Dear customers, dear partners,
the craving for travel is back! The booking figures of all our customers – be it Sun & Beach providers, specialist tour operators or cruise lines – are following the same trend: steep upward!
Your and our resilience in the pandemic has been rewarded: We have not lost any of our DaVinci customers to the economic turmoil. On the contrary – in many cases, you developed new IT strategies and ideas during the downtime and entrusted us with their implementation.
One of the results is the latest version 1095 of DaVinci. With the rollout of this release, your work becomes even more efficient because the search in the transport list has been optimized and the SEPA payment imports and exports have been automated. In our “New Technology” version of DaVinci we have implemented an intelligent Rail & Fly service for your customers.
More details on these and other topics from the DaVinci world can be found below. We look forward to your feedback and are happy to provide further information!
Best regards,
Michael Becher
CEO
The „Best of“ of DaVinci Release 1095
- Finding flights faster: new search options in the Transport List
- Simplified creation of “Adults only” hotels in the booking code
- Automation of SEPA payment imports and exports
- QR codes on standard invoices simplify the payment process for customers
Sneak-Preview DaVinci New Technology
- Rail & Fly in the smart DaVinci NT-Service
- New login concept for the DaVinci Wiki for more security
Technical Data
- Important changes regarding the system requirements
- System Requirements DaVinci
- Release Dates DaVinci
The „Best of“ of DaVinci Release 1095
Finding flights faster: new search options in the Transport List
Thanks to the introduction of new search mechanisms in the Transport List, suitable flights for customer requirements can now be found more quickly. From now on, an outbound and a corresponding inbound one-way flight can be specified for the search in combination. The search result contains internal and external one-way flights in a consolidated view. Of course, the option to search for roundtrips is still available.
In addition, flights from or to a destination spanning multiple airports can now be displayed. Searches for flights for more than 9 people are also possible – which is of course very helpful for larger group trips. However, the result display remains limited to internal flights.
Simplified creation of “Adults only” hotels in the booking code
Just relax and enjoy a vacation among adults only – many hotels are picking up on this trend and are explicitly gearing their offerings to “Adults only”. The creation of such accommodations in DaVinci now becomes easier and quicker:
The minimum age of a guest can be specified in a new booking code field. This age value is provided as the minimum age when data is exported to the distribution systems and can be displayed there in the hotel information. For booking requests from all relevant CRS, the travelers’ dates of birth are checked against the minimum age and rejected if they fall below it.
Automation of SEPA payment imports and exports
With version 1095, DaVinci provides further automation for the payment transactions area and thus frees up resources: Both the SEPA payment import and the payment export are now possible in an automated manner. The frequency and times at which the bank data is imported or the payment information for direct debit and direct collection is transmitted to the bank can be defined in the scheduler as required and changed at any time.
QR codes on standard invoices simplify the payment process for customers
Switzerland has introduced a customer-friendly development in payment transactions, the expansion of which we are happy to support for our DaVinci users in other markets:
In Swiss invoice documents, QR codes (so-called GiroCodes) enable convenient and error-free payment via the banking app in the customer’s mobile phone.
When the GiroCode is scanned, the data is automatically transferred to the online payment transaction in the banking app: recipient, IBAN, BIC, amount, and reason for transaction. The payment is then released with a TAN.
The generation of the GiroCode is integrated in the standard invoice report and can be easily activated or deactivated via the “Print_Girocode” field as of version 1095 (see also documentation Standard Reports).
Important: DaVinci customers who host our solution themselves and who use the standard invoice must install the following components from now on, regardless of the use of the GiroCode:
• IDAutomation_QRCodeWindowsFontEncoder.exe
• Font: IDAutomation2D.ttf (TrueType!)
If you would like to offer this practical service to your customers but do not use the standard reports, please contact your BEWOTEC consultant. Here you will also find support for questions regarding the installation of the required components.
Sneak-Preview DaVinci New Technology
Currently, we are successively lifting DaVinci onto a new technological platform and integrating innovative features. The first three modules of DaVinci New Technology, “User Management”, “Flights” and “Tasks”, were presented in a previous edition of this newsletter. Now we have dedicated ourselves to the topic of Rail & Fly:
Rail & Fly in the smart DaVinci NT-Service
The popular Rail & Fly tickets take travelers to their departure airport stress-free and relieve them of the parking issue. In November 2022, Deutsche Bahn will switch this product to a new process via the service provider Viator. BEWOTEC has programmed a smart solution for this in cloud-based DaVinci NT.
The key data transmitted for a package tour booking in addition to the travel date, flight times, customer data for mail dispatch, etc. also contain an identifier that marks the trip as Rail & Fly eligible.
At the earliest six months before departure, our service sends an automatic request to Viator for the issuance of a voucher for a train connection matching the key data.
Viator provides a voucher link that can be stored in the cloud-based DaVinci NT Document Store with the booking information and retrieved there. The link can be embedded in an HTML template designed by the tour operator and sent to the traveler by e-mail.
If the traveler redeems the Rail & Fly voucher on the linked rail page, an intelligent process starts in DaVinci NT: Up to the moment of departure, changes or cancellations in the package tour are compared with the status of the voucher booking at Viator. If an action is necessary on the part of the traveler, he is automatically informed of this.
New login concept for the DaVinci Wiki for more security
If you are unable to access our DaVinci Wiki with your previous log-in data – for example because you want to read details about our release notes – it is because of our improved security measures. We have changed the Wiki access to personalized logins and ask for your understanding that you cannot log-in as usual. Please contact your responsible BEWOTEC representative, who will provide you with access in the short term.
Technical Data
Important changes regarding the system requirements
BEWOTEC adapts the requirements for Microsoft’s server operating systems and browsers. This is done in response to Microsoft’s version policy, which no longer provides support for outdated versions or discontinues the product completely.
Server operating system: SQL Server
For the Microsoft server operating system SQL Server, we are adjusting the prerequisites in two steps: Starting with DaVinci version 1096, which will be released in the autumn of 2022, SQL Server 2017 or higher must be installed. With the DaVinci spring 2023 release, SQL Server 2019 will be the minimum requirement.
Browser: Microsoft Edge WebView2
As of DaVinci version 1095, the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser will no longer be supported. According to Microsoft, the Internet Explorer 11 version will be discontinued on June 15, 2022; this will complete the migration path to Edge as the Microsoft browser. Starting with version 1095, DaVinci and its components use the WebView2 control, which uses the Microsoft Edge browser as a rendering module.
Thus, DaVinci users who access a URL through the system or use the dashboard are advised to migrate to DaVinci 1095 and adjust the browser specification.
System Requirements DaVinci
As of version 1095, the following system requirements apply:
- OS: Windows 10 / Server 2016 / Windows 11 / Server 2019
- SQL: Server 2016 (will be omitted in release 1096, autumn 2022!) / Server 2017 / Server 2019 (including full-text-search)
- ODBC Driver: SQL Server Native Client 11.0
- Microsoft Framework 3.5 SP1 / 4.8
- Microsoft XML Parser 4.0 SP2 (x86)
- Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x86) 2010 / 2013 / 2015 / 2017 / 2019
- Crystal Report: Runtime 2013
- Microsoft ReportViewer 2015 Redistributables (in case of using Reporting Services Reports within DaVinci)
Release Dates DaVinci
- Version 1092: June 15, 2021
- Version 1093: September 30, 2021
- Version 1094: February 11, 2022
- Version 1095: July 01, 2022
