Hi Ada,

Eigentlich sollten die Mails automatisch rausgehen, wenn die Buchung weniger als 48 Stunden im Voraus gemacht wurde. Habt ihr schon eine Testbuchung gemacht? Vielleicht habt ihr die "Before Start"-Mails ausgeschaltet. 

Liebe Grüße

Kat 

Wir haben aktiviert

Bestätigung 

vor der Anreise, 2 Tage vorher, festgelegt von mews. Da erhält der Gast , den Code um ins Hotel zu kommen. 
Erinnerung Mail , kommt vor dem Check in also , am Tage der Anreise bis 12 Uhr, da haben wir im text die Bitte um Firmenadresde via Chat anzugeben, der Gadt , dieses nicht selbständig einpflegen kann, bei mews 

Nach der Anreise, da wird die Zimmernummer angegeben. Die kommt um 12 Uhr 

wenn also ein Gast um 18 Uhr bucht, bekommt er nur die Bestätigung. 
Ja haben wir ausprobiert. 

Hallo Ada

Bei uns funktioniert dies schon seit Jahren nicht. Ziemlich genau das gleiche Problem, dass die before-start E-Mails sehr unzuverlässig versandt werden. Der Fehler lässt sich auch nicht rekonstruieren, sprich es ist keine eindeutige Fehlerquelle als User erkennbar. Support ist bei diesem Thema auch leider inexistent, resp. niemand versteht, wieso die Fehlerhaftigkeit existiert und das Ticket versandet.

Wenn kein Self-Checkin vorhanden ist, wird dies wohl gar nicht bemerkt. Zwei unserer Häuser sind Self-Checkin. Da ist die Fehleranfälligkeit des Mailingsystems sogar ein Grund, dass wir andere PMS anschauen.

Danke für die ehrliche Antwort . Ja wir sind erst seit November dabei und ohne die , für uns passenden Vorlagen ,müssen wir wechseln. 

Hallo!

Kann ich leider bestätigen - habe das gerade für eine kürzlich erfolgte same-day reservierung nach 14 Uhr nachvollzogen - keine before start email wurde gesendet. Ich habe ein Support Ticket diesbezüglich eröffnet, und empfehle allen betroffenen das gleiche zu tun. Denn das Verhalten ist in der Tat anders als im Hilfe-Artikel beschrieben. Am besten mit ganz konkreten Beispielen, gut dokumentiert und unter Hinweis auf eine konkrete Reservierungsnummer / ID und Vorgang. Die Erfahrung mit dem dem Support ist schon so, dass die eigentlich recht kompetent reagieren, auch wenn sie dafür manchmal eine Weile brauchen, aber wenn man keine wasserdichten Beispiele mitliefert, wird es schon mal mühsam…
Viel Erfolgt und dran bleiben, ich poste wenn ich was erfahre.
LG,
JP.

Hi zusammen,

die Mail ‘vor Anreise’ kann man aber nochmal manuell versenden, unter Mailings.

Heißt, ihr könnt die Buchung anlegen und dann die Mail noch raussenden.

Falls ich die Frage richtig verstanden habe… :)
Liebe Grüße

Hi ​@Jasmin H. !

Können schon, aber wollen nicht, denke ich ;-)

denn laut Hilfe-Artikel sollte es automatisch gehen….

LG,

JP.

Hallo!

Ich habe vom Support folgende Antwort bekommen:

As you mentioned if a reservation is made the same day the email should be triggered immediately. However, it also depends on the time the reservation was made. In this case the reservation was created at 14:31:54 PM and your arrival time in your property is set to 14:00 PM - due to this the check in invitation (before start) email is not triggered because the reservation was automatically put into the status of ready to check in. 

We are going to include this information also in the help article you mentioned 😊. 

Nun, das ist nicht die erwartete Lösung - d.h. alle Reservierung die nach dem offiziellen CheckIn-Beginn angelegt werden mit Anreise am gleichen Tag, erhalten gar keine Mail.

LG,

JP.

Bitte alle den feature request unterstützen:

https://feedback.mews.com/forums/955598-guest-experience/suggestions/49542074-send-before-start-mail-at-anytime

Hi Ada,

Thanks for being a member of the community! I apologize in advance as I'll reply in English to avoid some machine translations' confusion.

This is a great question and indeed the help article about emails is not complete (I will have that corrected). The before-start (now renamed to Online Check in) email will automatically until the reservation time starts (your check in time). After that it is "too late" as the purpose of that email and its reminder was to encourage self-check ins. If that's not the case, indeed it is a bug - but as far as I am aware it is working as expected.

If I understood correctly, the issue is when there's a last-minute booking made after the check in time, for example 3pm for that same day - is that right?

I have an idea , based on the info on this thread. If I understood correctly, there's a main door pincode to enter the building, and it's not unique to each reservation - is that right?
We got another email type which is designed for a closer use case of what you seem to need, the After check-In (previously known as "After Start" - meant to share room numbers and details on the guests' stay like space directions). This one is automatically sent when a reservation is checked in, and Mews has the option to automatically check in all reservations at their arrival time (including those made after the arrival time - more details on this article: General Settings > Visit Options). This email will automatically display space names (room numbers) and directions, if any if provided at each space (room).

Have you already tried this setup?

I do hope we can find a way to make it work for you. Let me know how it goes.

Yours,

Hello ​@ettore.zotarelli ,

I don't understand MEWS' logic here at all... Before CheckIn Mailing is (among other things, I guess) used to:

• encourage guests to check in online
• convey important information for their arrival (like late CheckIn instructions, etc.)
• have the guests verify their stay dates to avoid at-check-in surprises in case of an error in the reservation

Since channel manager created reservations don't (and should not) receive confirmation mailings from MEWS, the before-start/CheckIn mailing is the only way to contact most guests automatically before their Check In. Why stop at check-in time? They still can do the pre-online-checkin after CI start time, right? Why not offer this option to those last-minute bookers, too? Besides the fact that hotels might want to send them arrival information, too!

In regards to your idea of using after-start mail to convey before-start information, well, at least for me it makes no sense to automatically check in guests that have not arrived yet. I think the system should resemble real events as closely as possible to avoid confusion. So the option to use After Start/CheckIn is not really a viable option at all. The purpose and content of this mailing is totally different and not suitable for pre-arrival, I think.

So I would kindly ask MEWS to reconsider the logic and make automatic before-start/check-in mailings sent at all times, regardless of whether creation is after the earliest possible check-in time. After all - the name says it - it's a before-start/before-check-in mailing (in relation to the reservation, not in relation to the hotel). Makes sense? If not, I would be interested to get insight into the reasoning why there is this arbitrary cut-off time at CI time begin of the property/service! What is the logic behind? I understand the idea of encouraging online check-ins, but why stop at that arbitrary time? If it's because a reservation that is created after check-in time on the day of arrival at the hotel on-site and checked in immediately (walk-in) would receive the before-start mail too? Well, right, that made no sense, but even if, no one will be bothered. Also, how often does that happen? Better to send the one or other email in excess than none at all.

Kind regards, Jean-Philipp

Hello everyone,
I can understand the arguments of ​@j.spiess. 
In this case, I could imagine that the email could be sent with a delay of say 10 minutes after creation? I have checked in a walk-in in that time.
So there would only need to be a query of the reservation status for the ‘before check-in email’ dispatch and this situation should be solved. 

Best regards

Leif

thanks ​@j.spiess ! 

So the option to use After Start/CheckIn is not really a viable option at all. The purpose and content of this mailing is totally different and not suitable for pre-arrival, I think.

I agree, but I think the use case of this thread is a reception that is not staffed at all in the afternoon, so in that case there's nobody to put reservations in-house.

We could always have this submitted as an improvement request - but it was made like this (as far as I know) because of complaints from other properties who did not want last minute reservations to receive too many emails at once. It's definitely possible to review the logic

Well, I thought this thread went beyond just unstaff reception in the afternoon. In any case, there is someone who can put reservations in-house: the guests themselves, by checkin in via Kiosk for example But that works only smoothly if they receive the “before start” mail, otherwise the receive no info for their check in at all! An if they had booked via a OTA they would not even have the MEWS reservation number! (BTW: it would be great if the KIOSK would not only look up the confirmation number (that the guests enters for reservation search in the kiosk app for CI) in the internal/mews confirmation numbers, but also search in the “Travel agency confirmation number” field)

Well, that might be reasonable in certain circumstances, but let’s decide that on a property level instead of MEWS-wide hard coded. I in fact opened a feature request that asks for an option to enable this (see above).

Thank you for your interest in that topic and for engaging in this conversation!

Kind regards,

JP

Thanks ​@j.spiess ! And no worries: I am trying to get ​@Ada a solution that would work for them, even if not perfect. 

But indeed, the Kiosk would solve this (the instructions could also be on the confirmation email - but indeed it would not be sent for 3rd party bookings).

Can you double-check the kiosk confirmation not accepting OTA numbers? It should - if it's not, it's likely a bug and we need that addressed. It should accept both the Mews confirmation and the OTAs Travel agency confirmation number - but sometimes the number the guest sees on their OTA confirmation is not what's given to Mews (which is weird). The channel managers sometimes have their own number that they replace there… strange stuff. I remember this was a problem with some reservation searches. 

Anyway, I am also planning to fallback to first name if there are multiple guests with the same last name, and if the hotel does not require confirmation numbers. Right now if the hotel allows to check in by last name only and there are more than 1 guest with that name, it asks for the confirmation (which we know, statistically, that is one of the main reasons for abandoned kiosk check ins).

Has anyone already opened a feature request in feedback.mews.com about this setting to decide on the Online Check-in email sending logic? If not, please do it as it does get reviewed. It's, as always, a matter of what we will not build in order to build that (or anything else).

Great topic! Thank you all for the engagement! Yours,

Hello! ​@ettore.zotarelli 

We have setup the kiosk since … today actually ()… it is setup with name only, and I tried to enter a name partially (leaving out the last few letters) to trigger the confirmation number input request. Then I entered the alphanumeric reservation number from the field “Travel Agency confirmation number”, but it did not find the reservation… I checked twice, so I don’t think a made a typo, so I guess it’s not working as intended? I can try again tomorrow...

Regarding the OTA reservation numbers: that can happen easily, especially with wholesalers or similar (expedia), where the guests may not have booked directly through the connected platform, but through a third-party further down the chain. Hence, the guests only see the reservation number of the OTA it was booked with, and we only the one from the platform we received the reservation from. This problem cannot be easily solved, but if we got the before start email out, and we actually got an email address in the first place, then we might have a chance to let the guest know how to check in ;-)

I have opened a simple feature request at https://feedback.mews.com/forums/955598-guest-experience/suggestions/49542074-send-before-start-mail-at-anytime

Do you feel this is descibed sufficiently? I kept it short and simple ...

Kind regards,

JP.

Danke für die vielen Antworten. Fakt: mews  kann und will das nicht lösen. Auch nicht mit einem „ kiosk“Der hängt ja auch in einem Raum, welchen man über einen Code betreten muss und dieser code würde auch nicht versendet  werden, bei direkt Buchung   
ich finde es auch nicht wirklich Service bewusst, das die Benützer eine Lösung finden müssen.  Alle vorlägen sollten zeitlich und textlich veränderbar sein. Dann kann jeder Betrieb das individuell anpassen. 

Hi ​@Ada , sorry that you are not finding the solution you are looking for. Why did the After check-In email type not work for you in this case? The purpose of this email seems to be much closer to your use case, but I am curious if I am missing something.

Thank you. Yours,

Naja, die Mail: After Check in , wie der Name schon sagt , kommt nach der Anreise. Unsere Gäste müssen ohne Rezeption anreisen. Kein Mensch ist vor Ort   Bedeutet erst , nach der check  in Zeit,  erhält der Gast seine Zimmenummer. Das ist zu spät. Wir haben deswegen unsere Check in Zeit vom 15 uhr  auf 13 Uhr vorverlegt. Bedeutet. Eigentlich könnte der Gast schon um 13 Uhr einchecken, welches für die vorherige Reinigung natürlich nicht realistisch ist.  Für viele Gäste ist es auch um 13 Uhr zu spät seine Zimmernummer zu erhalten. Besonders wenn die Buchung über eine Firma gebucht wurde.  Und wenn ein Gast nach 13 Uhr ein   Zimmer für den selbigen Tag  bucht , bekommt er keine Mail. 
Auch nicht die Mail : vor der Anreise , indem der Hotelcode  für den Eingang mitgeteilt wurde. 
Wir bräuchten: eine Vorlage 1 Tag vor der Anreise in der der mtl. Code für die Hoteltür und automatisiert die entsprechende Zimmer Nummer. Und bei Buchungen  am selbigen Tag automatisch alle mails gesendet werden. Bestätigung g dm vor der Anreise. 
vielleicht in ein paar Jahren. 

We have an own kiosk-app solution and encountered the next problem (concerning the OTA-Booking No.).

Currently it is technically possible to call the booking by the Channel-Confirmation-Number. But this will not be possible after May this year, as the “getAllReservations”-call is deprecated and the new API-Request does not allow to call Reservations by Channel-Confirmation-Number.

I have opened a request in the ideas forum: https://feedback.mews.com/forums/955688-connectivity/suggestions/49406048-getallreservations-channelnumber

More on the API-Requests here: https://mews-systems.gitbook.io/connector-api/operations/reservations

Unfortunately this whole topic is developing in the complete wrong direction.