OwnerRez celebrated National Technology Day today! Did you?
Technology has revolutionized how we manage our vacation rental properties, and Property Management Systems (PMS), like OwnerRez, have become the essential tool for property owners and managers. In today's product update, summarizing our May 10th release with 18 updates, we'll explore this week's technological advancements that OwnerRez has for you, including our new Back to Top button!
Enhancements & Tweaks
Back to Top Added to all Support Articles, Blog Posts, and Vacation Rental Guides!
So subtle--but it's there! We know that some of our Support Center articles are long...really long. There's a lot of information and we want them to be as helpful as possible. Sometimes you need to get to the top of the article to start over or link to other sections.
We added anchor links a while back (for easier reference later), and now we've added a floating "Back to Top" link on all Support Center articles, Blog Posts, and Vacation Rental Guides. You don't even have to make it to the bottom to use it!
When users scroll down any individual OwnerRez Support Center article, Blog Post, or Guide, the subtle floating "Back to Top" button appears near the lower right corner.
Here it is on desktop!
And here it is on mobile!
Continuous improvement--that's what we're all about here at OwnerRez!
We should mention that this feature may depend on your browser version and settings, so the YMMV (your mileage may vary) applies here.
New Houfy Webhooks
Houfy's mission is to connect people with places and its name is derived from "HOUse For You." Houfy promotes direct bookings without platform fees and without any restricted communication between OwnerRez users and guests.
Houfy asked that OwnerRez use specific webhook endpoints to include availability and rates to assist their channel integration, and OwnerRez was happy to help. We are strong advocates of the #DirectBooking movement, and Houfy is also.
Bug Fixes
Adopt Billing Info Created on Non-Stripe When Using Stripe. OwnerRez users experienced issues when changing from non-Stripe payment processors to Stripe. After being used once on Stripe, the system thought it was from a different Stripe account and stopped attempting to process it when it was actually from a non-Stripe account. We have fixed this bug to recognize the correct payment processor for future transactions after changing from non-Stripe payment processors to Stripe.
Allow PWA Rotation Consistently. Some users were experiencing rotation issues with the OwnerRez Progressive Web App (PWA) when trying to go between portrait and landscape and vice versa. We have fixed this so the PWA should rotate consistently when needed on iPhone and Android devices. You may have to delete and reinstall the PWA to see a behavior change.
Clarify Message on Reauth of Wrong Stripe Account. The error message displayed was unhelpful when users attempted to connect or reconnect an incorrect Stripe account. We have clarified the message displayed when users try to connect or reconnect a wrong Stripe account.
Don't Change Air Tax to Percent if it Would Cause a Rounding Error. A few Airbnb API-connected users experienced tax errors due to incorrect rounding. This bug has been fixed to no longer change the Airbnb tax to a percentage if it causes rounding errors.
Don't Keep Trying to Reauth Secdeps After Release Days. An OwnerRez user experienced a bug where a security deposit was never released or reauthorized because their payment method was disabled a couple of months ago, but when the user reactivated that payment method, the system then attempted to reauthorize the security deposit long after the guest's departure. We have fixed this bug that will block any attempts to reauthorize regardless of status if it's beyond the auto-release days.
Fix Bug Preventing Removal of SMS Feature if Campaign Registration Got Stuck. A user who needed to turn off the SMS premium feature couldn't and saw an error. We helped the user and put in a catch to handle it in the future.
Fix Default Input Values in Rate Calendar Modal. The rate calendar worked fine, but we noticed some warnings about some strange HTML on the browser console. We have corrected the rate calendar modal default input values to fix the warnings.
Fix Issue Where 'No matching records' Shows on Expense Grids When There are Expense Records. When expenses were added to a booking (either manually or automatically), the label 'No matching records' would appear at the bottom of the Expenses section of the individual booking. This bug has been fixed and will no longer appear when expenses are tied to a booking.
Fix Issue Where Photo Captions That Begin With a Period Do Not Display Properly in the Hosted Website Full-screen Image Carousel. When users created photo captions that began with periods, lag or freezing was experienced on the full-screen image carousel and sometimes the photo captions did not display. To fix this, periods and certain other characters at the front of the caption are ignored when opening the image in the full-screen carousel view.
Fix Issue Where Team Access Portal List is Not Showing Everyone That Can Actually Access One's Portal. This was an edge case where a user with access to an OwnerRez portal did not appear in the list of users with access to that portal. This has been fixed so all portal users will display correctly in OR account portal team lists.
Fix RTL Currency Import for Airbnb Transaction Sync. Airbnb Transaction Sync had difficulties normalizing any currency that runs from right to left. We have normalized the Airbnb Transaction Sync to validate such currencies, including Arabic currency.
For Vrbo, Convert Crib/Child Beds in Rooms to Travel Crib Amenity Since They Don't Support Child Bed/Crib Beds in Rooms Anymore. Vrbo supports only a pack-n-play or travel crib as a crib amenity, so we have converted all Vrbo Crib/Child Beds in rooms to the travel crib amenity.
Import Seasonal Rates Success Message Should Display Rate Count Updated Not Properties. Seasonal rates imported would display an import success label indicating that only 1 property was updated even though more than one property seasonal rates were updated. The seasonal rate imports worked correctly, but the import success label was incorrect. This bug has been corrected so the import success label displays the number of seasonal rates updated.
Optimize API Long Running Queries for Consumers Who Include Field Values. Some API users who were including field values experienced long-running and slow queries depending on the combination of criteria. We have optimized the query to run faster despite field value criteria.
Optimize CalendarSync Runtime by Storing Response Content Hashes. We're always tidying things up behind the scenes and calendar syncs were becoming too inefficient and so we now store more responses to help future calendar syncs out.
Update bnbfinder Logo. We updated the bnbfinder logo in-app.