P1. Program installation
The installation of ORA is a necessary step to start the management system. ORA will be installed along with the open source CMS Joomla!. A new database will be created to handle all the logic of the management system.
ORA installation can be done in different ways:
- as a new website where all the customer are redirected from the main promotional website with a link
- integrated in a box called into the main promotional website (a customized graphic is recommended in this case)
- installed as a component in your Joomla! website
Features
The 'P1' is the ORA core and contains all the necessary features to:
-define all the activities and customer types
-organize the daily activities with the Calendar
-handle online bookings from the customers with no-deposit confirmation payment
-record the money paid for every reservation
P2. Confirmation system with a gateway
Introduction
The web service which allows to receive online payments is called “gateway” . Generally one gateway like PayPal can accept all the possible payment systems.
However, multiple gateways can be added to make the customer able to choose the preferred one.
ORA is currently integrated with Paypal, Stripe, Nets, Nexi, GestPay (Sella), Dineromail, Mercadopago, SumUp, Satispay.
All gateway system available on the market require a little percentage as a service fee.
Features
This plug-in allows to ask the customers to pay a deposit to confirm their reservations. With at least one gateway installed the confirmation of the reservation is supported by a payment (very important on the web). The payment notification will make the reservation confirmed and the administration will receive an e-mail with the data of the transfer.
P3. Newsletter
All customers who have recorded the e-mail on the website and have accepted the “Terms of Use” will be added in the mailing list. The administration can create custom newsletters and send them to all the customers.
Administrator can define multiple lists and send news to a specific target. The mailer processes can be monitored in a specific area.
P4. Accounting
This plug-in can record all payments received and done showing a daily resume.
The daily resume shows the list of all the payments in which an invoice has been printed. Subtotals of the online, cash and credit card payments are shown at the end of the printable resume. Date and invoice number are also printed in the invoice itself. This feature can substitute any cash till to print invoices.
A default type of invoice is included in this plug-in. For customized invoice see G1.
P5. Multi-language
With this plug-in the website language can be easily changed by a click on flag buttons. This feature can make the booking system very simple, even for those customers who have problems to understand the language spoken by the office. At the moment, Italian, English, French, Portuguese, Norwegian, German and Dutch are supported by default.
Technical details
Activities type, extra or any other public-related text definition, ORA can record texts in multi-language. It's possible to add any other language by translating all text contents manually of with an automatic system. Any text in ORA can be overwritten easily with a specific tool in the configuration area.
P6. Membership
This feature records an annual membership for the customers according with the company policy. The administration will be able to see and modify membership status for all customers. Generally this feature needs to be associated with the support for the data recording of all participants (P13).
Clubs or other associations can use this system to manage the member database and to print specific invoices.
P7. Extra support
This plug-in allows the administration to offer extra-services along with the activities. For example, customers could book for an activity trip and decide to buy the lunch as well.
Extra-services or items can require a deposit or not. Administration can define an infinitive number of extra to offer to the customers. It is also possible to limit to a selection of activities the extra availability.
P8. Notifications to customers
With this additional plug-in it is possible to send text messages and e-mails to any sort of selection of reservation. For example, you can send a message to all customers who have booked for an activity or for a certain day.
The text messages can be sent in any custom way required by the customer.
Text messages
All text messages are sent through an external service called “Skebby SMS”. The cost of each text message is roughly 6-8 cents of euro and is not included in ORA.
P9. Advanced views for activities
By default customers can see a list of activities with two different views:
- Day view: every activity contains a description, an icon, the time, prices and the availability.
- Calendar view: shows the activities of the month in a compact view
With this support is possibile to define several pages in order to show different categories of activities and more complex views according with the needing.
P10. Tourist agency support
ORA can give the chance to open the booking system to booking agencies. This feature could give a big improvement to the business of activities centers.
This plug-in allows to define special accounts for Agencies to let them book customers straight in your database. Agencies could therefore book immediately customers and print them a ticket for your activities.
A percent of value of the reservation is calculated in order to correspond to Agencies their commissions.
P11. Activities organizer and workers wage system
This plug-in can substitute all the papers used for planning activities. Guides, drivers and any other kind of workers can be defined for all your activities. These information can be used in several ways:
-print a trip leader plan
-calculate the wages for all the workers
-create a digital board
-create a reserved area for the guides to see their past and future trips
It is also possible to automatically assign the customers and the groups to the guides using a clever logic. Manual modifications are also very easy to perform.
An availability calendar for the workers can show to the manager which guides are available or not in a specific moment.
P12. Discount codes
A strong advertising policy can be supported by the usage of discount codes.
Codes can be generated by the administration and sent by email to any user. Discount codes can be fully customized, including time intervals with different values, expiration date, activity availability and minimum number of reservations.
Vouchers
In addition to the discount codes, it's possible to sell vouchers for entire activities. In this way people could use the printable voucher as gift for friends and parents. To enable this feature the P7 support is necessary.
P13. Support for the data recording of all participants
If, for any reason, the company needs to record the personal data of all participants, this plug-in makes it much easier. During the reservation check-out steps the customer can insert the data of all participants. Few configurations are possible:
-customers have to insert all data before the confirmation payment
-customers who are booking for a big number of people can record all the data later on or at the base
-customers can send an email to all participants with a registration link to let them insert their data
The right options can be defined according with the company policy.
P14. Post trip photo/video shop
This plug-in allows customers to come back in the website after the trip, log-in and access a personal area to see and buy the photos/video of the activity. The preview of the video can be a picture or a Youtube/Vimeo trailer. This is a very powerful tool to increase the pictures sale.
Requirements
The videos and photos are sold through the gateway installed on ORA, therefore the P2 development is required.
A large number of video or photos needs a server that allows file storing for at least 1000 GB. This may require an upgrading of the web-hosting contract. This may require an upgrading of the web-hosting contract.
P15. Pick-up
This plug-in allows the customers to require the pick-up before the trip from a list of places or on a specific address. A new check-out step is created to ask if the pick-up is needed and where.
Different views are available for choosing the meeting place:
1. custom by customer
2. list of hotels or points of interest
3. map with selectable markers
P16. Social Network
With this powerful plug-in the user can publish on his Facebook profile the reservation. Date, activity type with icon, details and link will be posted on his profile to be shown to all his friends!
P17. Resource management
If you need to modify dynamically the availability for all the activities according with the available resources, this support can help you to avoid overbooking. For example you can allow 100 places available for all different trips at the same time, but you have only 100 helmets to give away. The availability of the trips will decrease as soon you add reservation to any of the trip at the same time.
Graphic development
Graphic developments are custom modifications of the website. Any modification takes some time to be done since it needs to be developed and tested in all major browsers.
G1. Custom invoice template
In order to print a special invoice, for example in a different format or with custom tables, it is possible to have a customization of the invoice.
G2. Customized graphic for the ORA booking system
By default ORA has white background and black and gray text. Titles and buttons are generally red or blue. If the default graphic doesn't fit with the promotional website, this plug-in makes the ORA booking website look like it. Text style and background colors are modified to change the appearance of ORA.
A new “dress” for ORA can allow embedding in the promotional website or gives the customers the feeling to stay in the same known environment when redirected to the ORA booking website.
The modifications included in this activity are performed only in the public views of the website while the administration views keep the default graphic.
Possible customizations are limited to colors, border, text style and size.
Other custom development
ORA is now a very powerful and high configurable website. However activities companies can always require special developments to better fit their needs.
The time and the price requested for any new development need to be defined with the project manager.