Keeping up with Mews Updates

  • 8 February 2023
  • 8 replies
  • 222 views
IgorK
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Hey folks,

 

I was wondering how do you handle Mews updates in your organization?

We have been experiencing quite some pressure to update training materials and reacting to Mews releases when certain features become available.

We often have to:

  • Evaluate the update - is it a technical advantage / does it require updating 3rd party integrated systems / does it break anything / do we need to change a SOP.
  • Find a way to communicate this with the wider teams - adequate communication frequency v/s spam.

What are your best practices controlling the flow of information?

How do these align with the notifications available on Mews PMS itself?

What system do you use to communicate effectively (email, workplace, newsletters)?

 

Thanks!

8 replies

Robin Gustavsson
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Hi!
Following this thread since i am facing the same issue.
 

Best regards, Robin
Sarah.Masterton-Brown
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@Mick @ClaudiaM.  You are both well informed in this area. Do you have any best practices that you follow that could help on this topic? 💡 Thanks 

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together
ClaudiaM.
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Hi, 

I totally understand this matter, and we still have our struggles too. 

We do have weekly update letters via email to the front-of-house teams, where we highlight new features but also share best practices. 

Once a month we do have a call with all front-of-house managers and discuss their open points and also address new features or changes. 

The little release note icon in MEWS is like our daily newspaper. We check the release notes as soon as they appear and see if this might be something helpful/new for the teams. 

However - we also experience that changes are happening that are not part of the release notes. If they are technical this is always a challenge. As an example, the connector app has been updated or changes in the API which mainly affects external partners and not the hotel operations.
We already address those to the customer success manager or sometimes directly to the product team. Unfortunately MEWS is not always taking into account there are other systems also affected by changes they make. 

So far I can only recommend having a very close connection with the customer success manager and being on top of the release notes. 

Sorry for not having better news. 

 

 

 

jirihelmich
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Hi everyone! 

It’s a hot topic that the Mews is discussing at the moment, on how to streamline this for you. On one hand, having too many updates is a good problem to have from the perspective of developing the product further, but I completely understand the pain connected to the operational challenges that it creates.

So, allow me an open question: How would the release process look in an ideal world from your perspective? 
@ClaudiaM. @IgorK @Robin Gustavsson 

Jirka Helmich, Chief Product Officer at Mews
MatthiasH
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Hi everyone! 

It’s a hot topic that the Mews is discussing at the moment, on how to streamline this for you. On one hand, having too many updates is a good problem to have from the perspective of developing the product further, but I completely understand the pain connected to the operational challenges that it creates.

So, allow me an open question: How would the release process look in an ideal world from your perspective? 

Hi @jirihelmich ,

 

In my opinion, it would be good if an email would be send with the releases (ie. 5 days in advance). With this, we can then streamline the process and get everyone briefed in time.

Tech savvy hospitality enthusiast who is excited about the future of hospitality
ClaudiaM.
Userlevel 4
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Hi everyone! 

It’s a hot topic that the Mews is discussing at the moment, on how to streamline this for you. On one hand, having too many updates is a good problem to have from the perspective of developing the product further, but I completely understand the pain connected to the operational challenges that it creates.

So, allow me an open question: How would the release process look in an ideal world from your perspective? 
@ClaudiaM. @IgorK @Robin Gustavsson 

Thanks for you feedback @jirihelmich, 
I am not a huge fan of emails, but I agree with Matthias that an alert sometime prior to the release would be great. There is an “announcement” section already, if this could be used and published before would already be helpful. 

It would be important that this announcement includes technical aspects of the release. 
I understand the release notes are supposed to be sexy and catching, well the technical part is boring but even more necessary. If the release affects changes in the API - we need to think about informing or changing something in external systems. 
Which part of the software is affected, financial posting, operation etc.
At the moment release notes only cover funky new features, but would it be possible to add in some technical nerd information as well, so we could react better?  

Just as an example, on the 6th Feb, something was released (not part of the release note) which caused the manager report to not show data when it's exported via the export scheduler. This sounds like a small thing, but all our STR reporting goes via those export files, which now causes no figures reported to STR - 21 hotels for more than 2 weeks, manually upload. 
Whatever this release was, something affected manager reporting. Not sure if we would have seen this issue coming, but we might be able to tack it down quicker. 

Hope this helps. 

Thanks for taking this on @jirihelmich 

ClaudiaM.
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Thanks for the feedback @jirihelmich 

 

I agree with Matthias a lead period before the release happens would be great. There is an “announcement” section already - this could be used. I am not a big fan of emails, therefore a notification in the rease area would do it for me. 

It would be important though to include technical details of the release. I know they are not sexy and catching, but quite important. 

We sometimes face challenges of the release notes which are not posted. 
Short example. On the 5th or 6th Feb something was released (not part of the release notes) that caused the manager report to miss data when exported via the export scheduler. This might now sound like a small thing, but we use the export for STR. Which results in 21 hotels without STR data for 2 weeks. or we manually need to upload them. 
Whatever caused this bug might have been tackled earlier if we would have known which changes happened. 

Similar to API updates. they are not really part of the release notes but can have a massive impact of 3rd party integrations. 

Thanks for taking this on @jirihelmich I’m looking forward to what you and the team come back with :-) 

Let me know if you need more inside 

Claudia 

 

IgorK
Userlevel 3
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Hi everyone! 

It’s a hot topic that the Mews is discussing at the moment, on how to streamline this for you. On one hand, having too many updates is a good problem to have from the perspective of developing the product further, but I completely understand the pain connected to the operational challenges that it creates.

So, allow me an open question: How would the release process look in an ideal world from your perspective? 
@ClaudiaM. @IgorK @Robin Gustavsson 

Hi @jirihelmich,

 

How about a standard software approach to this?

Looking at other digital products, you would normally have a patch/update release date. This would then include a package of improvement and patch notes on what work has been done.

In our case with Mews might be beneficial to have the notes in advance and where you expect your partners (hotels) to have technical involvement in. As per the examples above, where you estimate changes to the API that we now know would impact infrastructure.

It is great to have so many updates and regularly and by all means don’t want to hold you back on this, as I am sure your teams are super excited to make a change in the world of hospitality.

But it is rather giving us time to react, as with such high frequency we simply become overwhelmed. This takes even more time and effort for bigger chains.

A calendar or some other form of labelling “Upcoming” updates for the month/week would be appreciated so we can get our ducks in a row. Potentially, if you want to go even further a balance between the areas of the updates - UI, Finance, Back End (API) as these would be tackled by different departments sometimes.

You used to have “Upcoming” actually in your release notes page but it seems has been removed:

 

Curious to read other’s ideas as well.

Thanks!

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