Newsletter 5/5/2009

Enhancements in your system now

• If a member attempts to book for a season which is not yet available for public bookings, and has not yet logged in, then after they select dates and move to the next step, they are told that this period is only available for bookings by members, and a link to login is provided.  The date after which non-members can book continues to be displayed as well.

• New feature on login screen – sends the Member Number to the member’s email address on request.  The member needs to enter their email address exactly as it is recorded in the website.  Once the Member Number is obtained, login is possible.
• The “middleware” code has been strenghthened to double-check for booking anomalies.  Previously whatever the browser submitted was enacted without sufficient checking.  99% of the time this was fine, but occasionally browsers can do strange things.  By checking again on the server, we should reduce or eliminate the occasional incorrect bookings which have occurred in the past, e.g.  double bookings.
• Improvements to the way Paypal notification is handled so that the booking will receive a correct status even if the payer does not allow Paypal to return them to the booking site after payment is made.
• You can now decide what the alpha prefix will be for booking IDs, instead of the former “PB”.  Look in your “site config”, expand “booking details” and it’s down the bottom of that section.

• You now see an immediate, on-screen confirmation when sending an invoice or other actions editing bookings, so you know it has been done.
• You can now upload images for each room (displayed on the main booking matrix when mouse-over the room number) when creating or editing room details.  Previously this required an ftp session and you had to know where to put the images.
• You can now define the maximum and minimum number of guests for each of the two main room types.  This should be an “envelope” that covers all rooms of each type.  Previously this was hard-coded in the database.
• Added an additional field to the Site Config->Booking Details: “Booking Rule HTML”.  This allows you to change the page which gives the booking rules (or terms and conditions).
• Added an additional field in Site Config -> Site Detail, contains HTML code for tariff page.  If this field is used, the default page generated by the server is replaced with your HTML.
• Member IDs can now include letters as well as numbers.
• Added a “mobile phone” field to the member details form.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a booking to disappear if the administrator edits an existing booking and logs out without exiting from the edit session.
• In the various emails sent by the system, some additional fields are now supported, e.g.  %BOOKINGID% in the subject line.  Field substitution expanded in the cancellation email to support the same fields as other emails, e.g.  Check-in/-out times, Room booked (was booked, now cancelled).
• Small bugfix to the “availability page” which incorrectly showed a confirmed booking as “orange”, i.e.  tentative under some circumstances.

Enhancements due later this year

• Provide you with an option to require that members must login to the booking site in order to obtain members’ rates.  At the moment any anonymous customer can claim members rates, but this hasn’t caused any problems and this makes it convenient for members to make a booking.  However, using the new option has these benefits:
  • Encourage members to read the members-only pages of the Club website.
  • Prevent non-financial members from claiming members rates for a booking (note this will work in with the next enhancement listed below).
• Keep track of “paid-up” date for each member.  The administrator will update this date (usually via a button which advances the date by 1 year), when dues are paid.  Members will be able to pay their dues on-line (this option will be available to members at your choice).  You will have the option to deny non-financial members the right to obtain members rates.
• You will be able to set a maximum number of people in a single booking.  Does not stop a large group from making two separate bookings covering the same period however.
• A reminder email will be sent a set number of days before the arrival date.  You will be able to set the number of days.