In this article we will discuss how the Site Structure area of the administrator area works.
Introduction
Jomres is a multi-property system. It started out as a booking system for a hotel, but almost immediately users requested that we add functionality to allow bookings of items like cottages, villas etc. As I had already built the hotel booking functionality, it made sense to modify the existing functionality where rooms are booked out of a hotel, to make villas & cottages, which are typically booked out as a single unit, have a single, invisibile room. Once the room was booked out, it made the property unavailable.
So, in Jomres-speak hotels are MRP ( Multi-room properties ) whereas cottages, villas, apartments etc are SRPs ( Single Room properties ).
This system works very well, however it can be confusing for new users, especially as we've added tweaks over the years to add functionality. If you use one of the Quickstarts all of this is setup for you, and typically you'd not need to refer to this article, however if you're using the system for something other than property rental, or just because you're curious, then this will be of benefit for you.
These settings are configured by Site Administrators because they're items that often appear in search forms on your site, and you don't want Property managers who prefer the term "D/B" over "Double bed" creating their own items. Having both D/B and Double bed as a search option would make the forms unusable by prospective guests.
In depth
Properties
Let's start right at the top. In Jomres you have "Properties" ( sometimes referred to as Businesses ). In other booking systems you might see them referred to as Units. You can think of the property as the actual building of the hotel or villa that you're renting out.
These are grouped into Property types. Property types are not limited to SRPs or MRPs because we like to give our users the freedom to make their own decisions on how their sites are structured. You can think of a Property type as a category.
Property features
Properties have features, such as "Close to the beach" or "24 hour room service". Guests are particularly interested in these features when choosing a hotel/villa. After location and price, they're probably the third most significant item on their checklist. A default installation of Jomres already sets up a variety of Property Features for you.
Like Property types, Property Features can be grouped into categories, and these categories are called Property Feature categories. The sole purpose of these categories this to give a structured layout of property features on the property details page.
Room types
Now we get to room types, which can be the most confusing aspect of the Site Structure for new users.
Before I go on, I have to remind you, if you're not already aware, that in Jomres when you make a booking you're actually booking a room for a certain date, against a tariff. Rooms and Tariffs are linked together via Room types.
Remember what I said above about how there are MRPs and SRPs, and SRPs have invisible rooms? SRPs also have room types, which allows us to use the same booking engine and tariff system for both hotels and villas, with some small variations. This means that in Site Structure -> Room types you can see both "Double beds" and "Villa/Apartment 3 Bedrooms" in the same list. They're both Room types!
When you edit Room types, there's a very important flag that says "SRP only". For example, a Double bed room type, intended to be used by hotels, would need that flag set to No, whereas a room type "3 Bedrooms" would need that set to Yes. This allows us to offer room types to different properties that are only relevant to that property type. Both a Hotel and a Pension could then use the Double Room type, whereas both a Villa and a Cottage could use the "3 Bedrooms" type.
If you don't have room types created for a property type, then if a manager creates a property they might see the message like the following :
Error, there are no room types for this property type. You can fix this by visiting Administrator -> Jomres -> Site Structure -> and editing the room/resource types. Remember to set the Is SRP flag correctly.
This message will show if the user chose a property type of X, but there aren't any MRP or SRP only room types for that property type.