Setting Up Stop Sale - Live Availability
Purpose
The Stop Sale - Live Availability Check function allows real time availability checking based on the utilisation of the vehicles in your fleet. Each time a request is made, the system checks the Utilisation
Rates for each Category within the date range. You can set up ranges
of percentages so that a customer will be shown “Limited Availability” or “Not
Available” status, depending on the Utilisation.
Note that if you are using the Web or Agent Booking Module to allow customers to request bookings, you can setup the availability of the various vehicle categories under both the Web and Agent Category Availability screens. This is not real-time availability based on the utilisation of the vehicles within your fleet, but is the default behaviour of both the Web and Agent booking modules. If you wish to base the availability of your categories on the utilisation of the fleet, then you can do this using the Stop Sale screen within RCM.
Note : This function will not be applied to bookings that are greater than 100 days in length.
Setting up Live Availability
If you would like to start using the Live Availability function, you will need to contact RCM Support (support@rentalcarmanager.com).
After RCM Support have enabled access to this function, there will be a new item in your Web Site Interface menu called “Stop Sale”
The image below shows the Stop Sale screen. From this screen you can add, modify and delete any stop sale records.
The notes at the bottom of this screen provide more information about how this functionality works.
To add a new record, simply click on the “Add Stop Sale” link at the top of the screen. This will open the Stop Sale form .
You are able to restrict the record to a combination of Location and Vehicle Category.
You are also able to specify if the record applies to either Web or Agent bookings, or to both of them.
How the Stop Sale records are Applied to Online Booking Requests
It is important to note that Stop Sale records will only be checked if an Available record is found for the booking request on the Web/Agent Category Available screen.
If either a Might be Available or Unavailable record is found, then the Stop Sale records will not be checked.
If a Stop Sale record is found that matches the booking’s Location and Category, then a check will be done to determine the utilisation rate for the relevant Vehicle Category for the Location, Category and Booking Date of the booking request. This check will return a utilisation percentage. This check uses the current location of the vehicles at the time of the booking to determine the utilisation rate.
This utilisation percentage will be compared to the relevant Stop Sale record.
The availability status for the booking will be determined in the following manner:
- If the utilisation percentage falls below the “On Request Percentage”, then the availability status will be “Available”
- If the utilisation percentage falls between the “On Request Percentage” and the “Stop Sale Percentage” then the availability status will be “On Request”.
- If the utilisation percentage falls above the “Stop Sale Percentage” then the availability status will be “Not Available”.
The image below explains this with a sample Stop Sale record.
Stop Sale System Parameters
There are 4 System Parameters that apply to the Stop Sale Function
You will find them in - System Setup >> System Parameters >> Online Booking Parameters section
| Apply Stop Sale (count available vehicles ) in step 2 of the Web API | State whether you would like the Stop Sale functionality to apply to Step 2 of the booking process when the Web API is being used. Step 2 is the initial availability check which returns a listing of all of the categories. | Yes/No |
| Apply Stop Sale (count available vehicles ) in step 2 of the Agent API | State whether you would like the Stop Sale functionality to apply to Step 2 of the booking process when the Agent API is being used. Step 2 is the initial availability check which returns a listing of all of the categories. | Yes/No |
| Stop sale - Available vehicles excluded if next pickup not at dropoff location | State whether you would like vehicles to be excluded from the list of available vehicles when performing the Stop Sale check if the next pickup for that vehicle is not the same location as the drop off location of the booking request being made. | Yes/No |
| Stop sale - number of days before next pickup to exclude vehicle if not at dropoff location | If the above parameter is set to Yes, the value set here will be used when checking for the next pickup location. For example, if this value is set to 10, it will only check for the next pickup location which occur in the 10 days after the dropoff. If this value is set to 0 it will not apply a number of days restriction and will find the next pickup location no matter how fare in advance it may be. | Numerical |
Relevant Links
Important Articles
Related Articles
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