Review of IOSR

[de-active]

Hi everyone,
It's me again - I haven't been on the forum for a while but wanted to start this thread for a long time, regarding IOSR - like a review, queries, suggestions, improvements and just comments.

First I want to say congratulations to Datahell and the team on a BRILLIANT piece of software - this really is an amazing hotel reservation system and no doubt for something similar or even lower in quality and functionality, you would be paying many more hundreds or thousands of Euro! I think I'll write a separate review of it elsewhere..

However for now I've got the following questions:

1.  Configuration >General Settings: Why is a title for the reservation system important? I see it is mandatory. I can't understand the function of it.

2. Configurations >Front Page>Custom Destination: I see that IOSR cannot understand apostrophe such as Sana'a (since if I use ' an error occurs)
and I have to manually edit the php code for configuration.php Is there any way round this? This is the same with featured hotels and I think the issue is with PHP syntax so use how do I use an apostrophe for a word without it clashing with PHP?
 
I have other questions but I'll ask them later.





 

[datahell]

Thanks for your kind words. I can promise you that OS Reservations will be even better in the future. Regarding your questions:

1. The title is important to identify you self. If you use it under single hotels mode enter the hotel title, if you use it under multiple hotels mode enter your company's title or something similar. The component title is being used everywhere. In meta tags and page titles, in e-mails sent by the system, in guests greetings, etc. The field is mandatory.

2. There is a golden rule: We don't use quotes (single or double) in fields that are being displayed in clear text as page titles, meta data, etc. Quotes will also create sevveral problems in javascript and will make them dis functional.

Example:
Consider this javascript block code that alerts the hotel title:

alert('<?php echo $hotel_title; ?>');

If $hotel_title is Sana'a the final html code is:

alert('Sana'a');

That will cause a javascript error and the feature that uses it will not work. Among other stuff Elxis tooltips will also not work. If you take attention to the Elxis language files you will notice that we have removed on purpose the quotes in some cases.

IOSR has a special feature that removes quotes and other non-standard characters in some areas .

Syntax:

$resmaster->makesafe($string);

[de-active]

Thanks for your reply.

Revisiting an old thread.

Would it not be an excellent idea to also have maps for each destinations.

At the moment, you can have google maps for each hotels but not destinations, I think in the future edition maps for each destination would also be a good idea but for this current version is there any way I can create maps for each destiantions (IOS Map Bot in the Location description embedded somehow, maybe? )

[jeanlery2010]

It would be an excellent idea to have maps for each of your destinations. You can search hotels together with there corresponding destinations easily using a certain map. 
But be sure to look for a map that will provide the desired information.

[de-active]

It would be an excellent idea to have maps for each of your destinations. You can search hotels together with there corresponding destinations easily using a certain map. 
But be sure to look for a map that will provide the desired information.

So what are you saying? It can done or not or you are just saying it's also a good idea?

[de-active]

Is it possible to show ALL three categories of 'Featured, Top & Latest hotels' on the front page? Like in a box of three tabs.

If not this is something that could be integrated in the future, where all three categories can be shown and the user of the site can see whether he wants to see featured, top or latest hotels on the front page?

[datahell]

Yes, you can do that. Create 3 instances (copies) of the module each one having different parameters.

[de-active]

Datahell, what do you think of the idea of attaching a location to a hotel - the same way you have it for hotels. So now you could have the location and hotel corresponding to the same location in the google map.

If you do this in future updates or versions you could therefore have a map module attached to the location description of the destinations since destination at the moment is too open for the user.

Just an idea.

[de-active]

I am going to use this thread to give my feedback on the software including problems and improvements.

Just to reiterate an excellent piece of software, highly recommended and I see also that some competitors have began copying it!

Anyhow, I have the following for this thread:

I realize that IOSR was not made for everyone and every business but it does provide two modes, one is single and the other multiple hotels. So in the multiple hotels, where there are a number of different hoteliers and hotels, the configuration should allow for more flexibility?

Is it not possible to hide ALL the contact information of a hotel. I know you can hide email and telephone, but what about fax? A customer can contact a hotel via fax? If not can this not be delayed or shown until a booking is made. Sites such as booking.com or expedia.com only provide the hotel contact information AFTER a booking has been made.

This is to PREVENT the POTENTIAL customer from contacting the hotel directly and making a booking, rather than the portal site say booking.com or expedia.com 

Regarding the above, why is it that a customer can contact a hotel directly through the CONTACT FORM? Can this not be disabled?

Also VAT ID is needed maybe in some countries but most countries, people don't have a VAT ID, unless it's a company? So could this be optional in future versions?

Is it possible to differentiate between a registered user of a site and a registered customer of IOSR? Anyone can register as a user of a site but can it be set, so that anyone who makes a booking of a site/pays for hotel has a "customer" status? 

[de-active]

This is something to definitely consider in the next updates or at least future versions (  ) :

Say an administrator of the site/IOSR wants to make a booking of a hotel which was received and captured through other means such as telephone, email or fax and NOT through website booking and online payment. How would the site administrator include this booking onto the IOSR system since, room vacancy must be synchronized in IOSR.

So the idea is to insert off-line bookings that were taken through other means into the IOSR system and maybe even online or offline payment (including direct bank transfer, paypal, credit card, off line credit card etc) be completed by the "reservation agent" or site administrator.

I think this could be achieved at the moment by creating one user, called "Reservation Agent" and then allowing them to book on behalf of other customers who do not use the website (IOSR) to make a booking by themselves, this would work very well with offline Credit Card payment.

Ideas?...

[datahell]

You can synchronize your offline booking system with IOSR by using the special availability. Special availability implemented mostly for this task. You can reduce the number of available rooms to any number and for any date. This way you can syncronize your offline bookings with the bookings made in IOSR.

All your comments and recommendations are welcome.

[de-active]

It's good to know you are reading my posts   I think your the only one reading them! Just as well.

I don't think I was clear.

I am not speaking about synchronization or availability but DATA ENTRY.

If IOSR is my main booking software, I want to be able to RECORD ALL BOOKINGS for my hotels onto the system, irrespective of the fact that the booking was made online or offline.

This is because I want to be able to provide the same booking confirmation email to the customer, (& keep my own record of the booking - so that I can refer to this if there is a problem with the booking or customer or anything else)  even if I use offline credit card payments.

So how do I INSERT/RECORD/CAPTURE an OFFLINE booking ONTO THE IOSR SYSTEM? if the customer did not make the booking online?

At the moment there is no way to capture that booking onto the system.
 
Example: Customer telephones hotel, requests two nights booking and gives offline payment such as offline credit card processing (which I do using PayPal virtual terminal from PayPal Pro) or bank transfer. I want to be able to record this transaction into IOSR, so that it is recorded and appears on the RESERVATION of IOSR (Manage Reservations).

In 'manage reservations', there is no option to record offline reservations, even a super user/administrator can not create a new reservation unless, they create a new user online, and go through the whole process of registering, filling in details etc online - & this is not very effective, since the customer has to wait on the phone for the site administrator to create a new user....

What I am suggesting is from the 'manage reservations' or external login to Elxis/IOSR (like hotelier login) a hotelier or super administrator should be able to record an offline booking, by inserting the required customer information in the RESERVATIONS of IOSR - like a make a reservation button'.  This can then be processed offline, once payment received, the booking can be confirmed.

At the moment, in my opinion, offline credit card payment is incomplete because it allows processing of offline credit card payment only BUT it DOES NOT allow the CAPTURING & RECORDING of the customer details offline! So the idea is to allow a booking of a hotel, without the customer becoming a user of the site/system or without the user having to create or register themselves on the site, yet allow them to make the booking.

Maybe there is a way now but it's not clear and if you could show me how, that would be very much appreciated.

Thanks once again (more queries coming...) and hope you understood the issue this time.

[datahell]

IOS Reservations v3.3 just released.
In this version:
* Improved calendar script
* Option to set the minimum acceptable stay duration

An update patch from v3.2 to v3.3 is also available. IOSR users can download the update patch from with in IOSR administration panel (section Update).

[de-active]

Hi,

I just updated to version 3.3 from 3.2 and everything went fine I think. I came to 'Update' from IOSR and came across this error:

AUTHENTICATION CHECK FAILED, UPDATE IOS RESERVATIONS CORE FILES, ERROR642H7

I can't see any of the previous stuff which shows the versions and update status...

Have I done something wrong?

[datahell]

The following file is modified and it does not match the original one:

components/com_reservations/includes/users.html.php

Replace it with the original one.
IOSR requires some important files to stay untouched.