Dear customers, dear partners,
Christmas season is coming up again, and once more we are looking back on a complicated year. Although the Corona pandemic has receded into the background, the brutal war in Ukraine, the upheavals on the energy markets, the climate crisis and inflation have put the brakes on budding optimism. Nevertheless, the travel industry was able to celebrate a remarkable comeback in many areas, because travel is quite obviously a basic need. We could see that in the number of bookings processed through DaVinci, which reached the 2019 figures or even topped them.
Your business is our business and we strive every day to make it faster, easier and more efficient for you. How we accomplish this in the latest DaVinci update, with our new DaVinci NT which is taking more and more concrete shape, and with our dynamic solutions you may find out below.
The BEWOTEC Team wishes you a Merry Christmas Season
Michael Becher
Michael Becher
CEO
„Best of“ of DaVinci Release 1096
• New SEPA-Version
From Vision to New Standard Application – Sneak Preview DaVinci NT
• DaVinci NT: Managing sophisticated marketing campaigns with “Campaigns”
Winterfreeze
More news from DaVinci and Dynamic Production
• Handling problem bookings easily – with the new “Softbookings”
• Secure payment transactions with the virtual credit card in flexStore
Technical Data
• System Requirements DaVinci
• Release Dates DaVinci
„Best of“ of DaVinci Release 1096
New SEPA-Version
Many banks will no longer support outdated SEPA versions for payment transactions as of December 1. If you use the SEPA direct debit export in DaVinci, you should check if your bank is one of them and if you and your customers are affected.
BEWOTEC has updated SEPA to version 3.3 with the latest DaVinci release to ensure a smooth export of SEPA direct debit information in DaVinci.
From Vision to New Standard Application – Sneak Preview DaVinci NT
Our new tour operator software “DaVinci New Technology” has left the visionary stage in many areas and, as a cloud-based “Software as a Service”, delivers solutions for the requirements of our pilot customers that are as powerful as they are user-friendly. The somewhat unwieldy working title has now been lovingly shortened to “DaVinci NT” in our day-to-day dealings with the software. What has not changed is our ambition to use this DaVinci NT in the future to remove the boundaries between classic and dynamic production and to redesign the relevant processes in travel production in a new and stringent way.
At irregular intervals, we would like to share with you here what is happening around DaVinci NT.
DaVinci NT: Managing sophisticated marketing campaigns with “Campaigns”
Passengers celebrating their birthday on ship shall be surprised with a 50€ on-board credit? The sales of a cruise through the Eastern Mediterranean during Christmas season shall be promoted with a 10% discount? There are plenty of ideas for marketing campaigns to increase occupancy or to retain customers. What they all have in common is that a complex set of rules has to be created so that the right price is drawn when the offer is displayed and booked.
DaVinci NT’s Campaign module enables exactly this definition of manifold marketing campaigns – with intuitive user interfaces, clear color codes and countless combination options. It was implemented by our interdisciplinary DaVinci NT team and will be launched at our pilot customer in the first quarter of 2023.
The master data, that have been migrated from DaVinci to DaVinci NT so that the Campaign rules to be selected can be applied to them, are located in the background. The booking service GENVAS checks for each booking request, which rules are applicable for the selected trip and applies the discounts. For the company website, when searching for cruises, the Action Service provides the relevant campaign prices.
There are virtually no limits when it comes to defining the marketing campaigns. DaVinci NT guides you through a two-step process: at first, basic campaign structures are defined (“Definitions”). In the second step (“Assignments”) details such as specific trips, targets and values are assigned. For example, the decision for “Automatic Campaigns” (which always take effect in the defined period) or “Manual Campaigns” (which require an action such as entering a coupon code) is made in the “Definitions”. The compatibility with other campaigns, the order of application, or the limitation to the first 100 bookings may be defined. In the “Assignments”, the time period or starting point of a campaign, the differentiation according to sales-channels, eligible cabin types or even occupancy details, and, of course, the scope of the discount as an absolute amount or percentage value can be defined.
A campaign can be identified internally via the unique technical code – but for external communication, it can of course be assigned a descriptive name such as ” Christmas Special”. This name is then used in advertising and also on billing documents.
Campaigns is part of the Cruise service, which is to be available with all functionalities on DaVinci NT by the end of 2023.
Winterfreeze
Please note: from 15.12. to 31.1. there are no software updates!
More news from DaVinci and Dynamic Production
Handling problem bookings easily – with the new “Softbookings”
Tour operator customers working with flexFlight and/or flexHotel can look forward to the significantly simplified processing of failed bookings: With the new DaVinci version 1096, BEWOTEC introduces soft bookings. They are automatically created if the booking request is successful but problems with the booking arise – for example due to technical problems in the connection to the tour operator. In these cases, it is necessary to ensure that the booking with the external partner was successful.
The softbooking then created in the system contains all information from the booking request, without knowing an order number or filekey. An additional indicator in the service details as well as the message in the status line alert for a not successfully completed booking. A softbooking marks the hotel- or flight service with an asterisk (*). Consequently, actions such as entering payment data or printing invoices are not possible.
However, because the customer was usually notified of a successful booking on the screen by the IBE, it is advisable to quickly clarify the process: on the one hand, the soft bookings are placed in the “Queue Error Bookings” and can be easily grouped for further processing via the entries in the details column. On the other hand, DaVinci generates notification emails for each failed booking for which a soft booking has been created.
In communication with the service provider, it is then possible to check – often via their online portals – whether the booking was actually created correctly and whether it was only the confirmation that failed. In this case, it is sufficient to enter the external reservation number or the file key in the almost complete softbooking and to remove the indicator “Softbooking” in order to relabel the process as a “real” booking.
If the booking was not actually created at the service provider, it is almost as easy to convert it into a real booking: In the Genesis mask, the asterisk behind the service H or F has to be removed and the process is completed with a rebooking. Optimally, it is still bookable at the same conditions as in the first attempt, but price or availability changes are also conceivable, which the tour operator can clarify internally or with the customer.
Softbookings carry the specific message number 270 in the background, which enables the connected systems, e.g. IBEs, to write individual message texts for the customers and inform them about momentary problems with the booking, if desired. If you support dynamic bookings in your web application, you should have a customization done before implementing version 1096. The web booking process must know the message number 270 and interpret it in a meaningful way for the user.
Secure payment transactions with the virtual credit card in flexStore
BEWOTEC pays great attention to security in its tour operator solutions, also to the design of payment processes for dynamic services. With payment by virtual credit card, a new payment process is now being introduced between tour operators and airlines. In addition to high security, the generation of virtual credit cards scores with further advantages: the deposit of real cards becomes obsolete, as does the complicated authentication process.
For each payment transaction, the payment service provider “Adyen” generates a virtual credit card number that can only be used for this specific transaction. The credit card number and the specified payment amount plus an additional adjustable tolerance amount are transmitted to the airline for the flight booking.
The actual payment process then runs outside the BEWOTEC system. If problems occur during payment processing – for example, if there is a difference in the amount to be paid – Adyen initiates a message that flows into the “Tasks” queue in DaVinci NT.
The setup of Virtual Credit Cards is easily done via the settings in flexStore. In the payment types, Virtual Credit Card(s) may be added and linked to the payment receiving airlines. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are interested in this solution.
Technical Data
System Requirements DaVinci
As of version 1096, the following system requirements apply:
- OS: Windows 10 / Server 2016 / Windows 11 / Server 2019
- SQL: Server 2016 / Server 2017 (required immediately) / Server 2019 (incl. full-text search)
- ODBC Treiber: 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
- Reporting: Crystal Report Runtime 2013 / QRCodeWindowsFontEncoder
- Microsoft ReportViewer 2015 Redistributables (when using Reporting Services Reports in DaVinci)
Release Dates DaVinci
- Version 1093: September 30, 2021
- Version 1094: February 11, 2022
- Version 1095: June 28, 2022
- Version 1096: November 29, 2022
