Documentation: Admin - Automatic price adjusters

One of the service types that can be added to a holiday itinerary is a price adjuster. These are used to alter the default pricing for an individual service or for the overall holiday; for install adding or decreasing by a percentage or absolute value. For more general information of price adjuster services see the Holiday Service Screen documentation .

An automatic price adjuster is a price adjuster service automatically added into an itinerary when certain condition such as date and duration of stay are matched.

Note that Automatic Price Adjusters are separate from the the following similar automatic functionality:-

• Obligatory options within a hotel service (e.g. New Years Eve supplements) - see service loading documentation
• Required options within a hotel service (options that the selected option depends on) -  see  service loading documentation
• Base_fee preference: automatically added to every itinerary if set - see preferences documentation

It is only possible (implemented) to create an automatic adjuster that applies to an individual service within a holiday; not to the entire holiday.

Pricing API's

When a holiday is priced through one of the API's (single or multi centre), exactly the pricing engine is used, so automatic adjusters are applied in the same way. The API's may only expose adjuster services (automatic or otherwise) when they are relevant to a tour operator customer. For exact details of exposed adjusters, see the API documentation. [The API documentation is not currently public, if you are interested in using the API contact the help desk].

Generally, an adjuster is exposed through the API only when:

• It is not set to Disabled
• It alters the holiday sell price (Adjust is "Sell" or "Both"; not "Buy")
• The Fee Type is SOF - Supplier offer, TOF - Tour operator offer or DIS - Public Discount 

Using an automatically added adjuster

When you add a service to a holiday, any automatic adjusters (that are not disabled) whose conditions match against the service values are applied to the added service. 

If it is not appropriate for the adjuster to be applied to the specific itinerary, click the 'Edit Adj' option for the service in the Holiday Service Screen  and set the adjuster to disabled. The adjuster will still be listed in the itinerary listing (so it can be re-enabled) but  the adjuster value is not applied.

If any value within the adjuster is not appropriate for the current itinerary, you can override it using the  'Edit Adj' option for the service in the   Holiday Service Screen . An example is an offer providing 2 free nights in an itinerary where nly one of those free nights can be accepted.

The Adjuster report  includes a column to indicate which adjusters were created automatically.

Creating an Automatic price adjuster

1. You need to be an administrator, and not be set to read-only.
2. In the "Admin" Application Tab, click the "Add" button in the "Automatic Cost Adjusters" group
3. Complete the conditions and adjuster details as described below
4. Press Save

Viewing existing Automatic price adjusters

1. Click on the "Admin" Application Tab
2. Put a Supplier ID into the entry within the "Automatic Cost Adjusters" group
3. Press the "View / Edit" button

Copying an existing price adjuster

Suppliers will often repeat an offer for different dates, or different stay lengths; it is easy to copy an existing setup and just alter the relevant parts before saving as a new entry.

If two adjusters match a services, both adjusters are applied, so if you copy and save straight away, both adjustments will be made to any matching service.

1. Open the existing rules by following the steps in "viewing existing automatic price adjusters" above.
2. Click the "Copy" button on the row of a rule that is similar to the new rule to be added 
3. Make changes to match the alternate offer conditions
4. Press Save to create a new adjuster with this setup 

Editing an automatic price adjuster

When you edit an automatic price adjuster, it does not immediately affect any holidays which have had services added due to that automatic adjuster. If a holiday is subsequently updated and the changes mean that the conditions no longer match, then the adjuster is removed, affecting the holiday price. The staff member would have to add a manual Fee/discount to the holiday to reflect the lost adjuster, if it had been confirmed to their customer.

You should consider that editing an automatic adjuster may cause confusion, as anyone looking to see why it was added may no longer see the reason (or why it was not added to other holidays). Consider disabling the adjuster and creating an new one, otherwise add a note to the Private Notes box - with the date and your staff id - indicating the change. [The is no audit log for chnages to automatic adjusters, if you need this submit a feature request].

1. You need to be an administrator, and not be set to read-only.
2. Open existing rules as described above
3. Click the "Edit" button on the row of the rule to be altered
4. Make edits as required
5. Press Save

The conditions are compared to each service; if the service fits all the conditions, the adjuster is applied to the service.

The only required condition is the Supplier (along with the supplier type).

Supplier and supplier type : Required. Enter hotel or supplier ID code and select the corresponding type. The adjuster is only applied to services provided by that hotel or supplier.

Booked between dates : Enter neither, one or both dates. The adjuster is only applied if the booking date is greater than or the same as the first one (if given) and less than or the same as the second one (if given). The booking date used is the date the quote (revision) was created; thus the condition may no longer apply on the date a quote is accepted, and will be removed. [if you wish to offset the quote date to reflect a typical delay till booking, to help ensure correct matches, submit a feature request].

Staying between dates :  Enter neither, one or both dates. The adjuster is only applied if any of the dates within the service falls within either/both of these dates. For a Free Night adjuster, the free nights must also fall within these dates. Note that there is no requirement that all or a minimum amount of the duration beyond the start date also falls within these dates except as noted for the free night adjuster [if you need this, submit a feature request].

Min/Max duration :  Enter neither, one or both durations. For each duration given, the corresponding duration unit must be selected. The adjuster is added if the service duration is the same as or greater than the Min duration (if given) and less than or the same as the Max duration (if given) - so for a free night adjuster the min/max duration values must include the free nights (for 7=6 offer, min duration is 7, and adjustment is 1). The service duration entry is used (not the difference between start and end time), and converted to match the units in Man or Max if required.

For a free night adjuster, note that the adjuster will only be applied once, not once per multiple of stay (if 4=3 offer is added with min duration 4, and adjustment 1, the adjuster will only have 1 night free even if duration is 8). To achieve multiples, create an automatic price adjuster for each multiple of the free night offer. e..g first one has min 4,max 7,adjust 1 & the second has min 8, adjust 2. 

Lead days : The adjuster is applied if there are least this number of days between the booking date  and the service start date. See the note for Booked between dates.

Service Types : If one or more are selected, the adjuster will only be applied to services of the selected type. Leave all unticked to apply to any service type.

Options : If any of these are selected, the adjuster is only applied if the service includes these options. You could also tick all items for a similar effect, but if new options are added to the hotel/supplier you would also need to update the adjuster, if relevant.

Exclude Ticked : If Yes, the adjuster is only applied to those options that are not ticked. If not options are ticked, the adjuster applies to all options regardless of this setting.

Automatic Adjuster controls

Disabled : Set to "Yes" to prevent the adjuster been applied to services regardless of the other conditions. Defaults to "No".

Private notes : Your internal reference. Normally used to indicate the source/reason for the adjuster (e.g offer on 2011 contract), and as noted above should be updated to record any changes made to the adjuster.

The first time all conditions match and the adjuster is not disabled, a new Adjuster service is added to the holiday itinerary, and the values in this group are copied into it. In addition, a reference to this automatic adjuster is set, and the adjuster service is enabled.

On subsequent matches for the same automatic adjuster and the same itinerary service, no action is taken - the previously created adjuster service is not updated (unless the conditions have been altered in such a way that they no longer apply, causing the adjuster service to be removed - see notes under "Editing an Automatic price adjuster" above). The adjuster service is not updated with any changes to the adjuster described in the automatic adjuster setup.

 

The settings in this group are the same settings available when adding a manual Fee/Discount  - see that documentation for details about the available fields defining an adjuster.