Managing Availability

Connecting a channel is the one-time setup; keeping availability and rates accurate is the daily work. Veridien handles most of this automatically once your channels are connected and mapped, but it helps to understand what syncs when, how to push prices that differ per channel, and how to read the monitoring panels so you can catch problems early.

This page assumes your property is already linked and at least one channel is connected. If not, start with Channel Manager setup.

How availability and rates sync

Veridien sends two kinds of data to each connected channel:

• Availability — how many rooms of each mapped room type are open to sell on each date.
• Rates and restrictions — the price for each mapped rate plan on each date, plus restrictions such as minimum stay on arrival, maximum stay, closed-to-arrival, and closed-to-departure.

Availability is recalculated from your live inventory: total rooms of a type, minus the reservations occupying that type, for each date. Because everything is computed from the same reservation data, a booking from any source (direct, front desk, or OTA) reduces what the OTAs can sell.

Automatic sync

You do not push routine updates by hand. When inventory or pricing changes (a new reservation, a modification, a cancellation, or a rate plan price change), Veridien recalculates the affected dates and pushes the new availability and rates to every connected channel. This near-real-time sync is your main protection against selling the same room twice.

Each push is recorded in the Sync Activity log as an Availability Push or Rate Push, with a status of Success, Partial, or Error.

Rate adjustments

A rate plan can be pushed at a price that differs from its base using Rate Adjustments (configured on the Channel Manager page; see Channel Manager setup). Each adjustment is tied to a channel, room type, and rate plan, and either increases or decreases the base rate by a percentage or a fixed amount.

When rates sync, an adjustment that applies to a mapped rate plan is applied to the rate that is pushed for it. If a rate plan has more than one applicable adjustment across your connected channels, the first matching one is applied. Wherever no adjustment exists, the base rate is used. A common use is to add a percentage to a higher-commission OTA so your net stays consistent.

Running a full sync

Most of the time automatic sync keeps everything aligned. A full sync pushes availability and rates for all mapped room types and rate plans across a date range (up to about a year ahead) in one operation. Run one when:

• You have just finished connecting a channel or finished mapping rooms and rates, to establish the baseline.
• You added or changed several rate adjustments and want them applied across the whole calendar at once.
• The connection was down or degraded and you want to be certain every date is current.

A full sync is logged as a Full Sync event with the count of availability and rate entries pushed. It runs on a schedule as well, so even without manual action your calendar is periodically reconciled. If the sync fails, the error is recorded in the activity log with the reason.

Restrictions

Restrictions ride along with the rate push for each rate plan and date: minimum stay on arrival, maximum stay, closed-to-arrival, and closed-to-departure. Closed-to-arrival stops a rate plan from being booked as the first night of a stay even when rooms physically remain, which is how you hold a channel back on a date without zeroing your inventory. These values come from your rate plans and their seasonal intervals, so manage them there rather than on the OTA extranet, and let the sync carry them out to every channel.

Handling Airbnb requests

Airbnb works a little differently from Booking.com. Some Airbnb bookings arrive as requests that you must accept or decline, and guests can ask for alterations to an existing booking. These appear in the Airbnb requests panel on the Channel Manager page.

For each item you can:

• Accept the reservation request or alteration.
• Decline a reservation request. You are asked to choose a decline reason before it is sent back to Airbnb.
• Send a special offer with a total price, when you want to propose different terms to the guest.

Accepted Airbnb reservations import into Veridien like any other OTA booking and reduce availability across all channels.

Reading the monitoring panels

Two panels at the top of the Channel Manager page tell you whether distribution is healthy.

Connection Health shows:

• Connected / Disconnected — whether the aggregator link is live.
• Last Sync — how long ago the most recent push or import occurred.
• Errors and Success — counts over the last 24 hours, with an overall success rate and a status of Healthy, Degraded, or Issues Detected. Any errors raise an alert pointing you to the activity log.

Sync Activity is the detailed event log. Each row shows the time, the event type, a direction arrow (outbound pushes versus inbound imports), a status, a short detail or error message, and how many items were affected. Filter by status or event type to narrow down, for example, only Error rows or only Booking Import rows. Use this log first whenever a guest reports a booking that did not arrive, or when Connection Health shows errors.

Preventing and handling overbookings

Overbookings happen when more rooms are sold than exist. Veridien's automatic sync minimizes the risk, but a few habits keep it low:

• Manage inventory only in Veridien, never on the OTA extranet.
• Keep mappings correct. A room mapped to the wrong type sells the wrong inventory. Review mappings after any change to your room types or rate plans.
• Watch Connection Health daily, especially in high-demand periods. A disconnected channel is not receiving your availability updates.
• Use restrictions through your rate plans (closed-to-arrival, minimum stay) when you want to hold rooms back, rather than relying on memory.

If an overbooking does occur, work it the same way as any other: look for upgrades, early departures, or rooms you can return to service; contact the affected guest as early as possible and arrange a comparable alternative if relocation is unavoidable; and note the cause so you can prevent a repeat. Reservation changes tied to OTA bookings should be made on the OTA where practical so the guest and the OTA stay informed (see Modifying reservations).

Related pages

• Channel Manager setup — linking your property, connecting channels, and mapping.
• Rate plans — the source of the prices and restrictions that sync to channels.
• Creating reservations and Front desk dashboard — where imported OTA bookings show up.
• Booking sources — how each channel is tagged on a reservation.