protel HMS
BEST
PRACTICES
Video tutorial at
www.protel-net.com
What is this part about?
What is the next part about?
Minimum experience
Why is this important?
Using protel, one click at a time
Setting the stage for today's
tutorial
Opening the room type plan
Availability at a glance
© 2008 protel hotelsoftware GmbH - protel BEST PRACTICES: Group Reservation, Part 1
Group Reservation, Part 1
ƒ Creating a Group Reservation
ƒ Allocating Rooms
ƒ Changing Names
Getting to know protel Step by Step
This Tutorial is the first part of our small series on creating and managing group
reservations in protel. It mirrors the video tutorial that you can find on protel’s
website.
This part shows you how to create and manage group reservations in protel,
especially how to allocate rooms to a group and how to change names.
In the second part of this tutorial you will see how to use the protel group
master – a joint account for the group – to administer all the group's revenues
easily and reliably.
If you're not familiar with the protel room type plan, you should first see the
tutorial on "Reserving Rooms using the Room Type Plan".
Group reservations are a good idea whenever you want to edit data for several
reservations at once, or whenever you reserve several rooms that are going to be
billed together.
Simply follow the instructions below, one step at a time. You may have to modify
the data (check-in and check-out date, room type names, etc.) depending on your
own protel system!
Making Reservations for Several Rooms
Mr. Michael Miller is arranging a trip for his bowling club. He asks you to reserve
four standard twin rooms for him and his three friends from 5 to 8 February,
2008.
The best way to reserve several rooms at once is to use the room type plan. To
open it, click the button [Room Type Plan] in the toolbar.
Remember: The middle of the room type plan shows us the number of available
rooms in each individual room type …
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You can simultaneously reserve several rooms of the same type in the plan.
Simply overwrite the default value of "1" in the first column with a new value – in
this case, "4".

Reserving several rooms at once

Next, hold down the left mouse key and drag the reservation out over the
desired timeframe. protel will show you the selected timeframe as a gray marking.
Then press [Enter] to call up the "Reservation" dialog in order to complete the
reservation.

Entering Data for Reservations: Group

When entering group reservations, you should always enter the group's name
first. It's a good idea to pick a name that contains an abbreviated customer name
Entering a group’s name and the arrival date. Mr Miller made the reservations, and his group is arriving on
- a notation tip the 5th of February 2008. So type: mil050208.

Once you exit the field, protel searches the database and tells you that no data
records were found for this name:

Click [Yes] / [Ja] to have protel create a new profile and immediately display it.

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New Group Profile = Creating a Group Master

You already know what a guest profile is. However, this profile is something
The group master's purpose: to
different. Its sole purpose is to link together the reservations of our four group
combine several reservations
members so you can manage their data and balance their accounts centrally.
That's why it is called a "group master".

A group master is only used one

time.

Group masters are only used once. As soon as all the group's liabilities have been
settled, however, the group master is no longer needed. That's why you tell
protel to delete the group master as soon as possible simply by placing a
checkmark in front of "Delete profile as soon as possible":

From now on, this group master will control every aspect of managing the group
at your hotel. You will be seeing it again soon, in other words!
Click [OK] to return to the Reservation dialog.

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Entering Data for a Reservation: Details

protel has entered the group's name in the "Name" field of the reservation. Make
a mental note of this fact. You will be coming back to it later on.

You can enter more details on your reservation in the lower portion of the
window: Just focus on a few key pieces of information, such as the "Market" and
the "Source".

BY THE WAY: Mandatory fields

can be configured individually.
l
Note that here, like in many other areas of protel, each hotel can decide for itself
which fields are mandatory and have to be completed. Does "your" protel not
agree with your entries? Then simply complete all required entries.
To finish, click "OK" to confirm the entries and close out the reservation.

Query: Create a Group Invoice?

Now, protel asks whether we want to bill all the revenues in this reservation to a
single, shared account.

BY THE WAY: In part 2 of our

tutorial series on group
reservations you will learn how to
use a joint account to administer
a group's revenues easily and
reliably.
For this scenario, though, a shared account is not required. The bowling club
members plan to pay themselves. So click [Nein] / [NO] to not create a group
invoice.
NOTE: You can continue to work on the group's reservations as a single unit! See
the next several sections to learn how this works.

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Opening the "Room Allocation" Dialog

Next, you want to allocate rooms to our group members. This means that, once
again, you will be using the group master.

Retrieving the group master What is the fastest way to find it? There are many different ways, but in this
tutorial, we want you to use the reservation list:
Click the "Reservations" button in the protel toolbar to open the " Reservations"
dialog:

Here, you adjust the timeframe (if necessary) and then enter the group name or
the first letters of the group name in the "Sc/TA/Cm/Gp" – Source, Travel Agent,
Company, Group - field, and then press [Enter] to display the reservation list.
You can see here your group reservation as well as the group master - with the
same name. You can tell it's a group master by the "GRP", for "Group", in the
room type column:

Identifying the group master

Opening the Navigator Right-click the group master to open the Navigator.

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The Navigator dialog

Opening the "Edit Group" dialog

From the Navigator, you can click the [Grp. Members] button to open a dialog in
which you can edit our group's data:

The dialog for editing a group

Opening the "Room Allocation"

dialog

Click the "Room allocation" button here to open the room allocation dialog.

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The"Room Allocation" dialog

Splitting a Group Reservation

Before you can allocate individual rooms, though, you will have to split your
group reservation up into several individual reservations.

Splitting up a group reservation

This is a fairly easy thing to do. You just activate "Split reservation mode", select
the reservation and then click the [Execute split] button.
Since you want to split the entire reservation, you enter the total number of
reserved rooms, confirm your selection and click "Yes" when prompted.

protel has now split your group's one reservation for 4 rooms into 4 individual
reservations. You can now easily allocate rooms to them!

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Allocating Rooms
In the "Room allocation" dialog, select "Multiple assignment mode", select all (!)
Allocating several rooms at once
the reservations and then click the [Available rooms] button.

Editing the automatic preselection

In the right-hand side of the dialog, protel provides you with a preliminary list of
rooms that, if you wanted, you could accept by clicking the [Assign] button.
Of course, it would be nicer for all the group members to stay on the same floor.
So you press the Control key, change the room selection, and then click the
[Assign] button to confirm your selection:

The result is shown in the left-hand side of the window. Click [OK] to close the
dialog.
- You are now back in the group dialog.

All the rooms are assigned, but the group members have not been assigned their
own names. Instead, they are all listed after the group. This isn't acceptable, and
so you'll have to change that now.

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Altering Names
With protel, you can easily change the names for a large group of guests.
Considering Database maintenance: Before you get started, you need to decide whether you want to permanently
Store all guests’ profiles store the guest profiles you are about to set up for the individual group members.
permanently? So ask yourself: Are these guests likely to return?
If you only want to use the profiles once, you simply activate the "Rooming list"
checkbox in the bottom left-hand corner:

Creating one-time guest profiles

That means that all these profiles will be automatically deleted once the group's
Altering the names of several accounts are fully settled.
guests simultaneously Then double-click the first entry to access a special version of the Navigator that is
designed to alter names.

Working through a long list

quickly and effectively

BY THE WAY: Once you've entered

a name and left the field, protel
saves the data, so you won't lose
it again!

In the bottom right-hand corner, protel shows you exactly where in the guest list
you are at the moment. This is especially useful with extremely long guest lists.

Keep an eye on this counter while you enter all the names, one after another.
Start with the first name and then use the Page Down key to work down the

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entire list. Click [OK] to exit the Navigator.

In the Group dialog, you can take another look at the guests, with their proper
names and their assigned rooms.
Close all the open dialogs by pressing a series of "Escapes".

Partings and Reunions

For more tutorials, go to
www.protel-net.com
Comments welcome!
We hope this tutorial showed you how protel works. On our website you’ll find
more in-depth instructions for beginners and advanced users.
Join us in part 2 of our tutorial series on group reservations to learn how to use a
joint account to administer a group's revenues easily and reliably.
We look forward to receiving your comments. Fee free to send any praise and
criticism to documentation@protel-net.com.

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