An interface is quite simply, the conduit between your property management system and systems provided by other vendors. A good example of another vendor's system would be a point of sale system (POS) in an outlet of the hotel such as a restaurant or bar.
The staff in the restaurant may need charge a guest's dinner bill to their room at the Hotel. With an interface, the restaurant staff member would settle off the guest's dinner bill using a room payment function. The job of the interface is to take that information from the restaurant system and transfer it to the property management system. The charge for the restaurant meal would then appear on the guest's hotel bill for payment on check-out.
Some examples of interfaces would be the following.
Telephone (PBX)
Depending on the phone equipment, this interface is capable of taking guest name information from the property management system and having it appear on the hotel phone name display. Energy Management When a guest checks in, the guest is registered as in house in the property management system, a message is sent via the interface to the energy management system to indicate that the guest room is now occupied. In the summer this would activate the air conditioning system in the room and the temperature would be brought to a comfortable level. In the winter the heat would be activated in order to bring the room temperature to a comfortable level as well.
Key-less Card Entry
A card is created for a guest that allows entry to the guest room. The interface sends the check in and check out information from the property management system to the card system, the card is programmed to allow access to the guest room until check out time on the date of departure.
Movies
When a guest checks in, the property management system sends the movie system a message that the guest room is now occupied. Providing the guest has left a credit card at check in, when movies are requested in the guest room, a charge is placed on the guest's bill. This charge is sent via the interface from the movie system back to the property management system.
Global Distribution Systems (GDS)
It is common for a property management system vendor to provide either a one way or two way interface between the property management system and the global distribution systems. A two way interface will send up room inventory information to the GDS channels and receive reservations seamlessly from the GDS booking channels. These reservations will transfer directly into the Property Management System. A one way interface will facilitate the transfer of the reservations from the GDS channels into the Property Management System, however the inventory information is not transferred, this would need to managed manually within an extranet.
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