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CUSTOM PROMPTING
BookingBuilder Desktop watches all availability commands sent to the GDS and determines the depart date and city pair, and then compares those with its database to determine if it should notify the agent that one of its airlines flies a similar route. You can now customize the prompt by adding your own messages, replacing the standard messages with your own, or suppressing it entirely. Your messages can be based upon a single city pair, multiple city pairs, all travel to or from specific airports, and all dates or just within specific date ranges.
For example, when you enter availability from NYC to ROC, you might see this:
With a custom message added to the prompt, you get (Note that the custom message is green, so it stands out from the supplier information):
You can have just your message, but still allow agents to click the prompt or press the hotkey to open the Availability Dialog:
You can have just your message, and clicking the message won't do anything. This is a great way to remind your agents when they need to book a particular airline in the GDS -- they get a reminder message, and the message will not launch the Availability Dialog
You can also suppress the prompt entirely, or skip the prompt and go right to the Availability Dialog.
Uses
There are many uses for this. Some examples:
- Remind agents to book your preferred suppliers
- Remind agents to sell other products based upon destinations and dates. For example, for all travelers going to Jacksonville, FL during the first week of February, 2006, you could have it remind your agents to sell them Superbowl tickets.
- Display travel advisories based upon destinations
Configuration
Configuring the Custom City Pair Messages is very easy. Start by logging in to the Configuration Website at http://www.bookingbuilder.com/bbdesktop. Log in to your account, click Edit Groups and click Edit next to the group that should have the new messages, then click "Custom City Pair Messages".
Note: When you enter the information into the web site, it will take up to 30 minutes for the computers running BookingBuilder Desktop to get the changes. If you are doing testing and need to see the changes right away, as soon as you save the data on the website, right-click your BB task tray icon and click Update Settings. When you do that, BookingBuilder Desktop immediately contacts the server and gets the latest settings.
When you click "Add New Custom Message" you will see:
It works like this:
- For "Depart Airport Codes" enter one or more airports codes. Any time the agent enters an availability request, it will be matched against these depart airport codes. For a single code, just enter it, as in "NYC". For several, enter "NYC,LGA,JFK,EWR,ISP". If you want to match any departing airport, such as all travel to LAX, enter "*" for the Depart Airport Code.
Hint: For areas such as New York and Chicago, where there are multiple airports in the same region, enter all of the airport codes, including the region code (NYC or CHI) so that whatever the agent enters will properly match.
- For "Arrive Airport Codes" also enter one or more airport codes. This blank works same way as Depart Airport Codes.
Note: If you enter "*" in both the Depart and Arrive blanks, all availability entries will match. If you want to match all travel from PHX to anywhere, enter "PHX" in the Depart blank and "*" in the Arrive blank.
- For "Begin Date" enter the starting date of travel against which this should match. In many cases you will want all dates, so leave it as "*". Dates are entered in GDS date format, such as "15JUN06".
- For "End Date" enter the last date of travel against which this should match. If you want all dates, leave it as "*".
Note: The dates are based upon the date entered into the availability request. If you want to show a message for Superbowl tickets, for example, the game is February 6, 2006. You might want to show a message for all availability requests to Jacksonville, FL from February 1, 2006 through February 8, 2006. To do that, enter "1FEB06" as the Begin Date, "8FEB06" as the end date, "*" for Depart Airport Codes and "JAX" for the Arrive Airport Codes.
- In the "Message Text" blank, enter the text you want to appear in the prompt. If you are suppressing the prompt or going right to the Availability Dialog, leave this blank.
- The Action list determines how the prompt should appear, whether to go right to the Availability Dialog, etc. The choices are:
- Add this text to prompt: This will add your text to the prompt, as in the first picture above with the custom message.
- Display Only This Text: This will show only your text, but will still allow the agent to click the prompt to open the Availability Dialog, as shown in the second picture above with the custom message.
- Do Not Show Prompt: This will completely suppress the yellow prompt. Nothing will happen when the agent enters a matching availability request.
- Go Right to Availability: When the agent enters a matching request, the Availability Dialog will immediately appear with no prompt. This is useful for city pairs where you know a non-participating airline must be booked.
- No Action On Click: This shows the prompt looking like the third (and last) custom prompt picture above. Your message is displayed, and clicking the prompt does nothing.
When you are finished adding the information, click Update to save it.
Note: To see how the options work, try using a "fake" city pair, such as YYY to ZZZ. This way you can experiment as much as you want without affecting agents using BookingBuilder Desktop. You can also create a new group for your testing, and only have your computer and any other selected testing computers in that group.
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