Experience the difference of "Elite".

New inquiries from email won't hold data

Monica R
Mar 20, 2018 8:48 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

Sooooo... I set my website contact form to automatically email new reservation requests directly tto my OwnerRez email address and lo and behold I tested it and it showed up under the "Emails" tab like a damned miracle.

I go into the Emails tab and clicked on it to open it, and I selected "Create Inquiry" like I think I'm supposed to.

That takes me to a screen with the email itself on the left side of the screen and the blank OwnerRez fields on the right side of the screen, where I'm supposed to fill in the listing site where the guest originated, my property name, the guest's name, arrival and departure dates they want, the occupancy and then finally add the guest's name.

I filled in the listing site, my property name using the drop-down menus, no problem. But when I tried to add the check in and check out dates, it won't fill in. I must have clicked on the little calendar icon three or four times, but nothing. After sighing heavily, I manually typed in the desired dates. Then I entered the number of guests below that. Then I added the guest's (fake) name, selected "create new guest" and I hit "SAVE CHANGES." Ok, so NOW I think I'm FINALLY getting the hang of this part...

But when I went to my "Inquiries" tab, although I saw the new inquiry appearing there, it's marked UNANSWERED and MISSING CONTACT INFO. When I click on it to open it, I notice that none of the data I had just added was there. Guest name is gone, dates are gone, number of guests is gone.

So I click UPDATE CONTACT INFO and I'm taken BACK TO THE SCREEN WHERE I JUST WAS, except all the fields are blank. Gaaaah just when I thought I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, too. And now I'm back to sighing heavily again...

Monica R
Mar 20, 2018 9:22 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

UPDATE: Tried sending another email from my own website as if I were a guest.

Email arrives in my "Emails" tab a few minutes later.

I click on it to open it, I fill in the listing site name and my property name from the drop-down menus.

Calendar icons still don't work to populate desired dates so I manually enter them.

Manually enter occupancy data.

Click SAVE and this time it doesn't even save it, nor does it show up as a new inquiry in the Inquiries tab across the top.

Something's hinky I thinky.

Monica

Chris Hynes
Mar 20, 2018 9:38 PM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

Something was very hinky! We turned off an old web protocol for PCI compliance this afternoon... turns out it wasn't as unused as we thought and disabling it was causing issues in some browsers which were causing those date widgets to not load properly.

I believe that's now fixed -- just checked your account and the calendars and script are now loading properly. Does it look right on your end?

While we're on the topic of websites and inquiries, check out our widgets: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/widgets -- you've got inquiry/quote/booking as well as calendars, rates, reviews etc. which can be embedded into your site.

If you do want to keep using the contact us widget you've got, you can set the listing site domain to the from email domain and follow this format: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/inquiry-parsing-for-custom-emails and all the values will pop in automatically rather than having to enter them.

Monica R
Mar 20, 2018 9:48 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

Chris,
The calendar icons work now (thank you!) but now that my Kanye West inquiry is saved and showing up in the Inquiries window, it's flagged with a DATES UNAVAILABLE badge. I don't know why, because there are no other bookings for those dates. There IS another email from Ki Kardashian that requested the same dates, but hers was never successfully turned into an inquiry.

I just wanted the flag to go away, so I went into Kanye West's inquiry and I manually changed the dates, then I saved the inquiry with new dates and still the inquiry shows up with an DATES UNAVAILABLE flag.

Every time I think I've taken a step forward I end up three steps backward. Where is Jack Daniels when I need him???

Monica R
Mar 20, 2018 9:53 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

As for the whole email PARSING thing... as much as I'd LOVE to have the new inquiries self-populate, if I go messing around in my contact form widget, my web girl WILL DRIVE UP HERE from Florida just to smother me in my sleep.

Monica R
Mar 20, 2018 10:01 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

CHRIS FORGET IT... I FIGURED IT OUT. The conflict with Kanye's dates is because in all my frenzied testing, I completely forgot that I have actual, living, breathing guests who are NOT hip-hop moguls staying in my house in July and one the dates overlapped by a day.

MY FAULT.