Maestro preparedness guidelines for hotel slow down or closure

To help prepare for a period of closure or reduction of services and staffing, the below outlines ‘key considerations’ to keep your Maestro system up to date, efficient and available across various booking channels.  The following suggestions will enable safe reduction or suspension of use and will aid in resuming business as usual when able, with unimpeded Maestro functionality.

The Maestro teams are available to assist with implementing the below suggestions, answer any questions, and /or arrange remote training sessions.  Please reach out, we are here to help.

Contact us at email
Training Services              training@maestropms.com
Support Services              support@maestropms.com
Web Services                    webservices@maestropms.com

Key Considerations

Maestro

• Night Audit
• Please ensure you have a plan in place to run the Night Audit on a daily basis, even during closure.  If you do not, your system will be out of date and this will need to be addressed prior to re-opening.
• Maestro offers a “Wait for Midnight” auto-audit feature to automatically run the night audit at 12:01am.  This option supports staff that are on property during the day but not overnight.
• Maestro Web allows staff working remotely to continue to run the Night Audit and end of day procedures & credit card batch as applicable.  If you do not have Maestro Web, please contact Support and we will assist to make it accessible to you.
• Maintaining the Night Audit process is of particular importance in the event of a full or partial closure where the GDS/OTA or any Booking Engine will still be actively accepting reservations, cancellations or modification for any date into the future.
• Implement Maestro Web
• Maestro Web offers full Maestro features and functionality, but accessible via a web browser.
• Maestro Web can be used by remote workers to run daily night audits, monitor booking activity, and adjust yield management strategies as needed, by booking channel.
• If you do not have Maestro Web, please contact Support and we will assist to make it accessible to you.
• Install the most recent software patch version.
• Consider upgrading your current version of Maestro to the most recent patch.  The installation of the update will take less than 30 minutes, and there is no charge for the installation & update.
• A mandatory patch is required to be installed no later than August 31, 2020 to address a correction to a user access licensing restriction.
• For full closure
• Have a backup copy of the database and the Northwind home folder that is kept offsite.  Support can assist with this.
• Suspend or disable any Maestro Windows Services that email or stop and restart based on a lack of activity threshold.
• Suspend the credit card interface and Maestro email capability if audits and reservation update activity is going to be sporadic.
• Disable any third-party data access accounts.

ResWave Booking Engine

• Update the Calendar or Date picker of the website booking widget to default to the future date you are anticipating to be able to welcome guests for check in.  This applies for both Room & Spa reservations.
• We can configure ResWave with a future date parameter to not allow bookings prior to that date.
• We are able to place custom messages or alerts from properties website on booking pages.
• Ensure rates are loaded out to 2021 – 2022 and allow for future bookings.
• Staff working remotely can use Maestro Web to monitor reservation activity and set yields or Manager’s overrides for rate increase/decrease, open or close by booking channel.

If your property is in operational slow down, consider your database maintenance.  We have documentation and webinars on our Maestro eLearning site, Education menu, that will assist you to schedule and complete the following processes:

• AM/PM & Night Audit Check lists are available should staff be performing tasks they are not accustomed to.
• Client Profile Merge and Purge
• Spa Year End Maintenance
• Sales & Catering Food & Beverage Menu Maintenance
• Setting up Yield Management Controls
• Reservation Reporting and Tracking of key KPI’s
• Remote Training sessions can be arranged to assist with any topic.

Conclusion

It is important that you observe the recommended best practices above to ensure that Maestro will be ready for you to resume a seamless transition back to full operations. Observing these recommendations will reduce the amount of time required to get back up and running and reduce operational challenges as you welcome guests back into your properties.