Sales & Catering - Delphi release notes

These release notes describe new features and fixed issues in the 2017 releases of AmadeusSales & Catering - Delphi. If you want to schedule a complimentary update, please contact Amadeus Support. To determine the release installed in your org, see Installed Packages.

R27

New features and enhancements

None of the R27 features require enabling—you can begin using them right away.

Manage event forecast revenue (CR0122671, CR0128325, CR0129731)

While a property’s default average checks provide a baseline for revenue forecasting, they sometimes need to be updated to reflect a group’s budget or historical spending patterns. Before R27, this meant you had to open each event individually, update its average checks, and then switch back and forth between the Booking page and the Booking Event page to see the forecast revenue totals. Now you can do all your forecasting from one central location—the booking events grid.

R27 includes several new Forecast Average Check fields that you can add to the grid to create a forecast view. These fields display the default average checks that have been entered by your administrator for each event classification. If those average checks need to be updated for a particular group's budget, simply make your changes directly in the grid and save. This ensures that your forecast reporting is as accurate as possible.

To see the booking's forecast revenue broken down by event and revenue classification, click Show Revenue Details in the status bar of the grid to open the new Revenue Details window. This makes it easy to provide your customers with a quick estimate of charges for any event on the booking. The Blended column displays the forecasted revenue until the event has been marked done.

Additional enhancements to the booking events grid

In addition to streamlining the process of forecasting revenue, R27 includes a few more enhancements to the booking events grid:

Room block enhancements (CR0121721)

The following enhancements have been made to the Add Room Types window, which can be accessed from the Room Block Details window or the Enter Pickup page.

PMS integration enhancements

CR0122079, CR0129575: Before R27, inbound message notifications with payloads that exceeded the storage capacity of the Message object (for example, room block data for a year-long booking) failed to process. This failure was not logged in the Message Viewer or the AHWS Tracking database, making it difficult to troubleshoot the root cause of the failure. With the new Suppress Notification Payload feature in R27, the actual payload is not sent in the inbound message. Instead, the message includes a URL to the payload, allowing the payload to be processed "in memory" and bypass the storage limitations of the Message object. To learn more about this feature, please contact your Amadeus sales representative to schedule a Professional Services engagement. Please note that enabling this feature does not guarantee successful message processing. Some inbound messages may still fail to process due to Salesforce resource governor limits. This feature is available for Maestro, SMS, and Rover PMS integrations.

CR0129584: A configuration is available to prevent "room borrowing" when the PMS adds a new room type to an existing room block. This feature is available for Opera, Maestro, SMS, and Rover PMS integrations.

Fixed issues

Bookings

CR0130118: The Close button continues to display in the Room Block Details window when you select guestroom types for a room block.

Events and BEOs

CR0122217: To support a more intuitive workflow, the name of the Cancel button has been changed to Close in the following locations: Manage Events page, Manage Menus and Items page, Editing Item Details page, and the Preview & Merge window.

PMS integrations

Opera PMS

CR0122079: Inbound PMSRoomBlock messages now update the room block even if the inbound message is too large to be stored.

CR0128185: The following fixed issue is applicable to integrations that are configured to allow block cancellations from Opera. When a room block is cancelled by Opera, the notification task assigned to the booking owner now includes the property name in the comments.

CR0129153: When a room block is cancelled and is successfully sent to Opera, the PMS room block is also updated to a Cancelled status and no longer displays as discrepant in the View Discrepancies report.

CR0130043: Large room blocks (for example, 10 room nights with 50 room types) can now be sent to Opera without generating an error message.

Maestro, SMS, and Rover PMS

CR0128493, CR0122125: When an outbound message is sent to the PMS and that message fails, the PMS Integration task sent to the booking owner now includes the PMS ID/Group Code and a link to the associated booking.

CR0129599: When a PMS room block contains duplicate room nights, the block and pickup values now display correctly in Delphi.

CR0129622: When a room block is added to an event only booking that has already been sent to the PMS, a duplicate group is no longer created in the PMS.

CR0128658: Delphi now notifies the booking owner with a task when the PMS cancels a room block and the Allow Cancellations checkbox is not selected on the Property Integration Settings page.

R26

New features and enhancements

Instructions for enabling the R26 features can be found in the following topics:

Banquet user access for View Only licenses (CR0122214)

Most banquet users need to access only a few areas to complete their daily tasks, such as entering actuals and batch printing banquet checks. Purchasing a full license for these users isn’t cost effective, but the View Only license doesn’t give them the level of access they need. R26 solves this dilemma by extending the functionality of the View Only license with the new Banquet Access permission set. Now your banquet staff can do everything they need to while you keep your license fees to a minimum.

To take advantage of this feature, assign both the Banquet Access permission set and the View Only User permission set to your View Only users. This allows them to do the following:

Property access comes into play with the Banquet Access permission set. Banquet users must be sourced on all bookings or given Edit All Records access at the property—otherwise, they will not have access to modify events or merge and batch merge. This is something you should discuss with your corporate administrator.

Along with the Banquet Access permission set, R26 also includes a new view called Banquet Events Today. This view shows all prospect, tentative, and definite events for the current day, making it easy for your banquet staff to update multiple events at one time.

If you want to adjust the types of licenses you're currently using, please contact your Amadeus sales representative for assistance.

Create deposits automatically (CR0128153, CR0129107)

Put away your calculator and let us do the math for you with the new create deposits feature. Simply click the Create Deposits button in the Transactions related list on the booking to build a customized deposit schedule that requires no manual calculations. Select the revenue classifications that need to be included in the total charges and enter a percentage for each deposit you want to create (for example, Deposit with Contract, Second Deposit, and Final Prepayment 10 Days Prior). This information is used to dynamically calculate the amount due for each deposit. Those deposits are then automatically displayed as individual Charge records in the Transactions related list, saving you time and effort.

Here are a few additional things to keep in mind:

Single sign-on for the Merge Tool (CR0126973)

Properties currently using single sign-on with Active Directory Federation Services in their Salesforce org can now extend that functionality to the Merge Tool, allowing property administrators to access their merge templates without entering their Salesforce password and security token in Microsoft Word. This feature requires you to download and install the latest version of the Merge Tool.

Block specific room types when converting inquiries

Before R26, guestrooms were automatically blocked in ROH or your default MeetingBroker room types during the inquiry conversion process. This often required you to take additional steps to allocate the rooms after the booking was created. In R26, we’ve streamlined this process by allowing you to allocate rooms from the Create Booking from Inquiry page. When you’re working with a standard inquiry, simply select the room type you want to allocate all rooms to and then edit the number of rooms as needed. For RFP inquiries, each of the room types selected by the sender will be mapped to the corresponding room types at your property. If those rooms aren’t available, use the Lowest Group Available numbers—as well as the Availability button—to select different room types for the requested dates.

Sertifi integration

We now offer an integration with Sertifi, an electronic signature and online payment solution that helps you quickly close deals and recognize revenue. Sertifi eliminates tedious, time-consuming paper processes by providing your customers with an easy way to electronically sign and email documents back to you. Within minutes you can have a signed contract in your hands and turn the business definite. All signed documents are displayed on the Booking page where you can access them any time. Using Sertifi’s secure payment portal, your customers can safely make online payments toward their booking charges—and your property can recognize that revenue the moment a payment is processed. These deposits are recorded in the Transactions related list on the booking, allowing you to track all payments toward the booking from one central location.

For information on integrating Sertifi in your org, please contact your Amadeus sales representative.

Revenue totals in Pace and Productivity reports (CR0128916)

To make the Catering and Guestroom Pace report and the Productivity report easier to read, revenue totals have been truncated and no longer display decimals (values are not rounded). Rates, however, continue to display decimal values.

PMS integration enhancements

Pending message notifications (CR0121589, CR0122443)

When an outbound message is in Pending status and hasn't been sent to the PMS, the booking owner is notified with a task.

Fixed issues

Bookings

CR0128657: Properties located in the Australia Eastern Standard Time and Australia Central Standard Time zones can now see a date column for 1 October 2017 on room blocks that span the start of Australia Daylight Savings Time.

Events and BEOs

CR0128619: You can now create and add items to detailed menus when you’ve selected to view All Events or All Events Including Inactive on the Manage Menus and Items page.

MeetingBroker integration

CR0128009, CR0127398, CR0127349 : The RFP Recap now displays arrival and departure dates using the property's time zone rather than the user's time zone.

CR0127444: A warning message regarding browser version is no longer displayed when you’re running Internet Explorer and you send a proposal from a booking that was created from an RFP inquiry.

Merge documents

CR0122574: You can now merge Advanced Booking documents that contain guestroom pivot tables when a room block includes room types that share the same alternate language name.

CR0127989: Booking checks now display menus and items in order of event start time.

CR0128672: You can now merge in secondary languages when your Advanced Booking merge template includes transactions.

CR0129676: An error message is no longer displayed when you merge advanced booking documents that include room blocks and guestroom taxes.

PMS integrations

Unless otherwise noted, the following fixed issues apply to the Maestro, SMS, and Rover PMS integrations.

CR0127506: When revenue is posted to a group reservation in the PMS before arrival, the room block and booking arrival date are no longer extended to the date of the revenue posting.

CR0128692: PMS-only group blocks and pickup now update availability as expected during the synchronization phase of new integration implementations.

CR0129399: An error message is no longer displayed when you change the Status or Market Segment on an event only booking that is linked to the PMS. This fix also applies to Opera.

Reports

CR0122477: The Variance to STLY Average Rate column in the Guestroom and Catering Pace report now calculates correctly.

CR0128356: The Banquet Check Revenue Summary report displays tax data for properties using enhanced taxes.

Setup

CR0122563, CR0121658, CR0127021, CR0122207, CR0121900: The following records are currently public and can be accessed by any property administrator in an org: Batch Merge, Choice Groups, Date Collections, Document Templates, Event Classifications, Guestroom Type Days, Items, Property Admin and Gratuity, Revenue Classifications, Setup Values, and Terms and Conditions. Some properties may prefer to restrict access to these records by making them private. If your property’s business model supports private sharing, please contact your Amadeus sales representative to schedule time with a member of our Professional Services team.

R25

New features and enhancements

Instructions for enabling the R25 features can be found in the following topics:

All other features are enabled for you when you install the R25 package.

Streamline guestroom tables in merge documents (CR0121416, CR0121853, CR0122099, CR0090306, CR0127290)

You want your contracts and booking checks to be clean, streamlined, and easy to read. With the new Advanced Booking Display Options on the Document Template page, an administrator can now exclude certain guestrooms from the tables in your merge documents. This ensures that your customers see only those guestroom details that are relevant to their booking. The following options are available:

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Room block keyboard shortcuts (CR0090380)

To help you block and modify guestrooms more quickly, the following keyboard shortcuts have been added to the Room Block Details window for the Agreed, Forecasted, and Blocked rows:

Your corporate administrator can enable this org-wide feature by selecting Enable Room Block Shortcuts on the Amadeus Settings page.

Apply admin and gratuity to discount price (CR0090537)

Before R25, admin and gratuity were always calculated using the base price of a menu or item. Some properties, however, may want to apply those charges to the discount price instead. If this is your property’s standard, you’ll want to take advantage of the new Apply Admin & Gratuity to Discount Price checkbox. Your administrator can select this checkbox for each applicable revenue classification—both corporate and property. Some properties may want to apply admin and gratuity to the discount price across the board, while others may choose to enable this feature for specific revenue classifications only. Delphi gives you this flexibility. And if you ever need to change how admin and gratuity are calculated for an individual menu or item, you can always do so using the Apply Admin & Gratuity to Discount Price checkbox in the Editing Item Details window.

If the type of business determines how admin and gratuity are calculated at your property, you may want to implement this feature on an event-by-event basis rather than setting defaults at the revenue classification level. For example, you may always use the base price except for in-house groups which are charged using the discount price. If this is how your property operates, select Apply Admin & Gratuity to Discount Price in the Edit Multiple Events window, the Booking Events grid, or on the Booking Event page. This automatically calculates admin and gratuity for every menu and item on the event using the discount price regardless of the checkbox setting in the Editing Item Details window.

If you need to manage admin and gratuity differently for the various menus and items on an event, do not select Apply Admin & Gratuity to Discount Price on the event. Instead, use the checkbox in the Editing Item Details window to apply admin and gratuity to either the base price or the discount price, as needed. For example, you may want to calculate admin and gratuity using the discount price of your food items but the base price of your AV items.

Guestroom Bookings – Total Rooms and Avg Rate (CR0127226)

The Guestroom Bookings section of the Availability page now shows Total Rooms and Avg Rate for the entire guestroom pattern—not just those days that are currently being viewed.

If a booking has multiple room blocks, select the Room Block Details checkbox to see the Avg Rate and Total Rooms for each block.

For cross-property bookings, be sure to display all relevant properties on the Availability page and select the Room Block Details checkbox. This allows you to see the Avg Rate and Total Rooms for each room block at each property. You’ll find the Avg Rate and Total Rooms for the entire booking under the property where the booking was created.

Exclude inactive events (CR0127024, CR0091429)

When you work with repeat business, the easiest way to create future bookings is to clone an existing one. Some of your bookings may contain inactive events—that is, events with a status of Booking Cancelled, Event Cancelled, Lost, or Turned Down. Because you probably don’t want to copy these events to the new booking, the Clone Booking page now displays only active events by default. Any time you want to copy the booking’s inactive events, simply select the new Include Inactive Events checkbox. The Clone Booking page will then display all events on the booking—both active and inactive.

Similarly, the Manage Menus and Items page also displays only active events by default, which is especially helpful when you’re detailing a complicated program and only want to see those events that require your attention. If you ever do need to access an inactive event, the new All Events Including Inactive option in the Events picklist gives you that flexibility.

Opera PMS integrations (CR0122599)

The PMS ID/Group Code field on the Booking page can now be configured to be a required field for event only bookings (depending on the specified booking status for the integration). Entering a PMS ID into this field sends the event only booking to Opera. Additionally, certain market segments may be excluded from this requirement to prevent certain bookings from being sent to Opera—for example, in-house groups.

Fixed issues

Availability

CR0128370: Properties with large databases no longer receive an error message when they create events in the Function Diary.

Bookings

CR0127059: You can now save a booking when you change its Status and Cutoff Date at the same time.

Events and BEOs

CR0122042: Occasionally, the changes you make to an event may not be saved due to another user updating the event at the same time. To ensure you don’t lose any of your changes, the following user friendly message is now displayed: “We’re unable to save your changes at this time. Please click Save again.”

CR0122317: All properties regardless of database size can now search for a menu or item using only part of its name.

CR0128461: Properties in orgs that contain more than 200,000 items can now add detailed menus to events when Do Not Print on Check is selected for the menu.

Inquiries

CR0122594: When an RFP inquiry includes a custom auto number or formula field, you can now confirm receipt of the inquiry, convert it to a booking, or link it to an existing booking. Additionally, all RFP messages are successfully generated.

CR0128217: An error message is no longer displayed when you convert an inquiry to a booking in orgs that have over 1,000 active users.

CR0128543: RFP inquiries can now be received, converted to bookings, and updated in orgs that have more than 50,000 tasks that aren't associated with a parent record (account, contact, booking, etc.).

MeetingBroker integration

CR0122048: The Milestone Status fields on the inquiry and booking now reflect the most current milestone status in MeetingBroker.

Merge documents

CR0121289: Merge documents now display the user’s local time zone in the PrintDate merge field.

CR0128191: The Locale picklist now displays on the Create Merge Document page and the Create Batch Merge Document page in orgs where the default locale is not English.

CR0128439: When you create a merge document from a cross-property booking, the Create Merge Document page now displays Advanced Booking document templates for the booking's property only.

Opera PMS integrations

CR0127474: The property’s default currency is now displayed in the Rate field on the Reservation Night page.

R24

New features and enhancements

None of the R24 features require enabling—you can begin using them right away.

Notification to mark BEOs distributed before marking them revised

When you need to make changes to a BEO after it has been distributed, you update the event details accordingly, mark the BEO revised, and then reprint it for your staff. The important thing to remember is that a BEO must be marked distributed before it is marked revised. To encourage this workflow, R24 now displays the following notification when you try to mark a BEO revised before its distribution: “To mark a BEO as revised, you must first select the Distributed checkbox on the Booking Document page or the Create Batch Merge Document page.”

Availability enhancements

System Purge utility

As part of normal system processing, records are stored in internal system objects for tracking (Object Notifications, Log Entries, and Messages). To help ensure that only the minimum number of records are kept in these objects, a System Purge utility is now available that deletes older system object records on a rolling basis. The System Purge utility will be enabled automatically upon upgrade.

You can always check to see the amount of storage that is being used in every object by accessing the System Overview page in Setup. If you see that the Object Notifications, Log Entries, or Messages objects are using a relatively large amount of storage, please contact Amadeus Support for assistance before running the System Purge utility.

Opera PMS integration (CR0127255)

When a property receives a Stay message from Opera and the reservation is marked Stay Complete, information from that Stay message is used to populate the Reservation Night Rate fields on the Reservation page. These fields are then used to calculate the final pickup rate. Using the new Set Reservation Night From picklist on the Property Integration Settings page, the Opera integration can be configured per property to determine which values in the Stay message need to be used to update the Reservation Night Rates. The following options are available:

This picklist replaces the org-wide checkbox—Update Pickup Rates from Stay Message—located on the PMS Integration Settings page.

SMS and Maestro PMS integration

When an outbound PMSRoomBlock message is sent to the SMS or Maestro PMS and that message fails, a task is created that includes the complete booking details. This allows you to quickly follow up on the booking that requires attention.

Fixed issues

Application

CR0127339: System administrators with the Sales & Catering Corporate Administrator permission set can now receive RFPs sent from MeetingBroker and convert them to bookings. Please note that the S&C Corporate Administrator permission set must be manually assigned to a user with the System Administrator profile to allow for this functionality.

Availability

CR0122625: When you add booking sources to the event bar tooltip in the Function Diary, the appropriate field label is shown. For example, when you add the Catering Manager field to the tooltip, the field label displays "Catering Manager" rather than the generic "Full Name."

Inquiries

CR0122564: You can now convert an inquiry to a booking without being the inquiry owner when the contact and account already exist.

Merge and reports

CR0122167: When you clear the Distributed checkbox for a BEO or banquet check on the Booking Document page and then batch merge from that booking, the associated events are now returned in the search results.

CR0122192: You can now merge a BEO or banquet check when the Do Not Print on BEO checkbox is selected for a menu but is not selected for an item on that menu.

PMS integration

CR0126873: When you delete a booking with a room block, both records are now deleted in the integrated PMS (Opera, SMS, or Maestro) unless the room block contains pickup. In that case, neither record is deleted.

CR0127407: When a room block includes different occupancy levels for the agreed number of rooms, the SMS or Maestro PMS now updates that room block with the correct number of blocked and pickup rooms for each occupancy level.

CR0127526: When shoulder pickup is entered in the SMS or Maestro PMS, the corresponding room block in Delphi is updated accordingly with blocked and pickup numbers for the shoulder dates.

R23

New features and enhancements

Some of the R23 features require enabling before you can begin using them at your property. Instructions for enabling those features are provided in the following topics:

Property-specific gratuity and admin charges (CR0090411)

Administrators can now define property-specific gratuity and admin charges for their corporate revenue classifications. This is a huge time-saver since you no longer have to create duplicate property revenue classifications for each corporate classification to account for differing charges. For example, if The City Hotel charges 20% gratuity for Food and Amadeus Plaza charges 18%, you can enter those percentages directly on the Food corporate revenue classification. When users add a food item to an event, the appropriate gratuity and admin will be applied based on the property. The best news? Now all properties can use the corporate BEO and banquet check templates—you no longer have to maintain separate templates for each property.

RFP activities (CR0122284)

If you’re like most Sales Managers, you’re no stranger to multi-tasking and tight deadlines. Effectively managing your RFPs is a critical part of this process.

With the RFP activities feature in R23, you can monitor your RFPs from one central location—your Home page. Instead of sifting through dozens of inquiries and bookings—or checking your email for MeetingBroker notifications—you just need to look at your My Tasks list to see which RFPs have been updated, cancelled, withdrawn, or awarded. This makes it incredibly easy to track and follow up on your leads in a timely manner. You decide which RFP notifications you want created as activities using the options on the Amadeus User Settings page.

When converting the inquiry to a booking, you can copy the inquiry's activities to the booking and, if you want, you can close all open activities on the inquiry—it’s completely up to you.

Choice group selections (CR0122363)

Menu planning often requires several changes to get everything just right. For example, your Roasted Chicken Dinner menu typically includes the Caesar Salad as a starter, but your customer would rather have the Butternut Squash Bisque for their holiday event. Accommodating those changes is extremely easy with the choice group selections feature in R23.

When you add a detailed menu to an event, your choice group selections are displayed on the Items tab at the bottom of the Editing Item Details page. There you’ll see a new Choice Group column with a link to the item’s choice group. Clicking this link opens the Select Choice Group Items window where you can modify your previous choice group selections. After you click Save, the Items tab reflects your new selections. You can then present your customer with a detailed BEO that fulfills all their requests. And if they happen to change their mind again tomorrow—you can work the same magic in just a few seconds.

Availability 2.0 enhancements

The following enhancements have been made to the Guestroom Bookings section of the Availability page.

Enhanced Productivity report

The Productivity report now lets you view grand totals for each Sales Manager at each property. This new section is displayed at the end of the report when you select the Sales Manager Totals option in the report criteria. Grand totals can be displayed for guestrooms, guestroom revenue, or event revenue during the consumption date range.

Locale in merge documents (CR0126974)

If you create merge documents in alternate languages, you no longer have to manually translate the date text. Instead, you can use the new Locale picklist on the Create Merge Document and Create Batch Merge Document pages to specify the language for this text. This field also controls the currency format in your documents. Here are a few additional things to keep in mind:

Notification when RFP Owner isn't updated in MeetingBroker

When the owner of an RFP inquiry is changed and the new owner does not have a matching email address in MeetingBroker, the following message is displayed: “The RFP Owner could not be updated in MeetingBroker because a user with email address <insert address here> was not found. Please contact your administrator.” You'll see this message when you click the Confirm Receipt button or the Turndown and Reply button on the RFP Inquiry page. You'll also see it when you convert an RFP inquiry to a booking.

New permissions for View Only users

View Only users now have the following permissions:

Amadeus User Settings tab

You can select which RFP activities need to be created from MeetingBroker notifications, set your default property, and configure Availability 2.0 settings.

Availability 2.0 page

The changes you make to the Availability page are displayed the next time you check availability.

Fixed issues

Bookings

CR0126961: The Revenue Summary section of the Booking and Booking Event pages now uses the property’s currency label (for example, USD or GBP) rather than the org’s currency label.

Menus, items, and events

CR0121389: Function room admin and gratuity now default correctly on an event.

CR0122706: The “Error parsing json response: ‘Unexpected token <’. Logged in?” error message has been replaced with a more user friendly message: “Your action could not be completed. Please re-log in.” This message is displayed when you have multiple tabs open, you log out of the application from one tab, and you attempt to update the information on another tab.

CR0126837: You can now add complex menus with 50 or more items to events without receiving an error message.

Merge and reports

CR0126845: The GRC report columns are now aligned according to the date and day headers.

Global updates

The following updates have been made to areas outside of Delphi and are available in all releases based on the effective date listed. For information on release-specific updates, see Overview: Release notes and feature enablement.

December 1, 2017

Banquet and booking check enhancements (CR0090705, CR0129550, CR0129766)

Several enhancements have been made to streamline the appearance of your banquet checks and booking checks: