Online Connections - Webervations |
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In order to retrieve online requests from Webervations (and upload new availability data to them), the appropriate settings need to be configured in Maintenance / Online Reservations / Other Online Interfaces / Connections & Options. This allows Campground Master to retrieve reservation requests directly from your account on the Webervations web site, using their special protocol.
Also see "Setting Up for Webervations" for other setup that needs to be done.
Enable retrieval of online reservation requests from Webervations.com
This box must be checked to enable the Webervations portion of Online Reservations support. If this is not checked, the "Webervations" option will not be available in other Online Reservations functions.
Automatically connect to the Internet each time
If you use a dial-up internet service, you can select this option to connect automatically when it needs to retrieve requests (and it will also disconnect automatically when done).
Clear pending requests from server after they're retrieved
Once you have things running smoothly, this option can be selected to delete processed requests from the server. If this option is not checked, requests will continue to accumulate on the server (and take time to download each time). There is no other way to delete the requests -- even if you don't leave this option checked all the time, check it once in awhile to clear the accumulated requests.
Remember that all retrieved messages are also stored in a local file when they're retrieved, so even if you delete the requests from the server but don't get a chance to process them, you can use the Reprocess Downloaded Requests function to get them from the downloaded file later (until you use Delete the Downloaded Requests to clear them out, of course).
Other Settings for data retrieval
You will need to enter the appropriate settings for accessing your account on Webervations. Note that only the Username and Password for your account should be modified unless otherwise instructed. The rest of these entries default to the proper settings to use, as of the time of this writing. Be careful not to modify them! Just in case you need to fix them, here are the correct settings (again, accurate as of the time of this writing, but they may change if Webervations changes its format):
Download host: https://secure.webervations.com Port: 443
Download file: /magic-scripts/down/download_bookings.asp
Upload host: http://uploads.webervations.com Port: 80
Upload file: /magic-scripts/down/get_cgmaster_xml.asp
Local Working Directory
This is where it will save the downloaded requests locally, in a file named "webervations_xml.txt". Other temporary files may also be placed there, for instance the availability data to be uploaded. The path defaults to a blank entry, which means it will use the same folder as the Campground Master database. If you prefer to put it somewhere else, enter the entire path name here.
Confirmation # Format
Webervations doesn't assign confirmation numbers to requests, so Campground Master will assign one according to the format you specify. This is exactly like the main confirmation format specification, except that there's a special "<O>" tag (the letter O, not the number 0). This will insert the unique Online ID from Webervations into the confirmation number if you like. The default format is "RWEB<O>", which will be the online ID prefixed with "RWEB". Thus you will be able to easily see that it came from Webervations. For complete formatting options, see the Maintenance / Program Options / Formats section of the documentation.
Defaults for Online Deposit Transactions
If you're using a 3rd-party reservation service and they take a deposit for you, then you probably want to use a special Payment Method and description for these deposits (since they're not coming directly into your normal account). If the payment description field is left blank, it will default to the payment method name.
You can also designate a special Operator name so you can identify them on reports. If this is left blank, the transaction and reservation will be recorded with the operator logged in at the time the request is processed. Note that even if you won't be receiving deposits online, you can set the operator name to be used in "Created by" for the reservations.
Note that if you enter a deposit locally after saving the reservation request, then these values aren't used for that deposit transaction (the current operator is used).