Availability Engine Utilisation Rules
Purpose
For Availability Engine users, there are ways to control how availability is determined according to how heavily utilised your fleet is. This is done through the Availability Engine Utilisation Rules page. This page can set up Utilization Rules for a large range of circumstances, for example:
- If you want more control over accepting bookings when things are looking tight, return bookings as "On Request" once a category is 90% utilised
- If you know you can service a popular category with upgrades to another vehicle, allow overbooking of that category by up to 110%
- If you are approaching a busy period where you know you can fill bookings via your website, allow your website to book up to 100%, but restrict other booking sources to a different level.
When a new booking request is received, the AE will first seek for any matching Utilisation Rule (it will choose the most-specific, where more than one applies). It will then calculate the utilisation percentage per category and location. So for a particular booking request, the AE will determine number of vehicles available out of that location in that category vs number of those vehicles which are already booked for those dates, and derive the Utilised Percentage. We use this against the chosen rule to determine which availability status should be returned for that request.
More detailed information about the Availability Engine can be found here Availability Engine Overview.
Accessing The Availability Engine Utilisation Rules Page
System Setup >> Availability Engine Settings >> Availability Engine Utilisation Rules
No Rules Set Up
If you have not set up any Utilisation Rules then your Availability Engine will return "available" for all bookings up until 100% utilisation, at which point it will return "not available". To make any variation on this default, you will need to set up a new Utilisation Rule.
Add a new Utilisation Rule
To add a new Utilisation Rule, click on the button indicated below:
This will open up the following screen. Once you have entered all the required information, click 'Save'. This new rule will now be displayed in the list on the Availability Engine Utilisation Rules page.
Utilisation Rule Field Descriptions
AE Client Type | By selecting a Client Type, you can assign a Utilisation Rule to particular types of requests, and it will only apply to booking requests made through the relevant source. This dropdown is a list of all the Client Types you have set up and the "Default/Everyone Else Client Type". See section below for more information on how to set these up. |
Pickup Location | This field can be left empty, or you can select a specific location. This rule will be restricted to bookings made with this particular pickup location. |
Category Type | This field can be left empty, or you can select a specific Category Type. This rule will be restricted to bookings made against this particular Category type. |
Category | This field can be left empty, or you can select a specific Category. This rule will be restricted to bookings made against this particular category. |
Pickup Date From | This field can be left empty, or you can a date. This rule will only apply to bookings with a Pick Up after this date. |
Pickup Date To | This field can be left empty, or you can a date. This rule will only apply to bookings made with a Pick Up before this date. |
Minimum Booking Days | Any bookings that have a rental length of less that this number of days will be returned as "not available". Leave as 0 to ignore. |
Unavailable Percentage | The Availability engine will return "not available" if utilisation percentage is equal to or greater than this value. |
On Request Percentage | The Availability Engine will return "on request" if utilisation percentage is between this value and the Unavailable Percentage value. Set this to the same value as Unavailable Percentage to never return "on request" status. |
Refining Rules for Different Sources
You are able to assign AE Utilisation Rules to different types of requests by creating Client Types. Client Types are groupings of places booking requests can come from, including inside RCM, your website and your different Agents. They allow you to apply different utilisation rules to these different groupings. You will always have a "Default/Everyone Else" Client Type set up in your system. This will apply to any request that does not have it's own Client Type applied to it, i.e. RCM and Web API bookings if there are no Client Types specified to apply to these, and to any Agency Branches that are not assigned to a specific Client Type.
To create new Client Types, go to System Setup >> Availability Engine Settings >> AE Client Types. Here you can create as many Client Types as you need by selecting the "Add AE Client Types" button.
We recommend first creating a Client Type that will have unrestricted utilisation, like for your Web API and RCM bookings. Then, create different Client Types for those who will have restricted Utilisation. You should give these Client Types generic names so they can be applied to various agents.
When you create these Client Types, only one of them can be marked as "Is Web API" and only one can be marked as "Is RCM". Selecting this option when you create the Client Type means that this is what will apply to booking requests made through these sources.
If you want to assign your Client Types to specific Agencies, go to System Setup >> Availability Engine Settings >> AE Client Type Agencies. On this page you can create new records be selecting the "Add AE Client Type Agencies" button. For each record you can assign an Agency Branch to one of the Client Types you have set up. Each Branch can only be applied to one Client Type, but multiple Branches can be assigned to the same Client Type.
Each of these Client Types can then be assigned different utilisation rules, and these rules will apply to all assigned Branches.
Please note: If you have a Branch assigned to a Client Type, then it will only use the utilisation rules assigned to this Client Type. If there are no rules that can apply to the booking request, it will not use the Default utilisation rules and will instead apply standard 100% availability.
Update and Delete Records
The below article is just a generic guide how to update or delete a record:
Updating and Deleting a RecordImportant Articles
- Whats New in RCM
- Getting Started with RCM
- Standard RCM Procedures
- Card Vault Deprecation 2025 – Frequently Asked Questions
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