Beds24 improvments suggestions

[zagrebpoint]

Some of the things that would be nice to improve in control panel.

1. Calendar
It is little bit outdated the way it looks compared to other calendars that you can find in channel managers.
There should be some additional functions.
a) to be able to add the reservation by clicking on the empty field and dragging the mouse. Or at least just by clicking on the empty date. I know that you can do that by clicking on the inventory field but this inventory row just takes space from your screen.
b) to be able to drag and drop the reservation to another room/property
c) it is difficult to navigate if you have all properties/rooms opened. the scrolls on the side and the bottom of the screen should be always visible. The one on the side is always visible but the one on the bottom is not. So if you want to scroll little bit farther in the month view and the property you want to see is somewhere in the middle you can not do it. You first have to scroll down than scroll to the dates you want to check and than scroll up to the property/room you want to see.
It is also the case with the navigation bar (the one with checkers what to see on calendar) above the calendar. If you have a month view and are looking something on the end of the month the navigation bar is out of sight.
That navigation bar should be always fixed and not be able to scroll together with calendar. I hope you understand what I am saying.
d) there should be an option to view just few properties/rooms. It would be good that by the drop down list of the properties is a check box where you can choose which one to see on calendar. Maybe I want to compare only two properties of 10, and I want to hide other 8 properties.

2.Making new reservation
It would be good that you can do it by clicking directly in the calendar like I said before
And when choosing dates in "reservation form" that you see the dates that are already booked.
Also why isn't there a note field when entering the reservation. It appears only later when you open the reservation.
Overall that form for creating new reservations seem little bit confused with two much fields that are maybe not necessary.

And the whole appearance of the beds24 back office is with an outdated design. You could use some better CSS. Appears like from 90is.

I hope you have in plan to make some improvements.

[markkinchin]

a) to be able to add the reservation by clicking on the empty field and dragging the mouse. Or at least just by clicking on the empty date. I know that you can do that by clicking on the inventory field but this inventory row just takes space from your screen.

Nice idea, we will look into it.

b) to be able to drag and drop the reservation to another room/property

We have experimented with this and found it was too easy to accidentally move bookings which would be a disaster.

c) it is difficult to navigate if you have all properties/rooms opened. the scrolls on the side and the bottom of the screen should be always visible. The one on the side is always visible but the one on the bottom is not. So if you want to scroll little bit farther in the month view and the property you want to see is somewhere in the middle you can not do it. You first have to scroll down than scroll to the dates you want to check and than scroll up to the property/room you want to see. It is also the case with the navigation bar (the one with checkers what to see on calendar) above the calendar. If you have a month view and are looking something on the end of the month the navigation bar is out of sight.
That navigation bar should be always fixed and not be able to scroll together with calendar. I hope you understand what I am saying.

We are aware of the scroll bar issue and working on a fix.

d) there should be an option to view just few properties/rooms. It would be good that by the drop down list of the properties is a check box where you can choose which one to see on calendar. Maybe I want to compare only two properties of 10, and I want to hide other 8 properties.

Another nice idea.

2.Making new reservation
It would be good that you can do it by clicking directly in the calendar like I said before
And when choosing dates in "reservation form" that you see the dates that are already booked.
Also why isn't there a note field when entering the reservation. It appears only later when you open the reservation.
Overall that form for creating new reservations seem little bit confused with two much fields that are maybe not necessary.

Everyone has a different work flow when entering bookings and uses different fields, we have tried to include the most important at the start, perhaps a note field can be added.

And the whole appearance of the beds24 back office is with an outdated design. You could use some better CSS. Appears like from 90is..

Ohhh, I remember the 90's
I think you mean maybe it looks like 2013 which probably is the 90's in Internet years.
We launched Beds24 back in 2006, you should see the original control panel if you don't like the current one. (hint, it was the myspace generation and IE6 was king)

[zagrebpoint]

1. Regarding the reservation form.
Why dont you make the possibility that we customize the fields that we want to use.
I know that some of the fields can be customized but not all the fields. than each of us could make our own reservation form.

2. Regarding the drag and drop reservations from room to room/property
I am aware that you can easily make a mistake by accidentally moving the reservation especially if you have a touch screen. but than there should be a worming message or some button that you have to click before you want to change it.

3. Regarding the design.
You are right it is more like from 2009 (not 2013)
But i think it is very important to have a good design. After all it is the first thing that will attract new customers for you.
I can tell you from my experience. Beds24 was one of the first channel manager that I tried to use and when I saw how it looks like I gave up in a second. I said to myself this is something completely outdated.
Than I was searching for some other channel managers and property managers and I found very appealing ones. On a first view they were very pleasant to use and intuitive. And you feel like you are using something new and contemporary. It is like the difference in use office 97 or office 2013. Even if you use the same features, 2013 looks so much better that you will use it for sure.
Here are some of the CM and PMS that you should take a look at:
- Sabbeapp
- Rentlio - that one has the best booking form that I have seen. It is so easy and what is the best it is connected with the guest list and you instantly see how much the guest paid last time if it is a returning guest.
And it is amazingly fast. You should take a look at it.
- Cloudebeds

I dont know do you monitor what your competition does but I think you should. because some of them have really good solutions for the things you want to do and maybe dont know what is the best way to do it. (Like the reservation form for the example)

These look really nice and I would be glad to pay little more to have such a nice user interface.
Now you probably asking why am I not using those. The answer is simple - they dont have all the capabilities that Beds24 has. So I decide to go for the best one
But the point is if I didn't have such a special demands (because my situation is little bit different than average one - I am not ruining a typical hotel) I would surely choose one of those mentioned above just because of their appearance.
Dont take all this as a critic - I would just like to help out to Beds24 become the best on the market

[annettemorgenroth]

1. Regarding the reservation form.
Why dont you make the possibility that we customize the fields that we want to use.
I know that some of the fields can be customized but not all the fields. than each of us could make our own reservation form.

We sent you an invitation to closed beta testing of our new booking page last Monday by Email. Did you not get this? This is what we sent you:

...Key changes are:

*Improved mobile functionality
*Improved functions for multiple room booking and collection numbers of guests/adults/children
*Check-in/Check-out/Number of nights instead of Check-in/Number of nights
*New features: picture slider and multiple room pictures, multiple calendars

The concept is fully modular. The idea is that you can choose form a variety of modules and display them in any order you want. We are still working on the new settings and on the multiple property version but we have prepared some defaults for individual properties which you are welcome to test.

Click on this link for examples and information how to use them for your own property:

http://beds24.com/demo/responsive-onlin ... ystem.html

If you want a different layout just let us know and we will set it up for you.

We are excited to hear your feedback (both good and bad).

[zagrebpoint]

When I was talking about the reservation form I was referring on the form that I have to fill in when I get new reservation by phone for example.
This form is excellently done in the "Rentlio" PMS - so quick and simple and it has everything. You should look at it.

Yes I have got your new booking page version. On the first look it looks much better than the old one. I will test it a little give you the feedback.

[zagrebpoint]

It is great that you fixed the scroll problem in the calendar page. Now it is easier to navigate.
But please can you make the top menu to be fix. It doesn't make any sense that when you scroll the calendar left right (or up -down) that the top menu (header) also scrolls.

I dont know if this is difficult for you to set up, but it would make the navigation much easier.

Please consider to make this change.

[markkinchin]

We have added a fixed row with the month names to the calendar table. It works in most browsers but may not work in all.
From my testing it works on my desktop with firefox, chrome, ie and safari but does not work on my Android tablet or ipad.

[zagrebpoint]

I dont see the fixed row with the names of the months.
I use latest versions of Firefox and IE.

Regarding the fixed header here are three images that I made in photoshop just to show what I mean.
I hope you agree that this header part should be fixed. Navigation would be much easier.

http://www.zagreb-apartment.net/img/cal ... 0fixed.jpg

http://www.zagreb-apartment.net/img/cal ... fixed2.jpg

http://www.zagreb-apartment.net/img/cal ... fixed3.jpg

[markkinchin]

We had to remove the fixed row update because it caused problems in some browsers.
Unfortunately fixing rows or columns of a table in a browser is not universally supported and is difficult to code.

If we can find a solution that works in all browsers we will implement it.

[zagrebpoint]

Hello

One more suggestion.

In property description please make that all fields have its Template Variable.
Also put custom fields where each field would have its own Template Variable.

This can be very useful if we want to add some specific information like:
Floor number
Name on the bell
or what ever we want.

So we can use those information when creating Auto Actions e-mails