Relocation Specials Process
Overview
The Relocation Specials function allows Rental Car Companies to setup relocation special deals within Rental Car Manager (RCM) and have them available for booking on their websites.
The Web API can be used to both obtain a listing of available relocation specials and also to create a relocation special booking.
Booking Flow
You will need to integrate the Relocation Specials that have been set up within RCM into your website using the Web API. This Relocation Special function can be separate to your normal web booking module that you have running on your website.
Please note these updated methods are only available to v3.2 and above of the API.
There will be 4 steps to the relocation special process when using the Web API to integrate it onto your website. It is important to note that once you have the list of specials, the other steps in the booking process remain the same as general bookings (except for passing the new relocationspecialid field):
- Listing the available relocation specials
- Once a relocation special has been chosen, listing all of the mandatory, optional and insurance options for the relocation booking.
- Making the booking
- Saving the payment/credit card
Booking Steps
More detailed information about the API methods can be found in the Developer's Sandbox in the API test area. If you require access to the Sandbox, contact RCM Support (support@rentalcarmanager.com).
Listing the available relocation specials
Using the relocationspecials method will return a listing of all of the available specials. this would enable you to have a page on your website dedicated solely to listing relocation specials.
Select a relocation special and vehicle type to get rates and insurances
The user or agent then selects a particular relocation special, and receives back the appropriate insurance options, mandatory fees and optional extras as setup by the rental car company.
Booking
The selected relocation special, category and optional extras are then sent to the server along with customer details via an API call to make a booking.
Saving the Payment/Credit Card
The next stage of the process is the payment. If you are collecting payment for the booking, then you can save the payment information through the API so that the payment will be recorded against the reservation in Rental Car Manager. Alternatively you are able to save the credit card information in a secure vault so the Rental Car Company can use it at a later date to charge customers.
Listing of Relocation Specials (relocationspecials)
Method “relocationspecials” takes pickup location, Category Type and Vehicle category as optional parameters, and returns a listing of the available relocation specials.
The following information will be returned:
- Pickup and Drop off locations
- Vehicle category Type and Vehicle category
- Vehicle Category Descriptions.
- The starting and ending date for the pickup date range the booking must fall within.
- The last possible date the vehicle must be dropped off.
- The maximum number of days for this relocation special.
- The daily rental rate.
- One way fee information.
This allows you to display a listing of the relocation specials so that the customer can choose one if it suits them.
Selection of Relocation Special and Category (step3)
Step3 returns information for the selected relocation special, vehicle category, pickup and drop off locations and dates. This is the same method used in the normal booking API, however you will need to pass in the relocationspecialid.
The rental rates and any mandatory fee information is also returned along with any optional extra fees, insurance options, and any Kms options are also returned.
If a relocation special has been selected, then the relocationspecialid will need to be passed into this method.
Make a Booking (booking)
When a booking is made using the API, it is saved as a quote by default until either payment has been confirmed by calling the confirmpayment method, or the credit card has been entered into the Credit
Card Vault by calling the vaultentry method. The rental car company can override this default behaviour by changing a system setting that forces all relocation special bookings made through the API to be saved as an unallocated booking even if payment has not been submitted. This is the same method used in the normal booking API, however you will need to pass in the relocationspecialid.
If a relocation special has been selected, then the relocationspecialid will need to be passed into this method.
Submit Payment Information
If you are processing a payment at the time of booking, then you can save the payment information against the booking by calling the confirmpayment method. This is the same method used in the normal booking API, however you will need to pass in the relocationspecialid.
If you wish to incorporate the Auric credit card vault into your API implementation, you can go about this by displaying the Credit Card Vault directly in an IFrame on your own page.
Implementing Vault by directly displaying the Vault Entry Screen
Follow these instructions if you would like to use the secure Auric credit card vault in your API implementation. This way will give you, as the developer, the most control over the vault process, but
requires some javascript on your client to listen and react to the event that is triggered by the vault iframe.
Step 1
After the booking has been saved and you have the rcmReservationRef, a call to the method “getvaulturl”
The API will return a variable url containing the base64-encoded url of the vault that the user needs to be redirected to.
Step 2
On the client-side, create an iframe and set the source to the url returned from the API call.
Step 3
Once the user has finished entering card details, the page will receive a message (event) from the iframe. Javascript on the client page needs to check for this message and if the card details were saved successfully then call the “vaultentry” method of the API.
Example:
*NOTE* After the vault triggers the “ADD” event, the credit card vault token has not yet been linked to the booking/customer in RCM. You now need to call our API method “vaultentry” to record the data returned from the vault.
Sample data returned from vault = 8K7Qlw4mwA0Wj0B1122,Visa,R M Test,08/18,123,ADD
You need to use this data to call the “vaultentry” method on our API.
Note that if you are using this method, there is no need to call our separate API method to send an email to the customer. The email will be sent upon calling “vaultentry”, if the conditions have been met for sending emails. The confirmation email gets sent in the following circumstances:
- the payment/card collection has been successful (through the confirmpayment method or the vaultentry method), or
- the Rental Car Company has been setup not to save cards.
Setting the sendemail parameter value to 2 in the booking method will force the email to be sent after a successful booking.
There is a system parameter in Rental Car Manager that can be used to turn off email confirmations if you want to handle this yourself. Contact RCM support (support@rentalcarmanager.com) if you would like to use this feature.
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