This article aims to clearly summarise the breadth of functionality available to customers using Guestline and Guest Engagement.
🔁 Reservation update frequency
It is important to understand that the update frequency depends on whether a change is made to Profile data (name, email address, etc) and Reservation data (dates of stay, room type, etc).
Data type | Update frequency | Time frame |
New reservations | Hourly | All future reservations, no time limit |
Existing reservations: Reservation data changes | Hourly | All future reservations, no time limit |
Existing reservations: Profile data changes | Daily, 01:00UTC | Only the next 45 days' reservations will be updated |
What this means in practical terms
Say, for example, you have a new reservation with a date of arrival that is 50 days from today. The reservation has no email address yet.
This reservation will be entered into Guest Engagement with the hourly updates.
Then, say you update the reservation in Guestline - you add a guest email address.
This is a change to the Profile data, which means it will be 5 days until Guestline sends this update to Guest Engagement, because then it will be 45 days until date of arrival.
Please start a chat with us if you have any questions about this 🙂
✍ Check-in module
Guests are able to complete Guest Engagement's check-in form, which then updates the reservation in Guestline (and ultimately in Guest Engagement, once the next batch of reservation updates are sent from Guestline).
The following data fields in Guestline can be modified via a guest completing the Guest Engagement check-in form:
First name*
Last name*
Email address*
Phone
Country
Date of birth
❗ The fields marked with an asterisk (*) must be present on the Guest Engagement check-in form, or else the entire process will not work.
All other data collected via the check-in form will be stored in the Notes & Logs > Private notes section of each booking.
❗ Currently, the importing of files uploaded as part of the check-in form (eg. passport scans) to Guestline is not supported. These files will still be accessible from the guest's profile page in Guest Engagement, and the links to these files will also recorded in the Notes & Logs section of a reservation in Guestline.
🎁 Upsell module
Setting up offers
Each offer in Guest Engagement needs to be mapped to its respective item in Guestline, so that the appropriate charges can be added to the guest's invoice.
This is achieved under the Advanced tab when setting up an offer:
Only products of type Bedroom Check in offer, Bedroom Upsell, Bedroom Upsell and Check in offer and Function Upsell and Check in offer will be shown.
Additionally, if a product does not appear in this mapping field in Guest Engagement - despite it belonging to one of the aforementioned product types - the most likely cause of this is that the option Expose to > Web service has not been checked in the offer set up in Guestline:
When a guest places an order using Guest Engagement
The offer will not appear in Guestline unless it is Confirmed in Guest Engagement first. This is done under Guest Activity > Orders:
If an offer is confirmed and is already in Guestline, it will be added as an item under Upsell in the reservation:
Note that only the total amount is represented with a quantity of 1 - the actual quantity of items (eg. bottles of wine) ordered will only be available in Guest Engagement.
If an offer is confirmed and is already in Guestline, it can be can cancelled from Guest Engagement, and the item will be removed from Guestline automatically. Remember that when cancelling (and confirming) offers in Guest Engagement, a short transactional email will be sent to the guest informing them of this change.
Setting up room upgrades
Setting up room upgrades follows all the same steps and functionality as offers, with the following differences.
Each room upgrade in Guest Engagement needs to be mapped to its respective offer and room type the upgrade is for (as in, the room the guest will upgrade to) in Guestline, so that the appropriate charges can be added to the guest's invoice.
This is achieved under the Advanced tab when setting up an offer:
When a guest wants to upgrade their room
The possibility to order a room upgrade in Guest Engagement is based on live availability. This availability is checked on page load (that is, when a guest opens the actual "Upgrade from economy to superior!" page in Guest Engagement's Concierge. If, at the time of page load, there was availability of the room type to be upgraded to, then the call-to-action button will be active and shows the CTA label selected in the setup of the upgrade offer (eg. "Order now"). However, if there is no or insufficient availability, the call-to-action button will instead be greyed-out and will read "Sold out" in English, or the equivalent translation for whichever language is currently active in the UI.
Even though room upgrades are based on live availability, the order still needs to be marked as confirmed in Guest Engagement in order for it to then be updated in Guestline - including changing room allocations, etc. This is a known restriction at present.
Room upgrades differ from regular offers insofar as they cannot be cancelled in Guest Engagement. This needs to be modified directly in Guestline.