In majority of cases, problems with synchronization with booking channels appear due to the incorrect configuration of the connection in Channel Manager or in the portals back office. If you noticed that the connection does not work properly, the availability or restrictions are not updated on the portal or you don't receive reservations, please see the instruction below to check if your connection is set up properly.
The instructions below can be applied to all plugins in Channel Manager. You can check the same way if the connection works properly in case of Booking.com, Hostelworld, Expedia or other channels (except Airbnb which works differently. See here.)
STEP 1 - Check if the connection is active
To check it, open Channel Manager from Property Management menu and see if the plugin is enabled. If it has the green color, it means that the plugin is active and the synchronization should work properly:
If the plugin is red but you had the connection activated previously, it means that the synchronization is disabled.
You need to activate the plugin again. To do so:
1. Click on the channel that you want to enable.
Click on the Enable button on the right bottom corner of the window, then confirm the action:
2. Click on Next button to proceed.
Then, click on the Next button again in next configuration step (Room mapping):
3. In Rates mapping step, click on Save button. It saves and enables the connection.
You will see the connection confirmation view. At this moment, the system starts to download pending reservations (the ones that could not be downloaded when the plugin was disabled)and it sends the one-year global availability and rates update to the portal.
Please be careful when passing through the Channel Manager. Remember that if for any reason you need to go through the mapping again, you have to get to the end of the process. If you quit the connection in room mapping or rate mapping part, the plugin will be disabled.
STEP 2 - check if prices and availability are updated on the portal
Prices synchronization check
To check if the prices are updated properly on the portal, you can change the price on selected day and room in Availability and Rate Calendar:
1. Change the price manually in the Calendar
2. Save the changes.
3. Open your portal's back office or refresh the window if it is already opened and check if the price is updated.
4. Restore season price with right click
5. Check the price update in the back office
Availability synchronization check
Every time there is a new reservation added to the system (manually or it is downloaded from the portals), moved to another room type, cancelled or modified, the system updates the availability automatically in Availability and Rate Calendar. That availability is sent to the portal and the updates are immediately done in the back office.
You can easily check if it works correctly:
1. Create a new reservation in the system and observe how the availability changes in the calendar.
2. Open the portal's back office to see the availability updated on the portal.
This way you can check if the information from FrontDesk Master is send correctly to the portal. If you see that the changes are made correctly, the connection works fine.
However, if the prices or availability do not update in the back office, follow the steps below to check the configuration.
STEP 3 - Check if the configuration is correct
Below you can see the most common problems in the configuration that block the synchronization.
1. All rooms and rates needs to be mapped.
Please note that if you leave an unmapped room or rate the system won't control it at all. No price or availability updates will be sent to the channel and the system won't be able to allocate bookings to beds.
INCORRECT MAPPING:
The unmapped room types (Bed in 6-Bed Female Dorm and Bed in 8-Bed Dorm) will not be synchronized because of the missing mapping in channel manager:
CORRECT mapping:
2. Room types in the system needs to correspond to room types in the portal
It means, that if you have a Triple Room Shared Bathroom in FrontDesk Master, it must be mapped with the corresponding room type from the portal, so the private room with max occupancy 3. If you map a Triple Room with Double Room, the synchronization will not work properly.
The mapping of 8 Bed Dorm Room with 6 Bed Female Dorm is not correct because the rooms types are different, they do not correspond.
The mapping of Double Room with Single Room is not correct because the number of guests that can stay in the room must be the same.
3. Dorm room cannot be mapped with private room type
Shared dormitories cannot be mapped with private room types. In such a configuration, the synchronization will not work.
4. Configuration that increase the overbooking chance
The overbooking chance increase when you map one system room type with two or more different room types on the portal.
The system updates availability per room type, according to the mapping in channel manager. If you map one Double Room Shared Bathroom room type with two rooms from Booking.com (1 Double Room Shared Bathroom and 2 Double Room Shared Bathroom), the availability will be duplicated. The same availability will be sent to both portal rooms.
Solution: change the room types configuration in the system (split the room type to two separate ones) or in the portal (use only one room type for both rooms, the same way as it is set up in the system). In case of any doubts or questions, contact support@frontdeskmaster.com.
5. Incorrect currency sent to portal
Make sure that you send the prices in the correct currency. It means, that the currency that you select in channel manager needs to be the same as the currency set up in the portal.
This point is very important, because if you select an incorrect currency, the portal will not accept the update from the system or will show incorrect prices.
6. Portal price limits block prices synchronization
If you change prices in the system and they are not updated on the portal, make sure that they are within the minimum and maximum price limit set up on the portals account. If the price is lower than the minimum price or higher than the maximum price, the update will not be accepted. You can contact your account manager in order to check or change the limits.
This restriction may appear in case of Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda connections.
Troubleshooting
Not downloaded reservation from Hostelworld
If for some reason (plugin was not active, server issues, Hostelworld outage,...) the reservation could not be downloaded to FrontDesk Master, please remember to add it to the system manually with the original booking ID. If you received any cancellation or modification of the reservation, it will be necessary to adjust the current booking manually in the system.
Closed rooms on Booking.com
If a room is open in FrontDesk Master, the availability is positive and everything looks correct, yet the room appears as closed in Booking.com Extranet, make an availability changes or price changes test as described in the STEP 2 of this instruction.
If you see that the availability and prices changes correctly but the room is still closed, it means that there is a hard block of the room and channel manager is not able to open it. There are two solutions:
1. We send an information about the issue to Booking.com. When we receive the reply, we come back to you with the information that you need to contact your account manager directly and request opening problematic rooms as it cannot be done by your channel manager. It can take some time, however.
2. You can disconnect FrontDesk Master from Booking.com in your Extranet, open rooms manually and, after that, activate the connection again. If you decide for this option, let us know about it becase the Booking.com connection request needs to be confirmed on our side and we need to be available to do it for you.
If you checked each step from the instruction and the connection still does not work, please contact support@frontdeskmaster.com and describe the problem, we will be happy to help you!