Processing Requests |
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Once any new requests have been retrieved, the next step is to "process" them. This is mostly just a matter of looking at the request details to make sure everything is in order, selecting a site if needed, and then save them so they become a real reservation in Campground Master (also creating the appropriate customer record and deposit transactions as needed).
All "new" requests will be shown in the list in the Online Reservation Requests dialog. A "new" request is any request just Downloaded, or added with the Paste & Process function, or Re-processed Downloaded Requests.
The Status column will show one of the following values:
Unprocessed -- It's a new request, not processed and saved as a real reservation yet.
Saved -- It has been processed and saved as a real reservation.
Ignored -- It has been viewed and ignored for now, during this session. This may include retrieved E-mail messages that were not recognized as valid requests.
*Error* -- The request could not be parsed using the defined parsing rules (either an error in the rule definition or a problem with the request data). If you hold the mouse cursor over that line in the list, the error details will be shown. You should check any of these to see whether they can be salvaged using the Edit Original Text function.
The Notes column would normally show any reservation notes extracted from the request, but if a request has an error or if it's ignored due to missing information, then the Notes column will include the Subject of the E-mail message. This will help you determine if it needs further attention.
Processing a Request
You can view a request's details and process it by selecting the request in the list and clicking the View / Process selected request button at the bottom. As a shortcut, you can also just double-click the request in the list. If it's a Saved request, this will take you to Reservation Details since it's already a real reservation. Otherwise it will take you to the Online Request Details dialog, where you will process the request and make it a real reservation. Once you've saved it there, it will be designated as such on the list and you can continue with the next one.
Once all new requests have been suitably processed by either saving them or ignoring them, you can proceed to uploading the new availability data and/or deleting all downloaded requests to clean things up.
Note that you can also attempt to process requests that have an "*Error*" or "Ignored" status. Of course an error may still prevent it from being correctly processed, but you can at least see what fields were retrieved. If a request was previously Ignored, you can use View / Process to essentially undo the ignored status and complete the processing for it.
Editing a Request's Original Text
There may be times when a request can't be parsed or processed correctly due to a problem with the original text (e.g. the E-mail message may not be formatted as expected, causing it not to be parsed correctly). As long as the request has not yet been Saved as a real reservation, you can view the complete retrieved request in raw text format by selecting the request and clicking the Edit Original Text of selected request button. This will show the raw text and you can do any editing necessary. When you click Save, it will attempt to parse the request again. Note that the original request will be deleted from the list, and the newly parsed request will be added to the bottom of the list.
Link to an Existing Reservation
This is primarily used for the Hercules 2-way interface to aid in initial synchronizing, for online reservations that were also entered manually in Campground Master so they don't have the Online Order ID to allow synchronization.
Select the online reservation from the list, click this button, and then use the Find Reservation dialog that opens to locate the existing Campground Master reservation that matches the online request. Tip -- you may want to move the Find dialog around so you can see the online reservation information in the grid to help match up the customer, site and dates to make sure you have the right one.
Once you locate the desired local one and click "Use" in Find Reservation, the local one will be updated with the Online Order ID so they will stay synchronized. No other information from the online reservation is saved, since it should already be in the local reservation.
Ignoring a Request
You can designate a request as "Ignored" by selecting the request in the list and clicking the Ignore selected request button at the bottom. This is usually done for requests that you decide not to save, like junk requests. Actually it does nothing except set the status in the list to "Ignored", mostly for your own convenience so you know you didn't skip it by accident, in case you have a lot of requests to process.
Note that ignored requests are not saved in the database at all -- once you close this dialog window, it will be gone -- except that it will still be in the temporary download file as long as you don't click Delete all Downloaded Requests. Thus you could ignore it for now and use the Re-process function later to retrieve it -- at which time it will show "Unprocessed" again (the Ignored status is temporary, it's not remembered). If you just need more information from the customer and may want to keep it later, it would be better to save it as an Inquiry instead of ignoring it (this can be done through the Online Request Details dialog).
Further Topics:
Uploading Site Availability Data
Exporting to Web Vacancy Grids