reg.No. or Balance). Or even mark multiple amounts to book them in one batch (click or enter column Amount).

53.Accounting - Show Requested Advance Deposits: set the reservation number entry for the corresponding accounting transaction to “D” (instead of “Y”) and via a Search button a fully sortable list of open deposits is loaded (arrival today-5 days till future). Click in header to change the order. Double click on customer number to set or reset customer filter. You can select reservations for quick access (click in column Reg.No. or Balance). Or even mark multiple amounts to book them in one batch (click or enter column Amount).

54.Accounting with Button Money Count: Transaction types: set Amount entry to C (instead of Y).

55.Housekeeping Tab Check-In/Out Status:  The number of free nights is set to blank if zero; the check-in/checkout status can is shown in addition to number of arrivals/departures for today’s plan. Example: Departure: |1|>3 and Arrival: 2>|1|. Between || is the number of used beds that are in house.

56.Cleaning Plan Checkout Status: Plan 05 printed for today: if departing guests have not yet checked-out, a yellow background is shown.

57.Full Reservation History Audit Trail: Letter HRE - provided that the audit trail is switched on.

58.Journal Reports Drop Down Selection: next to Journal No. there is a new drop down box that shows all journal numbers with corresponding month (month, year, number) (provided that general setting oldmonth=Y).

59.Quick Reservation Default Reservation Type: a different reservation type can be set as default for walk-in guests if time > 10:00:00 and arrival=today (regcode2).

60.Letter, Correspondence – Staff Name: New global field ‘g_username’ that contains the full name of the current user for printing purposes.

61.Letter, Correspondence – Day of Week: Fields day of week arrival and departure: arrivaldow, departdow (for all paths - w_spool).

62.Room Plan – Bed Names: Bed Names are extended from 20 to 30 bed IDs.

The bed numbers in the room plan can be switched off because e.g. replaced by bed names A, B, C. (a_dayview/a_calendar, field 'style' default 3rd character: Y)

63.New Field for Invoice Document Number:  via Button ‘Text’ on tab ‘Billing’ - s_jhead.docnum (drop down from participant list, s_guest.match2, s_guest.user11 from Guest Invoice and Guest Reservation).

64.New Invoice/Void External Validations: More flexible and individual logic validation is supported: validate4, validate5, valvoid3 and valvoid4.

65.Void and Refund: An optional form (m_void) for void reason and method can be configured. It appears for full voids and refunds (amount negative). For the latter also the original invoice number can be entered for reference. For default values and validation there are voidreason/voidmethod (full void) and voidr2/voidm2 (refund). The additional data is stored in the invoice header. To enable this feature set the numeric(!) default value for voidreason and/or voidr2 to 1. More options numeric default values: 1=facturas type 1 only, 2=facturas type 1&2 only, 3=all.

66.Invoice Numbering: Optional separate series of invoice and void numbers (for Spanish ASSD customers). There are 4 new number counters. If enabled invoices and voids count separately. There are two such pairs: 1 or 2. Also a one character prefix can be defined. receipt, position 23: e.g. 1FA --> goes to s_jhead.factura if not an accounting transaction. This is also kept for voids. Receipt types with this filled are later after billing only allowed for printing if they match s_jhead.factura! (msgbox412). The second position is shown next to the transaction number if amount >=0 (e.g. F). Otherwise third (e.g. A)

67.Cancellations: Remove all invoice rows on cancellation (‘regcode’, position 43 = D). Creates clean reservations with regard to automatic web cancellation import.

68.US Sales Tax Improvement: Changes of the reservation e.g. cancellation are now transferred to US sales tax calculation instantly and not only on tab ‘Billing’.

Extended End of Shift Procedure: stock control allows items with US sales tax booked correctly with tax in case of discrepancy.

Reservation Tab Terms, Button Detail: Booking Value excludes US sales tax.

69.Third US Sales Tax: a third tax is now configurable via parameter ‘vat’.

70.Room Type Plan: Number of rooms is displayed next to number of beds available for bed based room types. Switch off: set position 10 to N (rtype).

71.Improved Excel Export: The new Excel export format aims to provide cleaner as well as smaller Excel documents. As a result using the Excel export for subsequent calculations is much easier now. The following are the key differences from the standard Excel output: A. Each report is generated as a single sheet with a single page header at the top of the document and a single page footer at the very bottom. The header/footer sections are not inserted inside the report where the pages would normally break. B. The process eliminates empty columns and rows whenever possible. C. The report layout is automatically adjusted to eliminate narrow rows and columns. The old format can still be used via type ‘XLSFULL’ (ftype).

72.DJH Membership Cards (HI Germany): Supports scanning of guest data into guest database and quick reservation.

73.Cultural City Tax: Support for city tax calculation based on overnight revenue via a normal automatic product one row per date and invoice with number of people/rooms (or without date). The tax amount is calculated based on a percentage of the overnight account and price is set divided by quantity. Multiple rows per date must be avoided: e.g. caused by split and split back to original invoice. If the tax is configured per day and split products are used (e.g. bed and breakfast), the article split must be configured per day, too.

Pre-configuration: ensure that a tax product is put automatically on the bill with a flexible(!) price.

Configuration – field ‘tax’ value ‘1’: position 1 = tax article number, position 11 = accrual per date (A – any value but blank), position 21 = condition for calculation basis e.g. accommodation account number.

Configuration – field ‘tax’ value ‘2’: position 1 = actual calculation (gross) e.g. 5% *1.19 = *0.0595 (conditions based on date are possible).

74.Prices Per Room with Two Articles: Prices per room in conjunction with splitting into two products work now independently from a master article exchange. In other words the second product (or third, ..) is still kept even if the master article is conditional removed.

75.Check-In/Check-Out: via arrival, departure and room plan update the change date and user of the reservation. Consequently a change of check-in status can be printed on the reservation history report.

76.Participant Feature for Reservations: All members of a group can be recorded individually with full personal data e.g. name, birthday, passport number, nationality, etc. Import feature for Excel based participant lists.

77.TTI Passport Scanner Interface: Scan guests’ id cards and populate reservation documents with photo, image and text fields as well as update guest data.

78.Vingcard Key Card Interface: Parameter "card_clsid" – control field: any value removes the 6:00 to 14:00 logic that creates a start time of 14:00 unless an earlier arrival time is specified. Then cards are always valid instantly.

79.Unassigned Rooms (reduce_q=U): Allows to create reservations that are assigned to any room for pricing however don’t show up on room plan and allow final assignment on check-in. Can be set as default. Room booking status is set to ‘U’. No warnings that room booking isn’t complete in room plan for such reservations. Arrival list hides room number. After check-in e.g. via arrival list, the room plan shows unassigned reservations anyway – they are still movable on room plan. On check-in via reservation/bill or later edit the ‘U’ status is automatically turned to ‘Y’. This allows two processes: set check-in on arrival list and move to final room on room plan tab or open reservation choose room and bill guest. For unassigned reservations the room tab in reservations is automatically filtered to rooms with the same room type and ‘used as’ room type. Can be changed via right click in header building, floor, corridor.

80.Room Plan Filter Rooms: Building, Floor, Corridor, Room Type: new double click feature allows to set or unset the filter instantly. Floors: Increased to 12 floors (from 8).

81.Yield Price Formula Price Access: Price formula can use prices of other products: p_this.getprice(pricedate,"103F") Note: products are processed in alphabetical order.

82.Yield Price Formula Speed: Speed up by factor 20 if only one line with an expression is used. If you need a complex formula, simply put it into a compiled function and put e.g. RETURN myfu() in the formula. myfu.fxp stored in the ASSD folder (=compiled function). Note: always ensure that there are no additional blank lines in the function at the end.

83.Yield Price Formula Occupancy: calculation changed for yield formula: a default allotment that is added to free beds is now also considered as free for yield occupancy figures which makes sense because this represents unsold web allotments.

84.Central Marketing Guest Database (separate – not MySQL based): On the “Hostel Links” tab there is a new button (-) to delete single links (s_guest_a). Below there is a field to move a link to another central guest number (Label “subguest” with align right 10 needed). History, Last Stay and Number of Stays need to be corrected manually if used!

Import – sql-0 new shortcut: *EMAIL (central customer database import)

85.Guest History (editguesth=Y): There is a delete mark in the history grid to delete single records (tab “Memo/Statistics”).

86.Article Split: An individual price of 999999 results in a price calculated from the current remainder divided by the quantity of the split article. This can be used for the last row in article split to break down the remainder on certain days for products (packages) with flexible price.

87.Article Split: An individual price of 999000.01to 999100.00 results in a price calculated as a percentage (000.01 to 100.00) of the total price of the main article. This can be used to apply a percentage split for products (packages) with flexible price.

88.Retrieve Internet Bookings: If a guest is matched to an existing guest via email, the bank/account data is transferred to the memo field of the reservation (similar to the address).

89.Menu Query Mailmerge/Labels/Reports: Reduce columns to improve usability of Excel export. Report Types 21-24, 26-29 are new flexible codes for Excel export (reporttype). The control field (reporttype) can be used to specify the columns for selection: e.g.  s_guest.name1,s_guest.name2” or “s_guest.*”.

90.Manual Price Changes via Calendar: A message box can be configured to warn if a yield formula would be overwritten (msgbox85).

91.Housekeeping Improvements: New keyboard short cuts to select all rooms or deselect all rooms: click into grid, then key A or S to select all, key U or R to deselect all. Existing possibility to select multiple rows: if you click on any row, afterwards click on a second row and keep shift-key pressed, then all rows in between will be selected. This works only for visible rows (multiple pages with scrolling need several such actions).

Problem descriptions that are empty are no longer shown in yellow.

Additional areas for housekeeping plan: simply add rooms with valid from/to both set to 01/01/2000. The additional area will be kept at the location of the virtual room number but it shows the description on the plan (e.g. Stairs, Common Room). Those areas have got a separate logic how long they are shown as clean (setting ‘housekday2’). By default only the current day shows cleaned. This can be changed to any number of days. Additionally the red, yellow, green icon formula can be changed as before (‘housekstat’ and report file).

92.Meta Prices: Meta Prices no longer change/delete old prices before the From-date or after the To-date of the currently edited record. This is a substantial change in paradigm! Meta Prices no longer reflect the full price picture of one article. Meta Prices still add prices outside the period if needed e.g. to go back to original price after a period. Actual prices need to be double checked via menu Prices. This change makes it possible to combine Meta Prices with normal price maintenance e.g. manual price changes per day via the new price editing features per day. If Meta Prices should overwrite existing prices the user must ensure that all periods are fully covered by Meta Prices and those Meta Price records are all edited by the user (edit, save).

93.Message System: Users up to level “29” are now included in the message feature (formerly up to level “20”)

94.Merge Two Guest Entries: Via menu ‘menu704’ two separate guest/customer records can be merged to one single entry to remove duplicate data. Corresponding reservations are changed automatically, too.

95.Tool Tip Bubble: Timer no longer forced to 0 (=off) on terminal server (tiptimer setting).

96.Journal Reports - Auto-PDF Export: Export in the background (jreport, position 21) extended to a second folder (jreport, position 41). Position 31/51 respectively = N creates single PDF files rather than one big one.

97.Copy Full Reservation Changes: Omits cash register entries booked onto a reservation.

Reset: invoice number, advance deposit, open debts, history, email text.

It is able to copy participant data as well. A popup asks the user. This feature can also be switched off (‘msgbox86’ - then never copies participant data).

The check-in status is no longer be copied to the new reservation.

98.Internet Booking Import new XML-fields supported: Reservation: children8, children9, expire, departtime. ‘pinadi’ to store a credit card token.

Guest: phone2, state, nation1, user01/02/09/11/12.

If XML ‘nation’ is provided, then from the control field of nation2 the country code nation1 is populated and the field country from the nation1 description.

Meal plan default by guest type is now supported. ‘pathinfo’ for info field on arrival list.

Paid Internet bookings support flexible counter account. XML <payproviderid> is assigned via combobox ‘payprov’ to a new account via control field. Payment provider ID examples are: 1090=Master, 1091=Visa, 631=Giropay, 132=InterCard LSV.

Auto Room Assignment: d12, d34 and d56 (double, tripe, quad), rtypeused (room used as), template (auto room template or *conflict).

The reservation type can be imported from booking XML (‘regcode’) – provided that there is no error and the normal reservation type would be used.

99.Article Exchange based on flexible Price: Type “18” replaces the article based on the price value. For example if a certain price is exceeded, an alternative article is put on the bill (e.g. with different tax settings). Coding is NND (e.g. 300 means 30.00).

100.Article Exchange based on Guest Gender and/or Mix: Type “09” replaces the article based on the guest gender or coed/non-coed room. Coding: – mix Y or N then sex 1,2,3 (e.g. N1, N2).

101.Article Exchange based on Nationality: Type “11” replaces the article based on the guest nationality (nation2). Only via guest data not via invoice like guest type!

102.Article Exchange based on a combination of weekday, duration of stay and number of overnight: ‘19’ – xyyzz. This is helpful for combination of multi day packages with restricted arrival days of the week.

103.Backup & Restore Solution: If enabled it ensures that data backups are performed regularly. If no backup was made or has failed for more than X hours, users see a warning on login. After another Y hours users are stopped from logging in, unless a working backup was made. The backups are numbered consecutive and stored in folder ‘backup’. During this backup all users must quit the system. Tools: assdbackup.exe and assdrestore.exe. Report ‘10’ shows a report of all backup and restore actions.

Backup supports a file ‘assdbackuppath.txt’ that configures a different backup folder e.g. on a remote hard drive. Please note that the folder ‘backup’ within the main ASSD folder is still needed for temporary files.

104.Code Field of General Settings Supervisor: extended to 80 characters (from 40) to allow larger folder paths.

105.External configuration file enabled: place a file config.fpw in the main folder or specify it with the command line option -C(file) without a blank between switch and path/file. In the configuration file you can specify the temp folder for ASSD with the command: TMPFILES = path. Setting this different as Windows default simplifies Virus scan exclusion or conflicts with multiple single Windows users running ASSD. Test via command: ? sys(2023) which shows the current temp path.

External config.fpw supports TABLEVALIDATE = 0 (default = 7).

 

B)        Additional External Features (not free of charge)

 

1.Macros: Automate any action within ASSD (e.g. reports, exports) from outside via the e.g. Windows task planner. Call rb.exe with a Macro: rb.exe XP, 0, 0, 0, macroname

Note that the blank after the comma is important. If no central customer database is used, the 4th parameter must be 0.

This can be used to automate report creation and exports on a regular basis via the Windows Task Planner. Errors are logged in <file>error.txt (e.g. rberror.txt).

Macros must reside in a subfolder called ‘macros’. Please ensure that this folder has no write file access rights for normal users for security reasons. Macros run as security level ‘30’ and user ‘*MACRO’.

Macros need to be enabled via menu Settings, Supervisor: field ‘macro’ -> “Y”.

2.Saferpay - Credit Card Interface: Supports keyed in card numbers as well as card references (token). The latter can be imported from CRS2 booking engine or Channel Manager. Is also able to turn a card number into a card reference (token) for later use.

3.Shift4 - Dollars On The Net (DOTN) - Credit Card Interface

4.Merchantware - Credit Card Interface

5.Moneris - Credit Card Interface

6.Tool - Move Room: Move reservations in selected period from one room to another room automatically even to different room setup/type.

7.Web Service Component – e.g. Tour Operator / Agent Real-Time Interface

8.MySQL Central Customer Database: Multi-property customers that use the common customer database where all properties share the same guest database can upgrade it to a MySQL based database that synchronizes with each property. This improves scalability of the systems and speed. Additionally the MySQL customer database can be used to connect with third party systems easily (e.g. CRM).

9.MySQL Central User Database: Multi-property customers are able to create users just once and update them automatically over all properties.

10.TAPI Phone Interface: Opens reservations and guest data automatically on incoming calls by identifying the caller id. To activate the interface automatically on user logon the character ‘+’ needs to be put into the user name description field as well as the user needs to be allowed to open the interface via the menu.

Driver Info: http://www.exceletel.com/support/hardware/index.htm