Activated on demand

In the back office, a new net total of agency commission has been added to the file overview. It is possible to define this new net total as the main amount of the file. This is then used in the payment section to calculate the balance and update the payment status.

In the Back Office Orchestra, you can now view the subtype of rate lines for transfers booked under a file when exporting. This update improves the clarity of the file. Add-on types

The integration of agency fees into the capping system is now automated. Amounts entered by agencies during booking automatically generate a reversal line in the Capping module, eliminating previous manual entries. This evolution improves the reliability of accounting tracking and optimizes the processing of agency sales and refunds.

To optimize indirect sales monitoring and improve producer responsiveness, we have implemented automatic email notifications for each validated booking. It is possible to define for which producers this email should be activated.

The agency’s currency and country are now displayed in the capping interface. This information is configured in the administration tool. This means you no longer have to search in two places and improves readability in the Capping module.

If a Back Office file contains many identical price lines, it is now possible to factor them for optimized display.

Consumption-based billing presented unnecessary complexity. Orchestra simplifies the process for cancelled files. One invoice remains: cancellation fees or insurance.

Absence of fare lines eliminates billing completely. This evolution lightens cancellation administrative management.

Export to restaurant management system improves. Sends are more frequent and modifications correctly managed. Previous API version presented significant limitations.

Back-office quote tab lightens by default. Cancelled lines are masked to improve readability. A “Show all” button remains available if needed.

To improve navigation in files containing numerous fare lines, Orchestra integrates an optimized display system. Excess lines are hidden by default, with a “Show more” button providing access to complete information.

Orchestra now enables cancellation of fare adjustment type modifications from the back-office. This action automatically triggers cancellation of fare lines associated with the relevant modification.

Manual export of customer invoices from the Accounting module has been enhanced. New columns have been added to facilitate data analysis: Return date, Invoice amount excl. tax, Agency commission incl. tax, Agency commission excl. tax, Net commission incl. tax, Net commission excl. tax.

This information is now available directly in CSV files exported from invoice search.

The CSV export dedicated to price line items has been enriched with 15 additional configurable columns. These include details such as booking channel, room types, quantities, VAT-inclusive/exclusive amounts, and agency commissions.

The VAT-exclusive amount is now visible in quotes within the Back Office. This amount is automatically calculated and included in price lines when a file is modified, adjusted, or corrected.

Information on the amount exclusive of VAT is now visible in the file estimate from the Back-Office. This amount is automatically calculated and entered in the price lines added following a file modification, regularization or estimate adjustment.

The travel documents automation function has been enhanced to enable more detailed management.

It is now possible to automatically set in the back office the transition of a travel journal to “complete” status according to the type of service and/or producer, thanks to an exclusion configuration. The “complete” status will then be applied as soon as a document is present for each source whose type, producer or both notions are not excluded.

This evolution completes the retargeting email mechanism developed in 22.8, and enables distributors to be autonomous in ROI tracking of this mechanism.

It is now possible to search in the back office for a booking reserved by a customer following a click on this email. A “Sub-origin” field returning the value “mail abandon reservation” has been created in the back office search engine.

This value is also present in manual back office exports.

The automatic travel document retrieval mechanism has been improved to allow more refined management in cases where several emails contain similar booking references.

We have also added a report email in the event of a “too many files found” error, listing the bookings in question.

Information on the type of product booked (package, tour, hotel…) is now available on the “Booking overview” page in the Back Office.

It is also possible to search for bookings by this criterion using the Back Office search engine.

It is now possible to define that the travel documents are sent to the customer x days before the departure date. This only applies to complete travel books.

This feature must be activated via a configuration in the Back Office.

We have improved the notification mechanism for booking updates to filter out irrelevant changes. This makes it possible to notify customers only of important changes to bookings (e.g. cancellations, changes of time or reservation status).

This feature can be activated and configured via the configuration file in the Back Office.

It is now possible to set customer booking characterization labels in “read-only” mode. A new “readOnly” attribute has been added to the label declaration in the Back office configuration.

By default, labels can be read-only or write-only.

In the back office, we have made functional and graphic improvements to the actions an agent can perform on a customer booking.

It is now possible to print a preview of the booking with the distributor’s logo, print the entire booking, and parameterize the information displayed in the PDF document sent to the customer.

Following the implementation of pay-as-you-go billing functionality in a previous version, we have added the ability to set quick-search lists to bookings without invoices whose start date has passed.

It is now also possible to activate the search for bookings with or without invoices from the back office search engine.

This feature is deactivated by default.

In the back office, we have made a change to the email templates used to automatically send travel documents to customers.

In particular, it is now possible to use an email template with the subject “Cancels and replaces”, to inform customers when changes have been made to their booking, after they have already received an initial automatic email including their travel book.

We have enhanced the detailed export of bookings in the back office, by adding a new column “Initial quotation number”.

Information on the initial quotation number now appears in the detailed export in the back office.

This information can be useful for business intelligence purposes based on detailed exports.

Partial cancellation of a booking in connectivity is now possible from the back office.

Certain elements of the booking or sub-booking can now be cancelled while keeping the main booking.

In the back office, an improvement has been made to enable better visualization of the details of a booking, particularly for pre-package bookings which contain numerous services.

We have added a filter criterion based on the status of the bookings, taking into account a potential modification or cancellation undergoing on the booking, for the automatic mailing of travel documents.

This evolution was made retroactively to version 21.4.

In the back office, details about the agency or agent’s ownership of a booking can now be modified manually in the booking overview:

This enables any potential errors in partner information to be resolved.

This feature is only available to authorized users.

From now on, the booking confirmation e-mail of the agency can be saved in PDF in the overview of the booking in the back office.

This feature is useful for agencies willing to rapidly access the booking confirmation in the back office.

It can be activated through a configuration of the booking process.

This evolution enables a more detailed management of travel documents, in particular:

• Define how documents are updated in the bookings: this can either be done by generating the PDF once, or by updating the travel documents for each modification of the booking.
• Define the order of the documents (e.g. the hotel voucher first, then the activity voucher).

It is now possible to add the brand during the manual creation of a booking.

A new selection field appears in the pop-in, allowing the choice of a brand in the drop-down list.

To improve sales analysis capabilities, files are now typed “B2C” or “B2B” in the Backoffice.

In some cases, the invoice may have to be generated on consumption of the customer’s stay, rather than when the sale is made (in the case of a distributor/producer, in particular the owner of the hotels or accommodation it distributes).

It is now possible to set up a process of this type which, for example, waits for (technical) confirmation of consumption of the stay before generating the invoice, with the option of sending it automatically by email.

Une récupération automatiques des documents de voyage a été implémenté à partir des emails envoyés par les fournisseurs qui sont par la suite inséré dans le backoffice. C’est un processus souvent chronophage qui peut désormais être automatisé. Via cette évolution, il sera possible de réduire la charge de travail et les erreurs de saisie.

Description fonctionnelle

Le processus récupère de manière automatique les documents de voyage envoyés par les fournisseurs et les insére dans le Backoffice, dans le dossier correspondant. Le processus se déroule comme suit :

• À une intervalle/horaire définie par le distributeur, le processus est lancé.
• Une fois lancé, le processus se connecte à une ou plusieurs boîtes mails choisies par le client (ces boîtes mails doivent être dédiées)
• Il lit tous les mails non lus de cette/ces boîtes email et en extraira les documents de voyage ainsi que les dossiers auxquels ils sont liés :
  • Si il n’est pas capable de trouver une pièce jointe (sous forme de pdf joint au mail ou de lien de téléchargement) ou s’il ne trouve pas le dossier auquel un document de voyage est lié, un mail d’alerte sera envoyé à la/les adresse mails choisies sous forme d’un rapport.
  • Si le document trouvé existe déjà au sein du dossier ciblé, il remplace celui déjà existant et le garde en historique.
• Une fois que les documents de voyage sont récupérés, ils seront insérés dans les dossiers correspondant.
• Si ce/ces documents sont les derniers requis pour compléter un dossier, alors celui-ci sera automatiquement complété (comportement activable via une configuration)

It is now possible to set up exports to send information from the backoffice files to an external system (on an sFTP server).

The exports are automatically triggered at regular intervals to keep an external database up to date. The format used is the internal “BOFile” format.

The text of the default refund email sent from the backoffice has been improved to be clearer:

Hello,
We are pleased to confirm your refund for a total amount of 73.5 EUR.
Sincerely,
The XXX team
This email is automatically generated please do not reply.

Within the framework of the receptive platform, we wish to exploit the data of a file stored in the BO in order to display them to a customer whose reservation was carried out on the receptive platform.
By a synchronization, we recover the file in our Back-Office database and the editorial information on the reserved products.

The PDF document will be generated automatically and will be available for the travel agent in the Back-Office interface. He will be able to retrieve it and send it by email to the customer for example.

The final PDF will be composed of 3 sections:

• A cover page (with agent’s data, main picture of the tour)
• The body of the pdf
• An end of document (with text on legal notices, terms of sale, etc)

Regarding the availability in the BO, there will be a difference between a quote and a book:

For a quote

• The document will be generated in the pdf of the preview “Detail of the file”.

For a book

• The document will be generated in the “Travel document” section and can be consulted in this section.
• It will be possible for the travel agent to complete with other documents and to use the emails in the “Travel document” section.

It is now possible to take into account the new rights of the connected user when searching for folders by Subfolder Provider. For a user with the right BO Control Producer:

• The Supplier sub-folder selection option in the classic search therefore only offers suppliers that the user can access. It is differentiated by folder type: Package, Transport, Accommodation, Service
  • Package: those defined in Producers accessible from the logged in user.
  • Transport: those defined in Accessible transport sources of the logged in user.
  • Accommodation: those defined in Accessible Hotel Sources and Accessible Hotel Providers of the logged-in user.
  • Service: those defined in the Accessible Service Sources of the logged-in user.
• This also applies by default in the classic search if no choice is made for the select Subfolder Provider.
• And it also applies in the quick search.

It is now possible to store editorial data (rich text and images) on a folder saved in the back-office

This function allows you to store a product sheet attached to a folder or additional editorial information specific to the folder.

It is now possible to search for folders and add favorite searches by type of changes in order to obtain and result only in changes of a certain type.

Here are the details of the available searches by change type:

• In progress – add-on modification
  • Includes all the folders with a modification in progress and the subject is “Service”
  • The file is removed from the recycle garbage can when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – date modification
  • Includes all the folders with a modification in progress so the object is “Start date” or “Duration”
  • The file is removed from the basket when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – participant modification
  • Includes all the files with an ongoing modification and the subject is “Participant” or “Distribution”
  • The file is removed from the basket when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – modification
  • Includes all folders with a pending modification (unless it is one of the 3 cases above)
  • The file is removed from the basket when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – service regulation
  • Includes all the files with a regulation in progress so the object is “Service”
  • The file is removed from the basket when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – service regulation
  • Includes all the files with a modification in progress so the object is “Activities and services
  • The file is removed from the basket when the modification is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)
• In progress – regulation
  • Includes all the files with a regulation in progress (except if it is one of the 2 cases above)
  • The file is removed from the basket when the regulation is invalidated or accepted (it is no longer in progress)

When a file is not in payment status “to be refunded” or “refund to be expected”, the “refunds” button can be disabled via a configuration.

In the back-office search engine, new fields have been added to allow searching by customer phone number and by payment authorization number.

Favorite search folder lists now take into account all current changes, adjustments or cancellations, not just the last created action.

For follow-up purposes, the name of the user who sent a manual email from the Back-office is saved in the “Notes / History” tab of the relevant folder.

Already available for “classic” payments, the information of the payment subtype name used for a payment on account has been added to the payment summary page of the file in the Back office.

In this evolution, the draft emails sent to customers and suppliers were saved for modifications, cancellations, payments and invoices. Very regularly in the course of drafting, a draft of the body content, addressees and subject of the e-mail is saved.

It allows the agent in the back office to close the email writing page to go, for example, to look for information on a product or a file in the back office, then to get back writing the email, at the point where it had stopped.

The Orchestra capping tool allows you to limit an agency’s account expenses within a tree structure.

• Parent Agency
  • Agency A
  • Agency B – on account expenditure authorisation of 3 M€
    • Agence 1 – on account expenditure authorisation of 1 M€
    • Agence 2 – on account expenditure authorisation of 1 M€
  • Agency C

The tree structure thus makes it possible to delegate part of the parent agency’s authorization to a subsidiary agency and thus control the commitments of each of the agencies in order to secure expenditure.

This tool now also allows you to set up agency fees when a file is modified in the back office. In the same way, this setting applies to the entire subsidiary tree structure where it is applied, unless it is overloaded with a new value.

For several versions, Orchestra teams have been working on very important evolutions of the Back office in order to allow end-to-end management of transports (especially transportation with direct connectivity with the companies) from this interface.

These evolutions allow, among others, to:

• Increase the capacity of folders’ search engines to enable a more efficient searching of folders via transport information. These evolutions also include the addition of features to the quick search in the menu bar. A specific search engine from transportation is now available.
• Improve the readability of the transport folders from the list of results of the search engine. A lot of information are available from the results list (airlines, emission status, name of passengers…).
• Allow actions on folders from the list results or shortcuts to the interfaces allowing these actions.
• Present the folders containing transport information in a precise and exhaustive way with improvements in the “Transport details” section.
• Transmitting, modifying, paying the difference, cancelling tickets (and that these remain synchronized with the airline company whom modifications can also be made)
• Modifying passengers, add ancillary products and services

… and all of these for the entire transport and companies sources in direct connectivity.

In the “Trip details” section in the Back office, in the transport section at the flight level, the code displayed was the city code. For more precision in the case of Metropolitain Areas, from now on the airport code will be displayed.

In order to improve teams’ reactivity dealing with files from the Back Office, it has been added the possibility to set up an alert at the reception of a new email in the Travel Documents section (as it already existed in other sections).

Via configuration, these files can now be displayed in a list of files “to be processed” that the teams in charge can unstack as a priority for an increase in these teams’ reactivity and thus customer satisfaction.

In the Back Office, as well as in the case of an account payment, when making a gift voucher payment of grant type, it is now possible to not notify the customer by email by unchecking the checkbox.

The payment will thus be applied to the file without the client, whose email is registered in the file, receives any notification by email.

In order to enable rich interactions with customer interfaces or external systems, the travel diary can now be accessed from the Bac office Web Service.

This new feature allows, for instance, to make a customer’s travel diary available from his/her personal account on the distributor’s website.

In the Orchestra back-office, the search engine allows access to files which meet these criteria.

These searches can be saved as favourites, thus allowing the results of these searches to be accessed with a single click. You are free to manage these favourite searches based on your preferences.

Certain business processes require specific attention to files with a specific status. In this case, searches can be defined (in collaboration with your project manager and through configuration), with these searches then appearing above your favourite lists, in the left-hand column of the interface.

New search criteria are now available for these lists as of version 17.2:

• Files corresponding to one or more payment statuses
• Files for which the amount remaining to be paid (total amount – amount paid) is lower than or equal to an amount.
• Files for which the amount remaining to be paid is strictly greater than an amount.

All of these amounts may also be negative (a negative amount remaining to be paid may occur in certain cases).

The discount codes used in the booking process are saved and displayed in the preview of the back office records.

The fact that a discount code has been used and specifically which code is also available in the booking exports.

In the Back Office there is a function that automatically links incoming emails to the bookings concerned using a recognised code in the email from customers and providers, and thus simplifies the processing.

However, it sometimes happens that customers delete this code which will identify which booking the email concerns. These emails were then lost.

It is now possible to configure a generic address per distributor that groups all of these orphan emails together in order to reallocate them to the right booking and not lose the information they may contain.

It is now possible to automatically send an email to the customer for a payment on account by default via the configuration.

Depending on use, it must be possible to activate or deactivate this function by default.

When sending emails from the back office, the Cc and Bcc recipients are now recorded in sent emails for information and traceability purposes.

We have also added a configuration-enabled function used to send and receive attachments from the back office.

A new “attach” button now appears in the email utility. Clicking this button opens a pop-up window used to select the attachments. It is possible to select several attachments.

Incoming emails with attachments can be identified by the “paper clip” icon, and attachments are available for displaying and downloading beneath the message.

If unauthorised attachments are included in the email, a notification message will be displayed.

It is possible to configure the allowable size and type of attachments.

When creating a manual booking file, a new field appears for the “Option” file status where users can enter a validity end date (future dates only).

In all the exports generated from the BO search engine results, the amounts were formatted with spaces as separators for groups of thousands. As such, “€10000.00” was displayed as “€10 000.00”.

These separators have now been removed for greater ease of processing and to make the exports more readily exploitable via MS Excel, for example.

When making changes to records, the checkbox to send the new invoice to the customer was checked by default. For some actions on the records, sending is not necessary. It is now possible to configure whether the box is checked by default or not, separately for editing or adjusting quotes, cancellation or regulation.

To introduce new features to platform users, we have developed a tutorial feature to guide users through the interface, showing them interesting new features.

At present in the Back Office, once a new version of the platform has been released to the customer environment, users are alerted via a pop-in that a new version has been rolled out, and that new tutorials are available.

In 16.6, a tutorial is already available. It introduces the feature for searching by customer invoice number, and walks users step by step through to the search field, gives them an invoice number to search for and shows them where to find the result.

You can also find these tutorials in the help section accessible via the menu bar.

We have added new configurable back-office record export fields :

• The “Technical TO” and “Value of taxes” fields in the simple export.
• The “Invoicing address” and “Town” fields in the detailed export.

Upon creating a customer or adding a customer to a manual record, it is now possible to connect an API that makes customer information available from its customer ID. The form is filled automatically, saving the agent considerable time.

As part of the inter-agency agreement implementation process, it can be important to set maximum turnovers per agency.

A non-IATA agency which cannot issue/book tickets must use a referring IATA agency for such transactions, requiring a payment guarantee mechanism (and therefore checks): non-IATA agencies must not be able to make limitless numbers of bookings, and must thus be limited to a threshold number.

It must be possible to change an agency’s threshold at any time, manually, via a parent “administrator” agency.

A responsibility tree could, for example, be defined on 3 levels: 

• Parent agency (1..1)
  • Main agencies at country levels (1..N) (Morocco, Egypt, etc.)
    • Local agencies (IATA and non-IATA) (1..N)

Implementation in Orchestra

• The concept of a “threshold” is unique to an agency, and does not depend on other agencies, or on the parent agency(ies). Checking the threshold for an agency is therefore simply a question of verifying the threshold for that agency.
• An agency at level N can specify thresholds for lower-level agencies (N+1, N+2) without any notion of maximums/consistency with regard to its own threshold, if it has one.
  • For example, if agency A has a threshold of 100K, it can define a 200K threshold for any of its daughter agencies.
• An agency has the following threshold information:
  • Initial threshold
  • Current threshold
  • Current consumption
  • Remaining consumption

Transactions on Business Volume

For each reservation made by an agency, the agency’s consumption is decreased by the value of the transaction.

This is the Total Business Volume (transport, accommodation, fees, insurance, etc.).

For each payment by the non-IATA agency to a (parent) IATA agency, its consumption is decreased by the same amount because, as the payment has been made, it is therefore possible to “re-credit” the account of the non-IATA agency. Because the payment system is not connected to this mechanism, the decrease/increase is performed manually by the parent agency(ies) by modifying the consumed turnover using an administration interface.

A non-specified turnover threshold means no limit to turnover.

Verification of thresholds

Option 1 – Alert as a background task

Email alerts are set up as background tasks (jobs) when an agency reaches a percentage of the threshold. This percentage is a configuration which is common to all agencies.

For example, it is possible to generate an alert once the agency has reached 90% of its threshold.

Senders, subjects and content are not configurable and are in English only. The recipient will be the agency that reaches the % of the threshold; the parent agency and the main contact for the account are copied into the alert.

Option 2 – As a service

1/ A remote service is also created to collect the threshold information for an agency.

• This service may be called to collect the connected agency’s threshold information and display a warning message if the threshold is exceeded with the search engine; otherwise, the agency can book.
• Checks on the thresholds are only made during calls and for these services, not during the platform’s booking process.
• If the agency threshold is reached, the agency can neither search nor book.

2/ A service is created to update the agency consumption during a booking.

• This service can update the current/remaining consumption.
• It does not check thresholds, and therefore does not prevent searches or bookings.

Interface

A new interface has been created to view all this information on a per-agency basis.

It is possible for each agency at a level N to view consumption for the agencies it manages (level N-1, N-2). An agency cannot change its own ceiling.

Only agencies with a threshold appear in this interface.

Agency ceilings are changed on an agency-by-agency basis (no bulk changes).

You now have the option of activating a function to automatically send all travel documents to your customer once a travel document exists for each Pre-Package source. At that point, the file can be automatically marked as “Complete”, and no longer requires manual confirmation.

The Oney multiple payment system is now available via the Payline and Payzen PSPs in the reservation process.

It is even possible to perform all payment transactions with Payline in the Back Office:

• Card payment.
• Payment by alias (tokenization).
• Payment by email (bank card, PayPal).
• Automatic payments.
• Refunds.

Information from agencies is now available in new parts of Back Office files in order to simplify operations for producers or distributors with centralised file tracking.

We have improved the legibility of invoices and, in particular, titles which could be rendered in similar shades in some browsers. They are now more readable, with better contrast.

When creating a manual record, the travel agent has the option of choosing the record’s creation date. We have now added a second (technical and non-modifiable) creation date for the record which allows the effective creation date of the record to be stored in the database.

The back-office “Booking details” tab now shows the provider of secondary package sources (e.g. services or transfers).

Detailed display of a service for the back office:

Optimised performance when displaying lists.

Optimised performance of fast searches.

Added field for searching for a distributor booking by customer invoice number.

Automatic sending of travel documents :

• The ways of automatically sending travel documents are changing. You now have the option to enable status changes for bookings to ‘complete’ when updating or adding travel documents. As such, the process of sending travel documents is now 100% automatic.
• You can also reserve approving the completeness of a booking until a manual intervention, which will trigger the documents being sent to the end customer.

Added the option to apply processes to booking information before saving to the Orchestra back office or an external back office.

Added a feature to manually remove ‘Awaiting TO response’ and ‘Awaiting customer response’ statuses.

Optimised loading times for lists and favourite searches in the List tab.

• Travel document retrieval improved for Misterfly flights.
• Booking “Origin” field (reservation, manual, import) can now be included in Back Office booking exports.
• Ergonomic improvements to manual bookings with as much information as possible pre-filled by default (hotel stay dates, currencies, agency information).

Several booking printing formats can be added (e.g. pro forma invoice, quote without agency commission, etc.).

• Security strengthened to avoid a user accessing unauthorised files.
• Possibility added of using SFTP accounts for file exports.
• Improvement of the generation of numbers of invoices generated by the Back-Office to ensure they are unique and continuous under all circumstances.
• Lors de la confirmation d’un dossier « en demande », ajout d’une case à cocher permettant de choisir d’envoyer ou non un mail au client. When confirming a file “on request”, tick box added to choose whether or not to send an email to the customer.

Possibility of sending an email to the customer automatically to notify them of the next payment due date. This email is sent a few days before payment is made and is also stored in the Back-Office file.

• For payments with the Be2bill system, possibility for the travel agent to ask for the payment to be activated in 3DS mode.
• Improvement of auto-complete for the “Destination” field in order to take account of countries in addition to cities.

• Improvements have been made to how tariff lines are displayed in the back-office when a provider only sends a global commission.
• A new search criteria has been added allowing users to search folders by ‘internal payment code’.
• There is now an option to add a label to all folders containing customer comments entered during the booking process. This means users can find them more easily.
• New automatic exports of supplier invoices (in CSV format) have been introduced, meaning invoices can be exported monthly for the previous month, for example.
• There is now an option to block the following features for quote-type folders:  travel documents, payments, customer invoices, supplier invoices.

‘Total initial selling price’ information has been added to back‑office exports.

• Automatic recovery of vouchers from City Discovery activity and transfer sources is now available.
• Automatic recovery of e-tickets from the Misterfly flight source is now available.

Possibility of retrieving travel documents in the Back-Office with authentication.

Taking into account of activity suppliers and transfers when entering manual files, especially in the “Quotation” section.

When entering text in a manual folder, in the ‘quotes’ section, it is now possible to define a maximum quantity (10, by default).

Two new payment methods will now be available in the back office :

• Three-tier payment: This payment method may be used for card transactions made over the phone.
• Payment via email: This payment method may be used for clients wishing to pay themselves.

These new payment methods are available in the ‘pay by card’ drop down menu.

User labels are now also displayed in brackets on the reservation channel lists when a file is created.

A summary table of agency commissions is now available on the quote page for files created manually. Only applicable agency commissions within the file’s booking channel will be shown.

Information on agency commissions helps agents understand all the commissions that should be applied manually to each part of the trip.

Reimbursement of Payzen payments is now available directly from the back office.

Back-office users are now notified when a customer answers a distributor email sent from back office in the “customer invoice” and “travel documents” section, in the same way seen currently seen in the file’s “modify” section. Email exchanges following the dispatch of a customer invoice also appear in the “exchanges” section of the “customer invoice” section.

The tab is highlighted in red inside the file to notify the user.

These notifications are available in the “travel documents” and “customer invoice” tabs.

The user must then confirm they have read the email to delete the notification.

In addition, previous searches are available by default in the back office, in the same way as modifications :

• Notification to manage – customer
• Pending response – customer

It is now possible to confirm or cancel a file with the status “option” in the “modify” section of a file. Confirmation and cancellation generate an email and update the status of the file. The confirmation and cancellation of an option can be performed while connected in certain cases, depending on the source associated with the Package file.

The agency commission is currently added to the sale price. It is now possible to calculate the agency commission based on the gross price in the back office.

To do this, simply enter either the value of the commission or the percentage of the commission relative to the gross price.

Payment attempts were previously automatically made every day during a defined period. A new configuration now allows users to choose either this method or to run attempts at specific intervals (every X days).

This new behaviour can be configured by the Orchestra teams in the back office configuration file.

It is now possible to search for and export folders by modification date.

• Creation of a price line without validation, title ‘’Error – Free entry’’ in the Quote section of a file,
• Creation of buttons to send a quote in PDF format without displaying commission to customers, and displaying commission for agencies.

Access to this feature is to be defined in the user permissions.

• Multi-currency entry of price lines

The net prices can now be entered in the supplier’s currency by specifying the associated currency on each price line.

• Calculation of selling price based on net price, commission and markup

It is now possible to enter the net price, the commission as a percentage and the markup as a percentage to obtain the selling price, whereas previously the commission was deduced from the gross price – net price formula.

Entry can be in the following order :

1. Entry of the net price,
2. Entry of the percentage (or value) of the commission leading to the calculation of the gross price, 
3. Entry of the markup affecting the sale price. 

This new input method can be configured from the back-office module.

Below is a list of the improvements made :

• Selecting a start date automatically opens the calendar for the selection of an end date,
• Automatic calculation of the number of days and nights based on the start and end dates,
• Pre-selection if the scroll-down list contains only one value in the forms,
• Pre-completion of the agent information defined based on the information of the user connected to the customer/traveller creation form,
• Simplification of the flight creation form.

1 / Permanent action bar

The ergonomic design of the engine results has been improved with the addition of a permanent action bar.

This bar, containing the number of results and the various actions applicable in mass to the files, is now permanently visible at the top of the page when the results are being scrolled.

2/ New client-orientated view

In addition to the classic display mode, the file search results list can now be displayed in a “client-orientated” view.

A new button to the right of the action bar lets you switch the search list display from file view to client view as required.

3/ Detailed export enrichment

Both the postal code of the billing address and the client’s IP have been added to the Back-Office’s export of detailed files.

A new status now marks Back-Office files as “Archived”. By default, these archived files will no longer appear in search lists or in searches performed by the search engine.

However, a new field in the search engine can search for archived files, non-archived files or all files.

The option to archive a folder can be activated via a general configuration and via user permissions. It is then possible to both archive and dearchive files. Mass archiving is also possible using the search results action bar.

With proper configuration, it is also possible to automate archiving according to certain criteria, for example all files lapsed for more than a year can be archived.

Three new services have been added to the existing Back Office Web Services :

• Search for files by specifying the file creation period, as well as the product name, client name, client email address, and sales process type,
• Confirmation of files on request,
• Cancellation of files on request.

It is now possible to activate several payment methods in the “Payments” tab of the files. Users can therefore choose the most suitable payment method from the list.

It is now possible to automatically generate and store travel documents from compatible sources (Amadeus e-ticket, Koedia voucher, etc.).

The documents retrieved can then be viewed in the “Travel documents” tab of the Back-Office files.

A configuration now allows the activation of invoices to be managed in greater detail. It is now possible to independently activate :

• Invoices generated during a booking,
• Invoices created during operations on the Back-Office files.

It is now possible to indicate the type of payment to account (transfer, cash, gift card, etc.) when entering a payment to an account in the Back-Office.

A new “Company” parameter can now be sent during the booking.

This field is intended to be saved in the Back-Office files in order to distinguish between files which may come from different white labels. Agents will then, for example, be able to apply a different VAT rate based on this parameter.

Detailed exports of Back Office files can now handle the Excel XLSX format, which means that you can export a much larger number of rate lines in a single file.

“Provider” type files can now be created for internal hotels.

Like provider files from other sources, these are associated with the distributor file for the corresponding booking.

A new search field is available in the Back Office search engine that allows you to search for bookings by supplier in the sub-files they contain.

It is now possible to issue refunds by cheque in the section Payments > Back office refunds.

The email exchange management interface has been improved. When the user answers an email, the history of exchanges is displayed in the editing window.

A new back office right has been added to the administration interface in order to show the commissions and yields columns in the “Quote” section of the back office.

For each price element in the export, the detailed export now includes two new columns that specify :

• The supplier of each price line,
• The date the price line was created.

It is now possible to search by bank card payment transaction number. The corresponding field has been added to the back office search engine.

The entry “transaction type” has been added to the file payment history information. This is used to differentiate between operations involving authorisation, capture, 3D Secure, reimbursement and cancellation.

For example, when bookings have been made via a payment using 3DS verification, two very similar transactions are logged in the Back Office. The transaction type entry now makes it possible to differentiate between them.

New Back Office web services are now available. They are used to confirm file requests, or equally to invalidate them.

This function consists of manually creating files in Back-Office, with a view to managing orders from different booking systems in one single tool.

Different forms allow a file to be completed in stages, while ensuring consistency between different data.

1/ Creation popin

A new button in the main taskbar begins manual file creation.

The data entered in this popin defines the structure of the file. Once confirmed, this data cannot be modified.

The “product reference” field only concerns package and pre-package type files. If the search returns no result, a product name and reference may be entered.

When the popin has been confirmed, the file preview page is displayed with a minimum of information. The “unfinished file” status appears at the top left of the preview page. The navigation bar on the right shows an icon (exclamation marks) indicating that the various sections have not yet been completed.

2/ “Trip details” section

Once the first form has been validated, the remaining sections of the file can be filled in. In the “trip details” section, a “Create” button lets you continue the editing process by entering the details of each travel service.

3/ “Customer/traveller” section

The “Customer/Traveller” section is for entering information regarding the customer and travellers. Note that a date of birth is required if the latter are children.

4/ “Quote” section

Finally the “Quote” section is for entering information regarding the file’s tariff lines.

5/ Re-editing of information

Once the information has been successfully entered, each of the sections may be re-edited if changes are required. To do so, simply click on the icon to the left of the text in each section.

6/ Confirming the file

Once all the information has been entered in the file, the “non-finalised file” status is replaced by a “Confirm the file” button.This button changes the status of a file from “Draft” to “Confirmed”.

When the number, types of travellers and room allocation do not match exactly, a warning message appears in order to validate the consistency of the file.

A final message gives final confirmation of the file. This popin can also send an email to the customer and/or provider. Note that a confirmed file cannot revert to draft status. The file will go to “Confirmed” mode and will appear as a typical file.

The Back-Office results lists are now preceded by the number of search results and by a button which displays the corresponding total amounts (revenue).

Clicking on the “revenue” button will display a table showing, for each configured currency, the total amount for each file category (confirmed, quote, option, on request) as well as the total amount of all types of files combined.

The Back Office Web Services can now be used to search for a customer’s exact email address.

This can be useful, for example, to call up a history of the reservations made by a customer using his customer account.

Information relating to the type of flight (low cost, GDS, allotted) has been added to the “Trip details” section.

Also, information relating to the “reservation type” (standard or advance) and “tariff type” (standard or flexible) has been added to the preview.

It is now possible to save “hotel vouchers” (“Voucher” type documents generated by the booking process) as travel documents attached to a file. These will then appear in the corresponding section and can be managed like the other travel documents of the file.

Payments made with vouchers and those made through subsidies no longer appear in the form of a single payment in the Back-Office.

These two types of payments are now considered as sub-categories of gift certificates, and therefore appear on two separate lines.

It is now possible to search for files specifying several Channel/Organisation/User triplets.

The Ogone payment system has been integrated into the Back Office. Payments are made in “server/server” mode and by bank card only. Here, it is possible to :

• View the payments made,
• Create a manual payment using an alias or a new card,
• Refund or cancel a payment if it has not yet been processed by the bank,
• Create an automatic payment using an alias or a new card.

Until now, only the main file in a multi-source file allowed for supplier invoices to be loaded.

You can now load invoices for each of the suppliers involved in a multi-supplier file.

This change leads to several functional modifications in the “Accounting” module. In general, all forms can now filter on the type of service that you’re searching for.

The list of suppliers is automatically updated according to the type.

1/ Uploading invoices

In the same way, the invoice upload pop-in window allows you to choose the type of service and supplier for which you wish to upload the invoice.

The results of invoice uploads is now displayed by supplier since the invoice status is no longer applicable to the whole multi-supplier file but applies to each supplier (billed/over-billed/not billed/partially billed).

2/ Search lists

As for the main file, there are now lists that allow you to search for sub-files of a particular status. You can now define a list that shows all of the sub-files with the “unpaid” status, for example.

3/ “Supplier invoices” section

The “Supplier invoices” section has been changed slightly to display the invoices uploaded for each of the main file’s suppliers (in the case of a pre-package, for example). Mono-supplier files are unchanged.

4/ Additional references

The notion of additional references has been modified to correctly manage multi-supplier files: you can now define an additional reference per supplier file.

The Back Office’s search forms now display the number of files that match the selected search criteria before confirming the search.

Also, once the search has been confirmed, the page will automatically be placed at the first files found.

In the same way as for payments, you can now send the customer their invoice after a refund.

The “Regulation” section in the Back Office now allows you to bulk modify references for packages associated with files. For this, select the files that came from the same reservation process and the same supplier, then click on “Modify”.

A new field then allows you to select an alternative package. This change will apply to all of the files selected in the previous step.

A way to pay via email, compatible with the Adyen payment system, has been integrated into the Back-Office. This may be extended to other payment systems in the future.

This functionality allows the agent to send an email containing a direct link to a secure payment page. This email can also be sent automatically when an automatic payment has failed.

The client then receives an email to enter their bank details directly on the payment page, independently and securely, without having to share them with the agent.

The payment link is valid for a limited period. You can modify the time limit before it expires.

After payment confirmation, it will appear in the list of upcoming payments until it is completely confirmed by Adyen.

A new ‘Paid with holiday cheques’ search criterion was added to the back office search engine. This makes it possible to find all the files for which payment was made (at least partially) in holiday cheques.

The notion of back office tags can now be used to automatically assign default tags to files when booking.

These labels can be configured to define which tags should be associated with which channel. These tags will be visible in the back office search engine to find the matching files and in the file’s detailed notes.

Displaying flights in the “travel details” section now includes information on layovers, their length, terminals involved, etc.

Back Office file searches were optimised, in particular for searches returning a large number of files.

New methods are now available in Back Office Web Services :

• getBookings(String[] mails, String profile)

This web service returns the complete files (client/pro invoices, tariff lines, payments, etc.) for customers whose email addresses are given as a parameter.

• getBookingFilesPerAgency(String agencyCode, String fileReference, String depDateStart, String depDateEnd, String commandStatus, String numberOfFiles)

This web service returns the partial files corresponding to the search criteria given as a parameter (the result list is limited thanks to the “numberOfFiles” parameter).

• getBookingFilesPaginated(String agencyCode, String fileReference, String depDateStart, String depDateEnd, String[] commandStatus, String beginIndex, String endIndex)

In the same manner as “getBookingFilesPerAgency”, this web service returns partial files except in this case it is possible to input multiple statuses and the fields “beginIndex” and “endIndex” allow for management of result pagination.

• completeBookingFile(String id)

This web service returns the complete files corresponding to the identifier given in the parameter.

The user can now assign a type and a reason to a note. The values of these select-boxes are configurable.

A filter system has also been added to be able to filter by :

• Method (automatic or manual notes)
• Type
• Reason

Moreover, it is now possible to export the complete history (CSV) of one or more folders from the action list. This export will contain one line per folder and per note, and will consist of the following columns :

• File distributor reference
• Supplier of the file
• Date/time of the note
• Login associated with the note
• Note method (automatic/manual)
• Note type

• Reason for the note

Just as for package quotes, hotel booking quotes can now be retrieved in Back Office for finalisation purposes.

It is now possible to add a comment for any type of payment or reimbursement created in the Back Office.

For this purpose, a new “Comments” section has been added at the bottom of the payment creation/modification pop-in.

This comment will then be visible in the payments made table :

Automatic payments also have the option of these comments. These comments can be modified when editing an automatic payment.

Quotations made via the hotel sale process can now be reprocessed in the back office so that the travel agents can finalise the booking.

When “reprocessing”, the details page is directly displayed and prefilled with the data entered during the quotation. This allows the booking to be quickly confirmed.

A new type of pricing line has been added so that supplier credit memos can be entered.

This type allows you to enter negative amounts in the gross and net fields (field concerning the producer) and a zero value in the sales price (to not affect the customer’s bill).

A commission percentage can now be defined for discount fees and booking fees. The values of these percentages can be configured.

When a regulation is created on several files and does not require validation from the customer, it is now possible to directly transfer the amount to an existing automatic payment.

If no automatic payment has been defined, the status of the file will stay as “to pay manually”.

Multi-currency management was completed by the addition of currencies in the estimate, payment, estimate adjustment and invoice sections.

The notion of currency was also added to the accounting module, with the possibility of uploading supplier invoices in their own currency.

It is now possible to send emails in the customer’s language.

For automatic emails (emails which are not sent by choosing a “template” in the interface), the customer’s language is selected automatically. For emails sent manually, the language is selected via a select-box.

The Adyen payment system is now available in the Back Office.

The “Payment” section of a file thus lets you perform transactions via this new payment method.

The transaction is performed in server-server mode if the card is the one used for the reservation, and in 3-tier mode if the card is a new one.

It is now possible to add comments when performing the following actions on files :

• Cancellation
• Editing
• Adjustment
• Regulation

These comments may be selected from a predefined list (select box) or may be entered in free form. It is also possible to carry out file searches from the list of predefined comments, and export this data in the detailed export.

It is now possible to sort file search results by their “age”, in other words, the length of time since the time/date that the file change was made and the search time/date.

Sorting takes into account all the types of file changes (customer change, supplier regulation, distributor quote adjustment, total cancellation). If several changes have been made to a file, sorting will be based on the most recent change.

This new function allows you to send a reminder email to the producer associated with a file when it is missing travel documents and the departure date is drawing near.

You can configure the date for when the reminder should be sent.

Reimbursements made through the Back Office are now limited by a certain amount, by default :

• For reimbursements by debit card: the maximum amount is the amount of the booking in question, or the amount that has already been paid (if it is smaller).
• For reimbursements by bank transfer: the maximum amount is the amount that has already been paid.

It is possible for certain users to configure special rights to go above this limit.

Passport information entered in the contact details page during the booking process is now displayed in the Back Office, in the “Customers/Travellers” section. This information is also included in the producer email.

When there is an automatic payment by debit card and a card error occurs (or the payment limit is reached) you can now send an email to the customer.

The email you send is saved in Back Office in the section, Payments > History, and can be downloaded in PDF format.

When there is an automatic payment by debit card and a payment limit error occurs, it is now possible to disable the automatic payment attempts for a lesser amount.

The Orchestra compatibility module now offers a function that allows you to simulate supplier invoicing.

In simulation mode, loading supplier invoices will not immediately affect the corresponding files. This means you can download invoices in an iterative manner in order to correct invoice elements, then make all the files appear in the “Invoiced files” table before applying the changes.

For internal products, the producer can now define their own file number in addition to the file number generated by Orchestra.

The producer is given access to the distributor’s Back Office so that they can enter their own file reference. It is possible to perform a quick search or an advanced search using this new field. This reference will also be available in exported files, as well as emails sent to suppliers.

Currently, the “Proof” button in the payment file section sends a proof of payment by email to the customer. A copy of this email can now be sent to the associated agency.

A new payment status has been added. It indicates if the last payment in Back Office was successful. This status helps distinguish “normal” payment failures (payment status = to pay manually) from payment failures generated by an error.

A search field for this status has also been added to help you to find these files.

This status is also visible in the “Payment” tab of the file.

This criteria can be used in search lists in the left-hand side bar. For example, you can identify payment failure issues in the files.

Up until now, fraud management was restricted to a risk level for each case in the form of three risk levels (low, average and high). Changes have been made to manage fraud in a more precise manner.

A new fraud risk status has been added. This status includes three values :

• Non-fraudulent
• Suspected
• Confirmed

In addition, it is possible to specify the type of fraud :

• Name
• Email address
• Email server
• Destination country
• Forbidden date
• Bank card
• Departure city
• IP address

It is possible to manage the fraud status in Back Office. For example, a file with fraud “suspected” status, can be changed to “confirmed” fraud after being analysed. The available actions for a file can be restricted based on this fraud status. For example, if a file has a “confirmed” fraud status, you can forbid that changes be made to it.