Examples - Reservation System

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Our client is a real-estate rental agency. They act as the owner's agent to rent summer cottages. Our software, written in 4th Dimension™ (4D) tracks their owners, guests, rental cottages, reservations, and financials. This is another case where our software runs the business.

1. Reservations Calendar:   [top]
Pictured at the top of the page, the Reservations Calendar is displayed on each desktop on the network. Color-coded cells indicate at a glance whether a cottage is available, booked, confirmed, canceled or withheld by the owner. The Calendar window may reside in the background, while the rental agent conducts business in reservation, customer, or cottage windows. The Calendar is automatically updated across the network whenever a reservation in the system is added or changed.

2. Document management:   [top]
Each reservation requires the exchange of a lease and other documents. Quickly getting the documents to potential guests results in a high percentage of confirmations and high agent productivity. Our system produces the documents automatically, filling in names, dates and financial terms.

Documents may be printed to paper and sent by postal mail, of course, but many customers request email service. From the reservation window in our application, rental agents may click a button that (1) creates PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) versions of the documents, and (2) brings up an email message window with the customer's address, a template message, and agent/company signature auto-filled. The agent may edit any field of the message and send the message with the attached documents without leaving our application. A copy of the message is saved with the reservation. Our application includes an embedded email client, so customer replies are automatically linked to both the customer record and the reservation record, giving agents a complete record of the relevant correspondence at their fingertips.

3. Web site maintenance:   [top]
Customers get the latest information from the company's web site because it is dynamically generated from a MySQL database using PHP. It's another example of our expertise in database publishing.

The MySQL database is co-located with the web server, remote from the company's office. The 4th Dimension database in the office selectively updates the MySQL database in near real-time. When an agent takes a booking for a cottage, the web site's availability calendar for that cottage reflects the change automatically. When the office administrator adds a new cottage to the inventory, its description and photographs are automatically uploaded to the web site. When customers make on-line reservations, the office database is updated automtically.

Agents in the office have all the speed and usability of a local database system. Customers have the convenience of of viewing current availability and photographs on the web. It helps a small business run like a well-oiled machine.