Import of Guests/Rooming Lists : Support Centre

Functional capabilities

For this module, we used an innovative and unique approach to provide a powerful tool that helps the hotel easily process groups of any size. This isn't just an "import" from a structured file. It's an interactive assistant covering the process from handling data received from the group organizer to creating bookings.

Here's a summary of the functions:

Works with all input formats: pdf, doc, txt, xls, email, etc. - anything from which you can copy text;
In real time the system shows how it "understands" the distribution of guests by rooms, even while you are editing the input data;
Saves the original descriptions from the guest list as notes, so you can use them in the following steps;
Works with a different number of guest names, depending on the input data;
Can recognize guest titles;
You can specify whether guests are adults or children, as well as the age of the children;
Can understand the reference number and date of each booking;
Automatically transfers information from the Company, Event and Block, so you don't have to fill it in manually;
Provides real-time information about the remaining blocked rooms, as you distribute rooms across the blocks.
Allows you to edit all fields before importing;
Allows for intermediate saving and reading to/from an attached file to the event before the final import.

Working with the "Guests / Rooming List Import" module

The functionality for importing Rooming Lists is designed to work on the one hand as a standalone function and on the other hand in combination with the MICE module to facilitate the process of creating reservations based on lists of guest names. Processing a Guest/Rooming List happens in three steps:

Preparation of the text of the Guest/Rooming list, so that it is divided by Rooms.
Distribution of Rooms by Blocks (if any).
Completing the remaining booking fields, Reviewing and Saving the bookings.

Preparation of the text of the Guest/Rooming list.

Open the new import screen. If the guest list is linked to a specific Event, click the Guests/Rooming list - import button in its Block section or for a standalone guest list, access the function from the main navigation - the Bookings section.

Getting started is simple. Open the file containing the Guest/Rooming list you received from your partner, copy its contents, and paste them into the field on the left (1).

In real-time, you will see in the right part (2) how the system has "understood" the file.

Follow a few simple rules to distribute guests by rooms, and to allow the system to extract as much information as possible, without the need for manual entry:

Copy and paste the desired text from your Rooming list. All formats are supported (email, pdf, xls, doc, jpg, txt, others).
Select the name format, and whether the entered list includes titles.
Place the guest names at the beginning of the line.
Complex names, made up of many parts, should be connected with "_", which will be removed automatically after import. Example: "Adria van der Berg" > "Adria van_der_Berg".
The text entered after the guest names is used as a note.
To separate guests by rooms, use a blank line.
'@' at the beginning of the line marks the guest as a child, and the number specifies the children's age (@, @2, @10). To make a quick change and mark the guest as an adult, click the red 'Adult' button.
'-' at the beginning of the line marks the text as a note and carries it over to the next steps.
To extract the Reference number and Date, place '#' before the booking number and '/' before the date. (#BO23-12345/01.01.2024)

For additional ease in preparing the rooms, we have added some quick functions - the buttons above the editor on the left.

Choose what guest data you have - titles and the number and order of the names (3);
Button for quickly removing blank lines (4) in the entire text;
Button for quickly splitting the selected lines into one guest per room (5);
Button for quickly distributing the selected lines into two guests per room (6);
Button for quickly merging selected names (7), if they are from several words "von der Leyen" -> "von_der_Leyen".

All specified or missed data here can be filled in at the last step. Once you have finished processing the list and allocating guests to rooms, proceed to the next step.

Distribution of Rooms by Blocks

At this step, you will define the Company, Agent, Event (8) and Blocks (9) to which the bookings are related. If you started the process from a specific Event, this data is already filled in.

If the event has blocks, you can choose which rooms belong to which block. To do this, select the rooms from the list on the left and then click on the Block you want to link them to.

As you distribute the blocks, you will see for each block - the number of blocked remaining rooms, which will decrease as you link the rooms to the blocks. These numbers are aggregated and show the minimum number of rooms in the block for the entire period. In certain situations, these aggregated numbers may not be accurate enough - for example, if you book several consecutive periods where the rooms do not overlap. In such situations, you can use the detailed view of the Block Pickup Report, to which we have added a quick link.

The system automatically fills in the following fields for future bookings, based on what you have selected.

Period - from the Event;
Room Type - from the Block;
Rate and Manual price - from the Block;
Guarantee Policy and Meals - from the Rate of the Block;
Colour, Customer cost center and Marketing Segmentations - from the Event.
Transfer folio - from the Event, if "Default Transfer Folio" is selected.

Completing the remaining booking fields and Preview

At this last step, you have the opportunity to review all the bookings that will be created. You can also change all automatically filled data or add new ones.

In the booking table, in the header, you will notice that for certain columns there is an edit button (10). If you select it, you will be able to fill in the data for the guests or booking directly in the table.

You can also use the mass еdit screen:

In the table, select the rows whose data you want to update and click the edit button (11) in the upper left.
In the edit form, fill in the fields you want to update and save. To delete the content of already filled fields, select the delete icon button (14) to the right of the field.
To apply the changes, confirm with the "Update" button.

Here are some interesting functions you can use:

In addition to bookings for rooms, you can also create bookings for guests without stays at the hotel - from the edit form, select the checkbox "Require Room Resource" (12) to 'No'.
You can prevent the import of certain rooms if you decide that bookings should not be created for them - select the field "Hold the import" (15) to 'Yes'
And finally, another interesting feature - "Split on check-in" (13). We know that in many situations you need to use the "sharing" function of a room, where two bookings are accommodated in one room. We've added a new functionality that allows you to mark the rooms that will have "shared" bookings in advance. See more about this below.

Intermediate Save of a Rooming List

If you are processing a very long list of names and preparing it for import takes more time, in the last step you have the opportunity to save the Rooming List up to the point you have processed it, so you can continue from the same place later. This option is available when the import is initiated from a specific Event.

To save the current list, use the "Save as" (16) button. The system will suggest a file name that includes the date and time of the save. Simply confirm, and the list will be saved as an attachment to the Event.
To load the saved Rooming List, open the "Guests / Rooming List Import" screen through the Event, proceed to step 3, and select the "Load.." (17) button. Select the file from the list and confirm.

Importing a Rooming List

When you have filled in all the necessary data for the reservations, you can perform the import. Select the "Import" button in the upper right corner and confirm to start the process.

You can see in real-time how the processing of the Rooming List and the creation of reservations is progressing. The system will create reservations for all rooms for which the necessary data has been filled in. Any import errors that occur will be displayed on the screen. Once the process is complete, the system will display statistics on the number of processed rooms, created reservations, and any errors that occurred. Use the "Open in Advanced search" (18) button, to access the list of newly created reservations.

Import of Guests/Rooming Lists