Overview

Softrip Operations system plays a pivotal role in managing seamless communication between your organization and the vendors you work with through our messaging system.

Once you communicate your services, Softrip will also help your users keep track of services that have been reported to vendors. This comprehensive tracking mechanism ensures that every service request is accurately recorded, preventing any oversights and ensuring that you do not lose sight of the services that needs to be confirmed.

Below is a high-level workflow between the messages and confirm reservations screen.

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Messaging Communication Timing Overview

There are three ways in which messages are triggered to be reported to the vendors suppliers: 

• FIT Messages

• Tours Messages

• Process Single Reservation Messages

Each Communication type has a unique way of setting up to communicate with your Vendors.

FIT Messages

For FIT bookings, the communication timing is set under the supplier service in Product.  In supplier services, the "comm timing" or communication timing can be set to either report passenger names, travel dates and room types under the following parameters:

1. Deposit Received

2. Payment in Full

3. Report Immediately

4. Other

5. Release Date

Tour Messages

For Tour Products (set departures) and Custom Groups, the communication timing is added under a "Product Events."  Product Events are designed to provide users with the ability to set the communication timing based on the contract for that particular product or group.  Multiple product events can be created for different service types.  Similar to the communication timing available in the supplier services, users        can select from the following options to set the communication timing:

• Days prior to departure.

  • The number of days prior to the departure dates.

• Days prior to the service

  • The number of days prior to the start of the service.

  • Because product events drive the reporting to suppliers on products/custom products which may have multiple components with varying start dates, users can choose to report to the supplier within a certain number of days to the start date of that particular service.  

• Deposit received.

• Payment in full.

• Report immediately. 

Message types

There are five different message types users can choose.  To ensure the correct manifests are being reported to the hotel, users must select the appropriate message type before proceeding: 

• FIT Messages

  • Process FIT messages for any FIT bookings.  These bookings are created from the "vacation builder" option in reservations.

  • The communication on FIT bookings is set under the supplier's service.  

• Tour Messages

  • Process Tour messages are used to process messages for custom groups or for products 

  • The communication timing for these messages are set under the product events.  

• Single Res Messages

  • Users can process a message for an individual booking.  

  • Processing a message under the "single res message" option will ignore the communication timing and/or product event rules set and will process a message for all supplier services that exist on the booking.  

• Air Messages

• Tour Request Messages 

  • Tour requests provide users with more filtering options.

  • Under tour request messages, users have the opportunity to report services to suppliers without reporting passenger names.

  • An example of this would be reporting the total number of passengers to a restaurant that is included in a tour.

  • Using the tour request message option will allow users to report the number without reporting the names.  

  • Additional template setup is required.  Please contact Softrip for more information.  

Search Options:

When searching for services that are due to be reported, each message comes with different values that can be used to narrow the results.  The search options will change based on type of message that is selected from the drop-down.

Each short video below displays the options that are available to users.  

FIT Messages:

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Tour Messages:

Single Res Message:

Once a message is run, users will have the opportunity to select the relevant suppliers that have services that are due to be reported.

Results

Once the supplier is selected, the rooming list/passenger manifest will appear in the middle of the screen.  There are two different tab views available to users: Message and Reservations. 

Message View:

The message view allows users to view all information relating to the services that exist on the bookings that are due to be reported to the supplier.  This view also allows users to customize the header and footer of the message that will be sent to the supplier, send the manifest to the supplier, mark the services within each reservation as reported and view any memos that have been created against any of the reservations that appear on the manifest.  Lastly, the messages view will dynamically pull all contact information as it relates to the supplier.

Rooming list/Manifest Information:

The rooming list or "manifest" displays a list of bookings that have been created under that supplier.  Relevant details pertaining to the booking and the supplier services will be sent when users send the email from the messages screen.  Below is a summary of information that displays on the rooming list/manifest:

• Service description 

• Passenger names

• Arrival and departure dates

• Number of nights 

• Promotions (if applicable)

• Special requests (if applicable) 

• Reservation number

• Allotment status  

Supplier Contact Information

Users can review the supplier contact information by expanding the header at the top of the screen.  This information is pulled directly from the contact information that is added to the supplier under Product Suppliers.

The information displayed includes the following:

• ID

• Name

• Email

• Phone

• Fax

• Contact Type

  • The contact type is a drop-down.

  • Users will have an opportunity to change the contact information that the rooming list/manifest will be delivered to by updating the contact type.

• Subject

• CC

• Communication method (Comm method)

• Additional attachments

Reservations View:

The messages view does not allow users to make modifications to the message; however, there are a few columns that can be updated when users are under the "reservations" tab.  These columns include the following:

• Follow-Up

• Comments

• Confirmation Info

• Cost Code

• Pickup

• Dropoff

Any updates that are made within the columns on this screen will appear in red until the updates are saved.  These updates will also appear on the manifest once users access the messages tab again.  

Users can also take advantage of jumping to either the booking, the inventory or the supplier information by selecting the blue hyperlinks on the reservations view.  

Processing Messages

When users are ready to send the manifest to the supplier, select "send email" at the bottom of the screen.  This will send the manifest directly to the email that is associated to the point of contact of the supplier.

After selecting send email, users will immediately be prompted with the option to "post the message."  Posting a message will mark the message as "reported" to the supplier.  In most cases, an Operator should select “Post Now” to ensure that each service messaged to the supplier is marked as "reported" in the Softrip application system.  

Once a service is marked as reported within the reservation, the reservation will not display in the messages screen once messages are run again.

A user may want to send a message to the supplier but not post it if they are simply communicating a note to a supplier but do not need it confirmed.  By sending the message, but not posting, the service will not be marked as "reported."

Users also have the option to mark the services as reported by selecting "post message."  By selecting "post message," users will be able to mark the services as reported without actually sending a message to a supplier.  Users would typically use this option if they are manually reporting to a supplier outside of the system either by phone or third party interface.

Supplier Message Defaults

Within the Security → System Settings → Operation Settings → Supplier Messages menu users will have the ability to set Header and Footer presets that will automatically appear within their Supplier Messages to their vendors.

There are Header and Footer options for

• General Supplier Messages (FIT, Single Res):

• Supplier Messages that are built from Product Events (Group Messages)

• Tour Request Messages

When a user enters in the Header and Footer message from these menus the system will pull that information into the Header and Footer within the Supplier Message

Users have the ability to overwrite those default messages if they choose by manually clicking into those Header and Footer windows within the Message itself and changing the text.

Users will also have the ability to overwrite those default messages if they are using Product Events for a Tour or Group.

Within Product Events users have the ability to create a Custom Header and Footer for that Supplier Message. Any Header or Footer that is entered here will overwrite the existing Default message.

The Supplier Message for this Tour will now show the custom Product Event Header and Footer messages