How Are Hotel Room Prices Determined?

Hotel pricing strategy: Every hotel has its pricing strategy based on various factors such as:

• Accordant with competitor pricing.
• Value-added, where the hotel sets pricing that customers expect is a perfect rate.
• Cost-plus, where the hotel adds a percentage on top of the cost involved in preparing the room for the stay.
• Dynamic pricing that changes based on the hotel’s occupancy levels, length of stay, seasons, etc.

However, hotels have a Published Rate, which is the standard rate or ‘rack rate’ for each room type. It is the maximum possible price a room can be sold for a night, usually based on competitor pricing or Cost-plus strategy. And, every other rate in a hotel is less (discounted) than this rack rate.

In our above example, WALK is the rack rate, and CORP is a discounted rate. (For walk-in guests without reserved bookings, hotels sell the maximum rate, and for company guests, they usually have contracted discount rates).

We have covered rack rates comprehensively in this post.

Rate Code Example

• In our example, each customer type (market segment) has a rate code, WALK, and CORP.
• Each rate code will have different rates for each different room type.
• Each different room type can have different rates by date. Example: A Standard room type during January for Walk-in guests is $300, the same during February is $320, and so on.
• If the hotel is willing, they can add any amenities during a period they wish to promote sales during low seasons. For example, we can add complimentary breakfast during February to our example WALK rate code.

How Hotels Use Rate Codes?

• Sell room nights of different room types to different customers. Again, above WALK and CORP example.
• Measure the hotel’s revenue performance by assessing missed opportunities to increase room revenue. For example, hotels can compare the amount of rooms sold on discount rates against full potential, rack rates. Opera Rate Variance report
• Create rate contracts for companies, travel agents, and other sources – negotiated rates.
• Bundle other amenities with room rates such as Bed & Breakfast rates, see Opera PMS packages.
• Effectively apply the hotel’s rate strategies statically and dynamically. For example, apply contracted discount percentage company rates for static. And, apply dynamic strategies such as different pricing on changes on occupancy levels, LOS (length of stay) etc.
• Trace House-use, Complimentary stays as in Opera PMS, these rates are specifically created.
• Trace segment-wise performance. Because, each booking is linked to a rate code, and then the rate code is linked to a market segment code.
• Integration with yield management systems, hotel websites, OTA (Online Travel Agent such as booking . com), channel manager systems, and CRS (Central Reservation System). And, apply sell controls to suit strategies and effectively monitor rate parity among different channels.

How Do You Create A Rate Code In Opera?

Step 1

Login to Opera > Click on the Configuration button, and select the property code when prompted.

You need to have user permission to see the Configuration button on the main page. Depending on the licenses activated in the PMS, you might see more options here.

Step 2

Navigate to Rate Management > Rate Classifications > Rate Codes

Step 3

The rate code lookup window appears. Click on the New button.

Step 4

Fill in the Rate Code Header information.

Use the table below to understand the importance of each field and see how it can address your business needs.

We have picked the most common functionalities. However, screen fields and features might change from one hotel to another depending on the functionality chosen by the respective hotel based on each hotel’s needs. In this post, we explain this in detail: What Is Opera PMS, And How Does It Work?

Field Name	Details
Rate Code	Enter the rate code. That is less than 12 or less alphanumeric. In practice, hotels use only a short rate code. Max 6 digits would be perfect. Chain hotels maintain standards that help a rate code be more descriptive. For example, INTBB says it is a corporate rate for INTEL corp with bed & breakfast. Another practical reason for using shorter rate codes is that they can accommodate more codes in the Rate Querying screen. This not only makes the system more manageable, but also makes it easy to handle a larger number of codes effectively.
Description	Rate code’s description.
Rate Category	It can also be used to set rate restrictions on this category level instead of individually setting it up. For example, when you want to restrict bookings for less than two nights at a promotional rate, it is easier to apply the restriction on the category, which will apply to all rates under the category Promo.
Rate Class	Rate classes are also used to help structure rates. But mostly it is used by larger but local groups of hotels.
Folio Text	When accommodation charges are posted, this is the text that appears on guest folios. When you keep it empty, it prints the description of the room’s transaction code.
Begin Sell Date	Date when the hotel can start to take bookings for this rate code. It is not the guests’ stay dates. Stay dates are defined in the Rate Detail tab as you will learn later.
End Sell Date	When to stop taking bookings for this rate code.
Market	This is the segmentation. A crucial entry. When the hotel books a reservation on this rate, this code automatically populates on each reservation (the user can override it but recommended not to do it).
Source	Source of the booking. For example, when the Market is Government, the source can be a Finance Ministry.
Room Types	Drop down and select all room types that you expect to sell through this rate code. Note: Include the room type PM also here.
Package	What are the packages available through this rate code. For example, Bed & Breakfast. We have a comprehensive post on Opera PMS Packages.
Commission	If it is a travel agent rate, what is the commission percentage? It helps when processing travel agent commissions using Opera’s commissions module.
Min. Occupancy	Keep it “1”, unless you have a reason to increase.
Max. Occupancy	You may keep it blank.

Transaction Details: Each charge is posted to a guest’s hotel billing using a transaction code to differentiate the hotel’s revenue type and the department to which the charges should be contributed. For example, room charges are posted using transaction code 1010, and food & beverage breakfast are posted using 2010, depending on the hotel’s setup of transaction codes, and so on.

What is an example of a code rate?

Check the image for a better understanding of how rate code setup splits revenue internally:

Transaction Code	This is the room transaction code where the room revenue is posted. Internally, this revenue contributes to room department revenue.
Pkg. Tran Code	As you can see from the image above, this transaction code is automatically assigned and there is only one common such transaction code for a hotel. It works like an umbrella transaction code that holds room and food & beverage under one code for reporting purposes of Opera’s proprietary ledger, Package Ledger.
Tax Inclusive	Whether the tax defined in the transaction code setup is to be inclusive or exclusive. We have a separate post on Opera transactions and hotel billing with more details.

Components: This section sets the rate code’s type and other features. (there can be more or fewer options depending on the setup we discussed that are crucial).

Field Name	Details
Package	Shows if the rate includes packages.
Negotiated	Putting a tick here tells Opera that this rate code is used only as a negotiated rate (contracted). For this rate code, you must link a company, travel agent, or other type of profile. In our example, Intel Corp’s rate code is INT2024, so the company profile of Intel must be linked (we will see that below)
Suppress Rate	If you don’t want the rate to be displayed on screens. On Opera screens, “SR” is displayed in place of rates for users who don’t have permission to view Suppressed Rates.
Print Rate	Should the rate amount be printed or not on the guest stationery? For example, you wouldn’t want a guest from a tour operator or travel agent to know the room rate since the agent might have quoted them a different rate.
Discount	If discounts can be applied on rates of individual reservations.
Daily Rate	If rates need to be entered directly on the grid by dates. This makes administration easy as the user who works with rate codes, can directly enter different rates like in a spreadsheet.
Day Use	If this rate is going to be used for day-use, the same day the arrivel and departure.  Statistical reports only track the number of day-use rooms if such bookings are sold using this rate code.
Complimentary	Any complimentary reservations should be booked using this type of rate code. Statistical reports such as Manager Flash report only track the number of complimentary rooms if such bookings are sold using this rate code.
House Use	Any complimentary reservations should be booked using this type of rate code. Statistical reports such as the Manager Flash report track the number of House Use rooms only if such bookings are sold using these rate codes.

Step 6

Enter the Rate Code Detail information.

Click on the New button to enter a new rate detail.

The rate code details tab is where you create different prices for different rooms and dates. Here, you can also add special packages that are available only for certain room types.

• You can add multiple records for different dates. For example, if you’re selling an STD room for $280 during January, and the same room is sold at $300 during February, you can add different records. One will cover the Jan rate, and the other will cover the Feb rate for the same room type.
• Similarly, a record for each room type should be provided if they have different rates.
• You can add one record for weekdays and another for weekends using the ‘day ticks.’
• You can use seasons instead of dates (season codes are set up separately in the configuration).
• As you can see on the screenshot, Market / Source segmentation and packages can be from one different room type to another.

Step 8

Link a profile with the rate code.

Click on the New button, and a profile search window comes up. Look for a profile and attach it.

Rate code has been created.

The post How Do You Create A Rate Code In Opera? first appeared on e360 hospitality.

What is a hotel package?

What Is The Meaning of Package Rate In Hotels?

The rate is the price hotels charge for a room night. Because they only rent out the rooms at a rate, we don’t call it price since no real selling is involved, even though the word ‘selling’ is often used in practice.

When hotels sell room nights without extras, services, products, or amenities, the rate is called the room rate, popularly known as the RO (room-only rate). However, when one or more additional services or products are included in the nightly rate, it is a Package Rate.

Packages can be:

• Inclusive packages: The hotels sell guests a package rate that includes room charges and additional products or services. For example, Bed & Breakfast, Halfbord, Fullboard, 50% Spa, 25% Recreation, etc.
• Exclusive packages: The prices for additional products or services are added to the room charges but are still bundled.

Package Rate In Hotel Example

• Notice how the revenue received from guests is split between two departments, increasing different departmental revenue within the hotel. The same applies when the offers from other departments are bundled in the package.
• You might question the purpose of the exclusive package; it increases the chances of other departments generating revenue, and the guests get those products or services at discounted prices through the package rather than buying them separately.

What Are The Benefits of Hotel Packages?

There is only a single reason for packages on each side: The hotel guests benefit from a great hotel experience through an inclusive offer at a discounted price. For the hotels, it is always about increasing their revenue and achieving targets in every season.

So, the hotels create packages for:

• Increasing their bookings in low seasons.
• Increasing their bookings for high seasons and being competitive.
• Upselling opportunities: Hotels can design packages only available when booking certain room types at higher prices.
• Cross-selling opportunities: When they want to promote products from Food & Beverage or other departments.
• For promotional efforts on new products.
• Showcasing hotels’ other non-moving products.
• Increase direct bookings on hotel websites
• Winning guest loyalty by providing value at reasonable prices.

Opera Packages – How Do I Create A Hotel Package?

In the PMS, you set up the rate codes (rates) and advertise and sell to the guests for booking hotel rooms when you create packages and add them to a rate code to make it a package rate. These steps explain the package part of the hotel rate.

Opera can handle packages in two different modes, basic and advanced. Before we explain the difference, see how to enable or disable Advanced Package handling in PMS:

We discussed how hotels customize their PMS using Application Settings to address individual operational needs in this post about “What is Opera PMS?“

When the guests’ restaurant checks are closed, the charges are posted back to the guest folios for in-house guests by an integrated POS (Point of Sales system) at the restaurants so the guests will settle when they check out.

For example, guests who have already booked package rates, such as Breakfast included in the rate (Bed and Breakfast), should not have additional Breakfast charges on their hotel folio.

At the same time, the breakfast charges should be charged to the hotel bill of guests who have booked room-only (RO) rates.

To handle the above scenario, Opera PMS uses “Allowances” that block any charges coming into guests’ folios of those on package rates that include Breakfast in our example.

Step 1

Log into Opera PMS Configuration, and select Rate Management > Packages > Codes:

Step 2

Click on the New button.

(Any existing packages listed)

Step 3

Enter your package specifics for the Package Header section:

The table below explains the field-level details you need to master Opera package creation.

Step 4

Save the Package Header tab, and move on to the Package Details:

Step 5

Save the Package Detail tab, and the package is ready to be attached to a rate code or added to a reservation directly (if you have ticked ‘Sell Separate’ on the Package Header tab)

Opera PMS Package Allowance

As we mentioned earlier, the Package Allowance is available when you enable ‘Advanced Packages’ in Opera. It blocks charges posted from the hotel restaurant system to a guest room.

These charges must be blocked for guests having the packages available through the rate, or there will be double charges on the guest bills. Let’s see this concept with an example: the Bed & Breakfast package rate below.

• The hotel sells the breakfast for $40. So, the non-package guests are charged this amount.
• When the same breakfast is sold as part of the package rate, the hotel reduces the price to $30.

Adjusting Package Price, Allowance, Lost, and Profit Settings Opera PMS Packages to Achieve this:

The post Opera PMS Packages: What Is A Hotel Package? first appeared on e360 hospitality.

What Is Posting Master In Opera?

In Opera (or any PMS), you need a bill to post charges, print the bill and checkout. In the PMS, you cannot have such a bill without a guest room.

A Posting Master or PM room is a pseudo or fictitious room that helps open a hotel billing for posting charges and payments just like a real guest room.

Some Reasons, Hotels Use PM Rooms

Below are some of the reasons to use a PM room, but not limited to.

• Posting charges to a group master folio. For instance, if a group is coming from a company, there are charges that the company will pay for all guests. These charges are routed to a PM room that will be paid later by the company.
• Maintaining employee accounts.
•  Maintaining the hotel’s petty cash. For instance hotel front office or any other department spends on buying little things for office use, and they want to record and reclaim the charges.
• The hotel’s Business Center want to open a folio in the morning for posting the charges of walk-in guests and maintain a folio for them for the whole day and checkout in the evening.
• The hotel staff want to move a guest folio balance to a temporary room to free up the real room for a few days.
• Receiving charges that have already been settled at the restaurant for reconciliation purposes. For instance, an outside guest at the hotel’s restaurant pays the bill on the spot, and the charges are settled. A copy of these charges is sent to PMS for accountability purposes.
• Receiving missed postings from vendor systems that failed to reach real guest rooms for technical reasons.
• Handling discrepancy guest situations such as the hotel guest skipping without paying the folio. However, the hotel might take days to investigate and sort out the issue. During this time hotel wants to use the physical guestroom.

Creating a PM room in Opera (Rather, ‘Checking in’)

Step 1

When logged into Opera PMS, on the top menu, select Front Desk > House Accounts.

Step 2

Enter profile and reservation details.

The post How Do I Create A PM Room In Opera? first appeared on e360 hospitality.

Operating a hotel is a complicated business. SOP (Standard Operating Procedures), service levels, meeting regional legal requirements, and target markets are different from one hotel to another, and hotel chain to chain.

Opera (Property Management System) is used in hotels of all types around the world.

How Does Opera Hotel System Fit Hotels of All Types?

Opera PMS provides different ways to customize the system to suit the hotel’s requirements and to address operational needs.

Add-on Licenses:

When you have the primary Opera PMS license, you have the core functions and features that can address any hotel’s operational needs throughout a guest’s journey.

However, you can activate different modules by using add-on licenses for specific functionality. 

For example, handling travel agent commissions or back office (City Ledger) that are not part of a hotel guest’s journey, but some hotels might still want to use them as a module in Opera PMS. The advantage is that the hotel doesn’t need another software integrated with Opera PMS to handle the operation. There are many add-ons available.

‘Application Settings‘ Helps Customize the Software to Lazer Target Hotels’ needs

Application Settings consists of Functions, Parameter, and Settings that allow further fine-tuning of a selected module by choosing what features it should have and their behavior.

For example, a hotel enables Currency Handling under Functions, then sets daily handling limits under Parameters, and finally sets the limit under Settings.

Vendor integrations: Enrolment of vendors into Opera PMS integration is controlled by the Oracle validation program, but the list is huge and counting. Google “Opera validated interfaces,” and you will get a list of integrated vendors from the Oracle site.

Opera Profiles

Opera guest profile features examples:

• Hotels can maintain complete profile records for individual guests, companies, travel agents, groups, and sources (that don’t belong to other profile types in the list, for ministries, military establishments, etc.).
• Negotiated rates, statistical information, historical production data on by revenue bucket, and future booking information.
• Memberships, preferences, privacy, and guest requests management on individual profiles on top of providing extensive demographic information.
• User-definable fields to collect additional profile data.

Profile details

Opera Reservations

Opera PMS reservation functionalities highlights: Sample Opera PMS reservation screen below:

• A comprehensive reservations management module including individual, group, and allotment bookings.
• Other crucial reservation options include waitlisting, reservation shares, multi-rate, multi-profile, accompanying guest management, discounts, Turnaway, and item-inventory, reservation alerts, and upsell are few to mention.
• Effectively handling reservation packages and internal revenue split control from within the reservations.
• Deposit, deposit taxes, cancellation, no-show handling, and the ability to define the hotel’s strategy through automated rules.
• Hotel’s or group of hotels’ (in a multi-property env) centralized reservation system that seamlessly works with bookings originating from other hotels (in the multi-property), OTAs, global distribution systems (GDS), central reservation systems (CRS), meta-search sites, and the hotel’s website.

Reservation details

Rate Management

Opera’s rate management comprises a set of powerful options for price optimization to suit any market segment and for accurate market analysis.

• Market segmentation to turn-away analysis.
• Classification of rate codes by sister properties, market segmentation, and seasons gives greater control in designing and managing rate structure according to Hotels’ rate strategy.
• Rate Tiers help hotels set pricing based on length of stay (LOS). While the Daily Rates option helps hotels to set daily changing rates.
• Managing inclusive/exclusive Packages and price control based on various metrics such as ‘per person’, ‘per room’, ‘per night’, or on a predetermined schedule.
• Hotel definable child buckets.
• Other features worth mentioning are ‘Base Rates’, ‘Dynamic Base Rates’, ‘BAR By Day’, ‘Bar By LOS’, Best Bar By Day’, ‘Negotiated Rates’
• Rate Ceiling and Rate Floor controls. 
• Promotional rates.
• Built-in ‘Rate Strategy’ tool (an option), enables setting sell controls based on occupancy/date.
• Hurdle rates when integrated with a yield/revenue management system (using an add-on license discussed earlier)

Rate management details

Opera PMS Front Desk and Billing

Room assignment, preparing guest registration cards, working with reservation screen for verifying before checking in, taking deposits, scanning passport/ID doc to attach in guest profiles, checking in the guest with a room key. Performing tasks related to guest-in house and finally checking out the guests.

Let’s see some of the options worth noting down:

• Wizard-like room assignment that auto-assigns rooms based on guest preferences, which a user can change or manually assign or reassign.
• Bulk Guest Reg card printing for future dates for individual and group bookings.
• Guest messages and traces (for the hotel’s inter-departmental communication where one dept asks the other to complete a task related to guests’ requests or needs)
• Fictitious room check-in for internal postings or temporary guest reservation movements from real rooms to fictitious ones for operational reasons, popularly “PM rooms”.
• Room upgrades and free upgrades with the ability to set up incentive schemes for the Front Office agents.
• Flexible handling of shared reservations and welcome offer alerts.

Front desk details

Cashiering:

• Cashier shifts management with shared and individual floats. 
• An unlimited number of revenue, non-revenue (taxes), adjustment, and payment codes for posting and inclusive/exclusive and dependant tax setup. And, these codes are linked to the accounting system.
• Post adjustments, transaction splitting to transfer to different rooms or bills, automated split/transfer setup for revenue sharing scenarios.
• Auto-transfer transactions between bills of the same room and different rooms using ‘routing’.
• 8 bills for a guest reservation, and each can have different profiles and payment options linked to. 
• Direct Debit/City Ledger handling.
• ‘Open Folio’, ‘Pre-stay and Post-stay’ charging, options to settle interim bills, and advanced bills are notable.
• Folio styles.
• Cross-posting between properties in a multi-property environment.

Cashiering details

Opera PMS Housekeeping and Rooms Management

Opera’s room management is a comprehensive module that helps hotels manage every detail of their Rooms department.

• Manage room status, and handle Out of Order, Out of Service, and create work orders for the Repairs department for damages that need attention.
• Set overbooking levels.
• Full-fledged housekeeping management with attendant management, inventory management, tasks management, and room cleaning tasks assignment. For complete details on the Housekeeping Guide.

Miscellaneous

• Data Extraction is used to create a customized data export template that can be used for information needs.
• Logs provide field-level tracking of user changes in critical areas.
• One of the popular features is Opera PMS shortcut keys that open up a list of screens where the users can view and, in some cases, users can handle tasks visually. Check out this link for more information.
• Opera PMS reports list: Opera provides a huge list of standard reports categorized by function/operational area. Some of the popular reports are Trial Balance, Guest Ledger, Deposit Ledger, AR Aging, Guest Arrivals, Package Forecast, Market Segment, etc.

The post What Is Opera PMS, How Does It Work? first appeared on e360 hospitality.

In this post, we look at why the hotels choose to do so, and how it is done in Opera PMS.

Why do hotels post advanced bills?

Simply put, the feature is used when a guest wants to settle his/her bill and continue to stay until the check-out date as in the booking. This feature has no relation with the hotel deposits since it is used while the guest is in-house. For instance, if the guest is checking out the next day, he/she wishes to settle the bill in advance and check out the next day without delays.

Another rare instance can be that the primary paying guest is leaving earlier while his accompanying guest will continue to stay until the departure date.

Use Opera PMS advanced bill feature with caution

While it can be a very useful option in the above instances, it should not be used regularly as it inflates the hotel’s rooms revenue on the day when it is posted while deflating the expected rooms revenue for the other days – which falsifies the hotel’s ADR and revPAR – Key performance indicators for hotel industry. A little brief on these metrics below:

ADR, Average Daily Rate is used to calculate the average rate at which the rooms are sold for a given date.

ADR example:

• A hotel with 100 rooms
• Occupied number of rooms is 70
• Total rooms revenue is $15,000
• To get the average daily rate (ADR): $15,000 / 70 = $214.28

Now imagine, if you’re advance billing a guest with a room rate of $300 for 2 nights, it will add an extra $600 to the total rooms revenue which will be $15600 and this $600 belongs to the next days. Now the ADR will look at $222.85. At the same time, the next two days’ total rooms revenue will be less. What is this happens on the last day of the month or the year? Monthly and annual revenue will go wrong.

ADR gets the average room rate, and RevPAR is used to calculate Revenue Per Available Room.

RevPAR example:

• Get the occupancy %. From the above example, 70 rooms occupied from 100 rooms is 70%.
• ADR is $214.28 from our example above.
• Multiply the ADR by occupancy percentage – $214.28 X 70 = $14,999.6

How to use Advance Bill in Opera PMS?

Step 1

Go into the guest bill

Click on the Settlement button. When the guest’s departure date is future, the button is ‘Settlement’ or, the guest’s departure date is the same day, the button is ‘Check Out’

Step 2

You get the below options. Select Advance Bill.

Step 3

Once you select Advance Bill and click OK, the below 3 options pop up.

Here you choose if you want to post for tonight, which is a widely used option in cases when the guest prefers to settle his/her bills a day before checking out to speed up the checkout process.

You can also choose Nights to add multiple nights, such as he the guest wants to pay the bill more than a day in advance, or you can also select Entire Stay to settle an advance bill for the entire stay. These two options should be used with caution as explained above.

Step 4

Finally, the payment window comes up to complete the process.

Note: The guest bill shows zero balance now, however, the guest is still checked in. Opera doesn’t stop any new postings that need to be settled when checking out. For complete technical details, visit the Oracle Help site here.

The post What is Opera PMS Advance Bill? first appeared on e360 hospitality.

In this post, we will show you step-by-step how to create a report in Opera PMS in a few minutes.

In Opera PMS, there are three types of reports a user can create. The easiest and simplest way is to use Opera’s user-friendly, built-in report writer tool Opera Simple Reports (OSR). Let’s create an in-house guest list report.

Step 1

Login to Opera > Click on Configuration button.

You need to have user permission to see the Configuration button on the main page. Depending on the licenses activated in the PMS, you might see more options here.

Step 2

How do you start a simple report? In the menu, select Setup > Report Setup > Reports > New

All existing reports in Opera PMS display. Click on New to create your report and ensure Simple Report is ticked.

Step 3

Give your report a name

• Report Name: Type your report name here
• Simple Report: As soon as you tick here, the File Name field populates auto.
• Report Group: Select a group. You can select any, however for simplifying the search and keeping it organized, select a relevant group here.
• Keep everything else default and click on Customize.

Customize report output

You get the below tabs:

• Import: Instead of creating a new report, you can use this to import the report setup from a previously saved/exported file. These files have a .OSR extension. And, you use the same tab to export your report setup.
• General: Use this tab to set the report title, layout, and font size. Importantly, under Views, you tick which data set to use in the report. In our example case, we need guest information from Profiles and booking details from Reservations.
• Columns: Here, you select the columns for your report.
• Group by: If you want to group your data, such as the report to display all Deluxe rooms together, Standard rooms together, etc., and print a summary for each group.
• Order by: Order by column(s).
• Filters: You set your report filters and whether they should prompt user input.
• Preview: Finally, preview the report.

Step 4

General tab: Select report views

The report title is the report name from the previous step that comes by default which you can change. Keep the default setting for column labels. Your report deals with guest information and booking information, so tick Reservations and Profiles views here.

Step 5

Columns tab: Add report columns

On the left, you get the list of all available columns based on the views you selected in the previous step. Select the columns from the Available Columns list on the left and double-click or use the arrow button in the middle to add to Report Columns.

• Search columns by their names using the Like and Not Like fields. This is a wildcard search field, so you can type “name” and it displays all columns having “name” in them such as “first name”, “last name”, “name id”, “company name”.
• Use the Line No. button to add a sequence column.
• Use the Space button to add an empty space between columns.

Step 6

Change column settings

Click on any column under the Report Column (ones you have added) to set column-specific characteristics.

• Change the Column Label, Alignment, and Font size, if you need to.
• Set the column height and especially width according to the data it’s going to output.
• Finally, under Summary, you can add a calculated total (count, max, and min. If the column is number, sum and average also appear). This prints at the end of the report or each group.

Step 7

Group by tab: Add grouping (if needed)

Select your grouping here by finding the column under Available Columns and adding it under Group by.

• You can add multiple Group by columns to subgroup results. You don’t have to have the group by column under Report Columns.

Step 9

Filters tab: Report criteria

This tab makes the Opera Simple Report writer powerful. Select a column from Available Columns and add it under Report Filter.

While you’re adding the column, the report builder shows various possible filters that you can apply to the column depending on the column’s data type such as text, number, date, etc. The filter column doesn’t have to be in the report.

You need to filter data based on:

1. The guests must be in-house.
2. Say, you want the user to select the date range for departure. So that the user can get a report of all guests checking out today and tomorrow or in the future.

Set the condition to filter checked-in guests: Add the ‘Reservation Status’ column. Drop down Default Value and select: CHECKED IN, DUE OUT, PENDING CHECK OUT, WALKIN. And, OK, save.

Set a departure date filter that prompts user entry: Add the ‘Departure Date’ column.

Since it’s a date-type column, there are different possible filter types.

As you want the user to enter from/to date ranges, select ‘Between’. Tick on the Parameter so that it prompts user entry for the filter. Notice Business Date is ticked to say From date has the default value of Opera business date.

Step 9

Preview tab: Preview your final output.

Opera Simple Report tips for advanced users

You can do more with OSR such as adding a column that is not listed under Available Columns, adding a calculated column, or you can also format an existing column.

You achieve this by adding Oracle SQL statements and PL/SQL functions under the Expression button explained under Step 6.

When you click on the button it looks like the below:

When you select ‘Full Name’ column and click on the Expression:

When you select ‘Room No.’ column and click the Expression:

• Notice that ‘display name’ comes from the Profile view you select in the beginning, and it has an alias b. Similarly, ‘ROOM’ column comes from the Reservation view with an alias a.
• If you want the guest name to display as ‘Alan (Room: 1010)’, you would replace either column expression to (b.display_name ||’ (Roon: ‘||a.ROOM||’)’) – Notice all expressions should go within a bracket.
• Say you want to display the first 2 digits of the room numbers and call it Floor, you can enter (substr(a.ROOM,1,2))
• You can replace these functions under an existing column or even better add a Space column and add the function.
• To add sysdate, you can add, (select sysdate from dual)
• Every guest has a unique profile ID, “b.NAME_ID” and a unique reservation ID, “a.RESV_NAME_ID”.
• For instance, I want to know if the guest has requested turndown service in his reservation, and I don’t find this column in the report writer. Knowing which table holds this field, I can write the below query under Expression: (select turndown_yn from reservation_name where resv_name_id = a.RESV_NAME_ID)

Above are a few examples. However, the point is to show the possibilities so that you can explore more.

For a comprehensive user-guide from Oracle, here is the link

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