Software Release - December 2020 - v3.20.12.11

Modified on Thu, 25 Feb, 2021 at 4:52 PM

Overview

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

Title and Description for Payment Method[4042]

A title and description can be displayed on a payment method on the check out and payment pages by adding a dictionary item. The dictionary items should be called Checkout.CheckoutPayment.{PaymentType}Title and Checkout.CheckoutPayment.{PaymentType}Description, where {PaymentType} is the name of the payment type with no spaces in it. For example, Checkout.CheckoutPayment.CreditCardTitle.

Multi Lingual Holiday Extras[3815]

It's now possible to set up multi lingual holiday extras. When editing an extra an "Add Language" button is now available next to both the name and description of the extra which allows translations to be entered. These will then appear on the web site for customers that use the multi lingual web site feature.

Updates to Website Search[3983]

There have been some updates to the way that the search results are configured. You can find the options in the CMS by going to the Search configuration tab on the Features configuration node.

Choose to display PropertyName or H1 Title on Search Results - This option if the name used on the results page is the H1 title or the property node name.
Please choose how to display prices when there are no rates or dates selected - for searches that don't include dates you can choose to show the price as either a price range or in a "Prices from..." format. For each option the values used can be either automatically calculated from the rates or manually entered into the CMS.
Hide Properties That Fail Booking Rules - When switched on, any property that has booking rules that would prevent a booking on the dates searched for will not be listed in the results. When switched off the properties will be included at the end of the results with a note that the rules have been broken.

If you change some of these options it may take a little while for the change to go live and you may need to contact support to ask that your site be restarted. Changes to the way that the price is displayed on an undated search will not be fully implemented until the following day as the prices that are used are regenerated overnight.

Statements

Improved the consistency of the appearance of negative numbers on statements [4036]
Add the booking value to the statements [4226]
Additional details now appear on the summary tab when running a statement [4169]
It's now possible to produce a bank file for use with HSBC [4242]
Statements that overlap with a previous cleared statement are now highlighted. It's not possible to process a statement that overlaps with the date range of a previous statement for the same owner [4169]
Details of the last statement that has been processed for an owner appear in the owner contact record [4169]
A booking tag, either "Statement Processed" or "Statement Processed (Deposit)", will be added to all bookings that have been included in a statement when a statement is processed [4169]
When generating statements, if there is a gap for an owner between their last cleared statement and the statement that you're currently running then the start date of the current statement will be automatically adjusted to be the day after their last cleared statement so that there are no gaps in the date range covered. This doesn't apply if you're running an ad hoc statement [4169]
If a guest payment is paid later than the due date and after the date that the owner is due to be paid then the due date of the owner payment will be changed to the day that the guest payment was received in order to make sure that the owner payment is included in the next statement [4164]
A number of changes have been made when processing statements to prevent some common errors that could result in bookings being missed from the statement or the owner payments not showing up on the next statement [4036]

When processing statements the payment date will now default to the day after the period that the statements cover
It's no longer possible to enter a payment date that is before the end date of the period that the statements cover.
It's no longer possible to process a statement where the end date of the period that the statements cover is in the future.

Transferring Bookings and Changing Dates [3834]

It's now possible to transfer a booking to a different property and change the dates of the booking at the same time. When transferring a booking to another property, if you enter a different date range in the property search modal then the dates of the booking will be updated to match those dates when it is transferred.

Alerts With Multiple Brands [4116]

The alerts feature now supports sites that use multiple brands. If you are using multiple brands then you will need to have multiple Email Settings nodes in the CMS, one for each brand. Each node will contain the email templates that are to be used for the associated brand.

When configuring an alert you must select which email template to use, the alert will then only apply to bookings that are set to the same brand as the selected email template. If you are using multiple brands and want an alert to to be sent for more than one brand then you will need to create a separate alert for each brand, selecting the appropriate email template for each.

Cancelling Bookings [4127]

A few changes have been made to the way that bookings are update when they are cancelled.

When you cancel a booking it's now easier to choose which payment schedules, if any, to refund to the guest and which to keep.
The cancellation fee will be set to the values of the money not refunded to the guest.
A cancellation fee payment schedule will be created and any retained payments will be allocated to this schedule
A number of unnecessary payments and schedules are no longer creates, so it is now much clearer in both the payment schedules and payment history as to what payments have been made and where the money has been allocated.

New User Permissions

A number of additional user permissions have been added. These new permissions are turned on by default and can be disabled in the user profiles if needed..

Bookings - View Price Summary - This permission controls access to the price summary panel in the booking (where details of the next payment that's due are displayed) as well as the total price and balance columns in the booking list [4146]
Bookings - View Payments - This permission controls access to the payments tab in the booking where the payment schedules and payment history are displayed [4146]
Bookings - View Guest Details - This permission is needed to see the Client Details tab when viewing a booking [4256]
Bookings - View Owner Details - This permission is needed to see the owner details tab when viewing a booking [4256]
Contacts - View Bank Details - This permission is needed to view the bank details tab when viewing an owner contact record [4255]
Contacts - View Payment History - This permission is needed to view the payments tab when viewing an owner contact record [4255]
Contacts - View Property List - This permission is needed to view the properties tab when viewing an owner contact record [4255]
Contacts - View Activity Log - This permission is needed to view the activity tab when viewing a contact record [4255]

Additionally, the view commission permission is needed to see the commission column in the booking list [4146.

Differences in Prices for Bookings From Rentals United [4001]

Improvements have been made to the process of pricing a booking that has been received from Rentals United where the price doesn't match the price that iPro would have calculated form the rates on the property. When a booking is received from RU the booking is created in iPro with a rental price that matches the cost of the booking had it been created directly in iPro. If the RU price is higher then an extra is added called OTA Markup to account for the additional money, if the price is lower then a discount is added to the booking to make sure that the total price paid matches the amount from RU.

The OTA Markup extra is not visible to the guest and wont appear in any emails sent from iPro.

A new setting has been added in the Channel Manager settings for the OTA Markup which allows you to configure behaviour. The options allow you to retain the OTA Markup in full, or share it with the owner. If the RU price is less and a discount has to be applied then again this can wither be taken from your commission or shared with the owner.

Rentals United Property Details [4145]

There have been some enhancements to the way that the details of a property sync with Rentals United

Property images now include a caption. The caption that iPro will send for each image is the name from the image node in the media section of the CMS. If you update the image name in iPro then either republishing the property or forcing a property details sync will update Rentals United immediately. Otherwise the updated captions will be sent during the next automatic sync, which happens once every 24 hours.
Rentals United only supports syncing rates and availability for the next three years, so we now only send up to the next three years of rates and availability to RU. The data resyncs every 24 hours, so if you have rates or availability for more than the next three years in iPro then it will update RU every day.

Payment Schedules

There have been a number of changes to improve the functionality of payment schedules

Making changes to the cost of a booking (including changing the quantity of an extra) after a payment has been made will now update the existing schedules rather than try to create additional schedules with the adjustment to the price. This will result in fewer additional schedules being created which will make the schedules easier to follow on a booking where changed have been made [4194].
The functionality that linked a payment schedule to a particular date range has been removed. Schedules will no longer have a date range listed against them, which will remove cases of the "Coverage Dates are Overlapping" error which was common when extending bookings [4166]

Rates import with Length of Stay [3733]

The rates import spreadsheet has now been updated to include some additional columns that support importing length of stay rates. If these columns are filled in then the season will have length of stay pricing. To include LOS pricing you will need to have multiple rows on the spreadsheet for a season with the first row containing the property name, reference, season start and end dates and rules. The first and subsequent rows for the season will contain the LOS pricing in the Weekly Price, Nightly Price, Group Size, Number of Weeks and Number of Nights columns.

If the "Group Size" column has a number in it and there is a value in "Number of Weeks" then a weekly rate for the specified group size and number of weeks will be created with cost from the "Weekly Price" column.
If the "Group Size" column has a number in it and there is a value in "Number of Nights" then a nightly rate for the specified group size and number of nights will be created with cost from the "Nightly Price" column.
If the Group Size column is empty then the rate will be created as a regular fixed rate

Email Tokens [4176]

A number of new tokens are available.

Booking Tokens:

{ownerGuestAmount} = Net accommodation cost
{ownerGuestExtras} = Price to guest for all extras payable to owner
{ownerExtraPayable} = Net price to owner for all extras payable to owner
{rentalCommission} = Commission based on net accommodation cost
{netOwnerAmount} = {ownerGuestAmount} - {rentalCommission}
{ownerExtraCommission} = Commission from all extras marked as payable to owner
{ownerExtraCommissionTax} = Commission tax for all extras marked as payable to owner
{ownerAmountAfterTax} = Total amount due to the owner
{extra:NameWithNoSpaces} = the price of an individual extra. This will return zero if the extra isn't included in the booking

Enquiry Tokens:

{ownerGuestAmount} = Net accommodation cost
{ownerGuestExtras} = Price to guest for all extras payable to owner
{ownerExtraPayable} = Net price to owner for all extras payable to owner
{rentalCommission} = Commission based on net accommodation cost
{netOwnerAmount} = {ownerGuestAmount} - {rentalCommission}
{ownerExtraCommission} = Commission from all extras marked as payable to owner
{ownerExtraCommissionTax} = Commission tax for all extras marked as payable to owner
{ownerAmountAfterTax} = Total amount due to the owner.

Multiple Stripe Accounts With Brands [4203]

If you are using the brands feature in iPro to assign different brands to each property it is now possible to set up multiple Stripe accounts and have payments processed by the Stripe account associated with the brands set on the property

To use this feature you will need to create a new payment provider for each Stripe account in the CMS, selecting the brand that you want the Stripe account to be used for in the rules tab. You will then need to create a corresponding Payment Option node linked to each Stripe account. When the guest makes a payment (either during the checkout process or by going to the payment page) they will only be shown the Stripe option for the brand their booking is for.

New and Updated APIs

New API Property Blockout - get a list of blockouts for a property [see guide] [4227]
New API Authenticate guests - verify that a guest password is correct [4223]
The data returned by the property extras API now includes a field called Percentage which indicates if the value in PricePerItem is a fixed price or a percentage of the rental cost [4263]
It's now possible to add and remove booking tags when inserting a payment [see guide] [4281]
It's now easier to insert an owner booking using the API [see guide] [4280]
The payments API has been updated so that details of a SagePay transaction can be passed into iPro [see guide] [4337]

Guest Portal [4293]

Improvements have been made to the guest portal to make it easier for a guest to supply the details of all the people who will be staying at the property. This include the ability for them to upload a photo of their ID if this is needed, which can be viewed when looking at the booking in the back office.

Bugs Fixed

Issues with a book now link when dates are on hold and the enquiry is on a different language [3949]
Payments not allocated to payment scheduled correctly when there is a booking fee [4025]
Error when using the early booking deposit feature [4023]
Multiple emails sent after updating a booking from rentals United [4050]
The propertysearchlite API doesn't include the In list Price & Compulsory Extras [4022]
Payments with PayPal aren't including the transaction Fee [4042]
It's possible to trigger duplicate transactions via Stripe [4042]
A number of issues with the way that search results are sorted and displayed in the website [3984]
Deposit calculation can be wrong when there are multiple extras with different payment options [4059]
Increasing the quantity of an extra adds the price to the wrong owner schedule [4058]
VAT rate incorrect when owner is set to Tax Exempt [4091]
Dates may be incorrectly marked as available when one of several overlapping blockouts is removed [4007]
Price rounding being applied to the net price of an extra [4098]
Error when creating a new contact type [4119]
Assigned contacts not listed in Property Details V2 API [4103]
Comments enquiry token using the wrong field [4096]
Saving a booking sometimes results in an error saying the date overlap with another booking when they don't [4125]
Unable to select bill type when adding multiple bills [3967]
iCal import can create a blockout which overlaps with a booking [4155]
Unable to add LOS pricing in owners area [4232]
Extras that are set to be not visible are shown in the client area [4288]
Owner property name isn't included in property detail API [4313]
Reclaim money from owner button appears on some bookings where owner hasn't been paid [4197]

Additional fixes in January patch release:

Dates not aligned to header in calendar [4472]
Extras not reset to zero when cancelling a booking [4463]
Statement payments not linked to schedules [4479]
Extras token not working when there are multiple extras with the same name [4465]
Issues with the amount refunded when cancelling a booking [4483]
OwnerBooking attribute not working correctly when creating bookings via the API [4491]
Zero value extras not appearing in summary tokens [4522]
New booking emails not sent when using Initial Deposit scheme [4521]
Added months parameter to dayavailability API [4396]
Include hidden extras in booking calc API [4582]
Add support for Firetext SMS [4592]
Inconsistent payment schedules on extras payable to agency or supplier [4613]
Payment allocation when transferring a booking [4655]