"Group" availability widgets?

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I am a moderator in several Smoky Mountains groups, and I know many owners are on ownerrez. when potential guests ask about availability, it is very manual process to respond to them. I was wondering if there was any way to have a combined availability calendar widget across several owners/properties who would wish to participate? And display it via link. Just trying to simplify my life :)

could you form a OR hosted website, with all properties listed?

I can add a page to my website, but how to combine all properties by different owners into one availability widget?

Yeah, we've thought about how to do that. If they already have OwnerRez accounts that's the biggest hurdle -- once they do, it's just a matter of some sort of permissions that would allow crossing between properties.

How many properties are we talking about? If it's just a couple, the simplest thing would be to have each owner generate a separate calendar widget and then put those on a central page. Then link from that page to each individual owner's site. That way the guest can come to the availability page, see which one they want, then go to the individual owner's site and submit an inquiry there.

If it's a bunch, then you probably want an availability search widget. We don't have a way right now to search across users, but email me over at help@ownerreservations.com the list of users and we can start thinking about what it would take.

I do not know how many but I would think at least a dozen. I'd imagine if it works more will jump on board. All the calendars I tried limit ical in-feeds to about 5-6 and also display gets very unreadable. Google calendar is not good as it does not show half-days. If you know any calendar that supports more than 5-6 ical feeds pls let me know. I was trying to solve it for our group of owners but gave up.

yes I was also thinking permissions.. else a availability search combined widget would be awesome too.

Yep, most calendars aren't built to show many properties at once or half days either.

If they've got OwnerRez accounts, email me a list and I'll have a look and see what we can do.

I would totally love a group availability widget so that we could use it to collectively advertise it through other channels such as magazines and other deal aggregators .... it just doesnt make economic sense to advertise 1 or 2 properties in those channels...
thank you so much for the idea BuleMountain

We added a little easter egg for this which you'll all see in a few days. In testing right now. 😜

that sounds awesome

Yep, Santa is here early :-D Just created ribbon calendar and availability search widgets that are linked to all of the property id's you sent. If you go to Settings > Widgets in your account you'll be able to see them tagged in the list as "Multi User".

For now, there's no way for you to add or remove properties, so if you need to do that let me know. And if anybody else could use a similar arrangement, let me know and I'll hook it up.

However, you can edit anything else about the widget -- how it looks etc. just not the properties that are in it.

A couple of recommendations for the other properties you have from other users:
- Have them set the property URL in the property general info area to the specific URL for the property. Some are pointing to the main website (i.e. https://www.highviewcabins.com/ or https://moonshinecabins.com/) vs the URL of the property (i.e. https://www.highviewcabins.com/sherwooddream or https://moonshinecabins.com/fireflies)... which means that when a guest searches on the widget and clicks on the property they get dumped at the home page of the site vs. the specific property page
- Fill in everything that can display in the search results...

1) The first photo you add to the property Photos section
2) Property Short Description (Description section)
3) Beds/baths you set in the Amenities section. Sleeps is also calculated from beds.
4) Min/max nightly rates
5) Highlight amenities: pets, internet, firewood, mountain, forest, waterview, waterfront

Thank you so much Chris, I will pass the info about fixing their links to the 'offenders". i think many people just are not very well versed in OR yet.

I think once we demo it, more will want to jump on board!

Thank you, Chris! I just changed my URLs and now moving on to update the other info. This is going to be GREAT!

updated my info also :)

Couple requested changes.... can you have the link set so that when someone clicks the property it opens in a new tab/window rather than taking away from the site they are on?

Also can you remove "Today" and "Holiday" from the legend?

I think you can set it in widget definitions in your OR settings>widgets> edit widget(group one) check "Open Properties In New Window"

Chris, while opening in new window can be controlled in Availability search, when link is clicked from Ribbon Calendar, it opens in same window. Can we have it open in separate window or separate tab?

Thanks for adding this feature Chris Hynes! Would you be kind to add property IDs 185006 and 210365 to this as wel? Thanks

Good ideas on the open in new window and hide legend option. Will add those to the dev list.

@BlueMtn, cool if I add those additional properties to your widget? Any additional to add?

Absolutely, as long as they are in smoky mountains and have their URL properly set up. I have one "offender" who's URL lands on come odd page when his "detail" button is clicked. I think Sharafunnisa wanted to join in ORP185006.

I also ended up embedding page code into my website page. I guess my website builder tool is quirky in a sense that html embeds do not resize based on how many cabins are in the result list of availability search. I kinda got around it but my business name, logo and my website/ phone (theming) displays on widget .. I am thinking guests will start contacting me about other's cabins. See here and you will see what I am talking about :-) https://smoky-mountains-cabin.com/rentals-by-owner