Software Release - February 2020 - v3.20.02.17

Overview

This release guide documents the changes made to the iPro CRM Software during the month of February 2020

Reminder: All clients have the ability to view all software changes on their staging site (IPROSTAGE), prior to deployment on the live site.

i.e. clientdomain(com).iprostage.com

(com) is the extension of domain .co.uk, .net, .info, etc...

Deployment Process

Deployment of the updated software is by client request raising a ticket with the support desk or via an email to support@ipro-software.com.

Deployment will be scheduled within an agreed time window. If you wish to change the time which has been agreed, please contact the support desk to arrange a suitable alternative. ,

Enhancements

Company Settings

• A number of unused options have been removed from the Company Settings page [3091]
• New options have been added to the Financial Statement Configuration tab of the company Settings page which allow you to configure how the payment schedules are calculated.  This includes the value and due date for the owner deposit payment (if any) [3091, 3233]
• The booking rules have moved from the CMS into the Company Settings page [3247]

Pro Rata Prices [3254]

• There are now three options for how to calculate prices of bookings bases on weekly rates when the booking is not an exact number of weeks long.
  • Pro Rata - This is the existing default behaviour where a pro rata price will be calculated based on the weekly rate for the property, so a ten night property would be calculated as (weekly rate / 7) x 10.
  • Week + Short Break - This will combine the weekly rate with the short break rates.  So a ten night booking will be calculated as the weekly rate plus the cost of a three night short break.
  • Pro Rata 8-9 Nights & 10 Night Plus (Week + Short Break) - This method uses regular pro rata rates for breaks of eight and nine nights, but the week plus short break prices for bookings of 10 to thirteen nights.

Pets Extra Linked to Search Results and Enquiries [3402] -- Guide Here

• An extra can be configured as a pets extra by linking it to an attribute which specifies how many pets a property allows.  Once linked the cost of the extra will automatically be included in the prices displayed in search results and enquiries when the search includes a number of pets.
• Extras can be given different prices depending on the quantity.  For example, if you have an extra for dogs you could charge £50 for the first dog, but £25 for a second dog.

User Management [3261]

• The dates that the user account was created and last modified are now shown on the user list
• The ability to archive a user has been added to the user profile page
• Archived users will no longer be able to log in and wont be listed in the list of users throughout the system

Date ranges on warnings [3246]

• It's now possible to have multiple warnings on a property and configure them to apply to a selected date range only. The warnings will be displayed in the back office calendar when the dates have been selected. Warnings can also be configures so that they need to be acknowledged when creating a booking via the back office.

Nature of stay [3234]

• The Nature of Stay field is now editable from within a booking.

Cancellation Alert [3391]

• A new alert type has been added which allows you to send an alert email for bookings which have been cancelled.  See the guide on configuring alerts for more details.

New Booking Tag Automation [3236]

• Dates Extended
• Dates Changed
• Occupancy Changed
• Extras added or amended

Enquiry Enhancements (3260)

• When putting a property on hold you can select to hold the property for 1, 4, 8, 24 or 48 hours, after which the hold will be automatically released if the enquiry hasn't been converted to a booking.
• Bookings tags can be added to an enquiry.  If the enquiry is converted to a booking then the tags on the enquiry will be carried through to the booking.
• You can specify a number of pets on the enquiry and if an additional fee is applicable this will be included in the enquiry price.

Bugs Fixed

• Property Extras API results missing the From/To dates for an extra that's not applicable all year round (view API guide) [3403]
• Fix error messages throughout the system that were formatted incorrectly [3050]
• Fixed an issue where the list of amenities for rooms stops working [3349]
• Location and property search boxes now allow you to enter spaces [3234]
• Fixed issues related to deposit payments in new checkout pages [3451]
• Owner schedules may be removed when a booking is edited by a user without permission to see owner schedules [3481]
• Fixed an issue where index data becomes out of date [2509]
• Fixed an issue where editing users phone numbers changed the main company phone number [3431]
• Made it easier to add bills or tasks to an invoice when there were more than 25 on them [3453]
• The lastupdated API now correctly reports properties as changed when extras have been added/removed/updated [3310]
• bookings API returns the correct balance due dates when multiple bookings are included [3332]

Important Note:

If you are using Booking Tag automation with the Type "Linked to Extra" (see below), it will now cease to work on this release:

To ensure that the Booking Tag automation will continue to work for extras, please change the Type to "Extra Name", use the Operator Equal or Contain and type in the name of the Holiday Extra:

Linked Payment Schedules

From this release, all customers will need to use linked payment schedules.  If you're not using linked schedules already you will be switched to them as part of the upgrade to this release.

What are linked Schedules?

Linked Schedules are like itemised accounting. Now each item is tracked against the payment. This makes it easier from an accounting point of view to track payments against the deposit, each holiday extra, balance, etc compared to having all the costs under a deposit and balance schedule only.

How will this impact my bookings moving forward?

You might notice a difference on how payment schedules are generated from  what you're used to.

This is how it used to look like with Unlinked Schedules:

With linked schedules, each item will have its own payment schedule for easier tracking:
If you are using iPro statements, you'll see the same itemised schedules on it as well.

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