Publishing a Product Update on the day of the release?! Yes, it's happening. It's already February, and OwnerRez remains steadfastly committed to our 2023 resolution of more timely Product Update blog posts!
Did you know that on this day in 1874, a patent was issued to Samuel W. Francis for the humble spork? Much like the all-purpose spork, OwnerRez has an abundance of versatility. We strive to build in more each week. So dig in (I had to say it!) to today's product update to review the versatility presented in our February 3rd release with 8 updates.
New Features
Zapier Public Beta
One of the things that went live this week that boosts the versatility factor of OwnerRez is the public beta of our Zapier integration! If you missed yesterday's announcement, check out Paul's blog post for the details.
Enhancements & Tweaks
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-Factor Authentication is coming!!! Are you ready?
Very shortly, all accounts will have two-factor authentication turned on. On February 13th, email two-factor authentication will be forced on for ALL users (primary and team access staff accounts).
We already required new user accounts that joined after this feature was initially released on December 8, 2022, to use 2FA, and now it's everyone else's turn to join in that haven't yet.
We will email users who have not yet enabled 2FA for their accounts early next week.
Please read our Two-Factor Authentication support article to understand how it works and how you can preemptively enable it before February 13th to better secure your account today.
Name Change of Branded Subdomain to Branded Portal
What the heck is a branded subdomain? And why would OwnerRez users want one anyway? We realized that not everyone knows what a subdomain (a domain that is a part of another domain) is and that Branded Subdomain confused some of our users.
We decided to clear up that confusion by renaming the Portal Branded Subdomain name to a simpler Branded Portal in the Team Access Portal tab, as shown below.
Here is an example of a Branded Portal login screen.
Want to create your own Team Access Branded Portal? See our Branded Portal Setup support article.
OwnerRez Airbnb Account Notifications
OwnerRez users can now see any Airbnb account error notification specifics displayed on the Airbnb API settings page. Notification alerts will appear on the top right of the Airbnb API Properties tab.
When users click on the alert, an informational pop-up details the account alert, as shown below.
Learn more by reading the Airbnb Overview support article.
Bug Fixes
Allow Deletion of Canceled Bookings If They Can Otherwise Be Deleted. OwnerRez recognizes that there is no valid reason not to allow the deletion of canceled bookings as long as the deleted booking doesn't have any financial transactions history, such as credit card payments or damage protection insurance associated with that specific booking. We fixed a couple of instances where the deletion of canceled bookings was sometimes not allowed.
Don't Reapply Check-in/Check-out Times From Airbnb Upon Booking Modifications. Airbnb doesn't allow changing check-in/check-out times on their side, so applying any check-in/check-out time booking modifications will overwrite any changes made in OwnerRez. This only started happening since our last release where we tweaked some of the check-in/out Airbnb logic. We have applied a fix set to use only the check-in/check-out time when a booking is added to OwnerRez from Airbnb. We will adjust again in the future if Airbnb changes how they handle dates and times.
Widget Does Not Initially Load Property Blocked-Off Dates. When a website (OwnerRez Hosted or Other) with multiple properties available to book, the Inquiry/Book Now widget was not always initially loading blocked-off dates in the date picker for the selected property. Any blocked-off dates were only displayed in the date picker after switching from one property to another and then back to the initially selected property. This bug has been corrected to load the calendar data correctly the first time.
Fix Issue With Houfy Feed Surcharge/Discount Season Criteria Date Rendering. We detected a bug where some overlapping discounts conflicted, causing the dates to render incorrectly for Houfy. This bug is now fixed, and those should render correctly in Houfy.