Prostay's settings are split across two menus. One is called Settings and the other is called System Settings, they are reached in completely different ways, and neither contains what its name suggests it might. If you have ever been sure a screen existed and been unable to find it, this is why, and this page is the map.
Two trees, two doors
The Settings submenu is in the left navigation, near the bottom, under a cog. The left navigation is a rail of icons that widens when you put the pointer on it; click Settings and the twelve entries below unfold.
The System Settings module is not in the left navigation at all. It is behind the gear button in the top bar, on the right, next to the help and account buttons. Pressing it swaps the whole left navigation for a different one. That is why it feels like leaving the product: you have changed module, in the same way that the Channel Manager is a module. To get back, use the module switcher at the very top left.
The Settings submenu
Twelve entries, in the order they appear. The middle column is what the page calls itself once you are on it, which is not always what the menu calls it.
| Menu entry | Page title | Covered in |
|---|---|---|
| Payment Options | Payment Options | Payment options |
| Invoicing | Invoicing | Folio configuration and invoicing |
| Folio Settings | Folio Configuration | Folio configuration and invoicing |
| Tax & Fees Settings | Tax and Fees | Taxes and fees |
| Import Reservations | Import Reservations | Not a settings screen. It is a one-off data load, used at go-live. |
| Reservation Types | Reservation Types | Reservation types and custom fields |
| Add-on Settings | Add-Ons | Items, services and add-ons |
| Items and Services | Items and Services | Items, services and add-ons |
| Accommodation Types | Accommodation Types | Accommodation types, rooms and amenities |
| Amenities | Property Amenities | Accommodation types, rooms and amenities |
| Reservation custom fields | Reservation Custom Fields | Reservation types and custom fields |
| Policies | Policies | Policies |
The System Settings module
Seven entries, three of which open sub-lists.
| Menu entry | What it holds | Covered in |
|---|---|---|
| System Settings | Language, date and number formats, multi-currency, automation and miscellaneous preferences | General system settings |
| Notifications | Email Notifications, Email Scheduling, Email Delivery Log | Not in this section |
| Property Settings | The property's name, address, contact details, photos and description | Property details, address and photos |
| Reservation Settings | Which restructuring and pricing actions the desk is offered | Reservation settings and billing features |
| Billing Features | Master switches for the newer billing and folio tools | Reservation settings and billing features |
| Email Settings | Email Signature, Email Accounts | Not in this section |
| Users | Active Users, User Roles | Users, roles and permissions |
Which tree holds what
The split is not arbitrary, and once you see it you can usually guess right. The Settings submenu holds things that end up on a reservation. Every entry in it is something a booking can be made of, charged for, or governed by: a room type, a tax, an item, a policy, a payment method, a reservation type. They are the property's commercial furniture.
System Settings holds things that are true of the whole system. How dates are formatted, who may sign in, what the property is called, which tools exist. Nothing in it is specific to any one booking.
The same split shows up in the permissions screen, which is worth knowing because it is where people get stuck: the permissions for almost everything in the Settings submenu are in the Reservations block of a role, not the System Settings block. Users, roles and permissions lists them row by row.
Four names that catch people out
- Settings and System Settings are different menus. Asking a colleague to "check the settings" is ambiguous. Say which.
- Property Settings is not the property's settings. It is the property's identity: name, address, photos, description. The things that behave like settings are in General System Settings, one entry above it in the same menu.
- Reservation Settings and Reservation Types are unrelated. Reservation Types, in the Settings submenu, is the list of kinds of booking you sell. Reservation Settings, in System Settings, is a handful of switches about splitting and repricing existing bookings. They sound like a pair and are not.
- Folio Settings opens a page called Folio Configuration. So do two others: Tax & Fees Settings opens Tax and Fees, and Add-on Settings opens Add-Ons. Search the help centre by what the page calls itself if the menu wording finds nothing.
Settings that are in neither tree
Three that are commonly hunted for in the wrong place:
- Guest custom fields are under Guests in the left navigation, not under Settings, even though reservation custom fields are under Settings. Both are described in Reservation types and custom fields.
- Rates, seasons and rate plans are their own area, Rates & Availability, and not a setting at all. They change often, which is exactly why they are not filed with the things you configure once.
- Item categories have no menu entry. They are the second tab of Items and Services.
A sensible order to set a property up in
If you are configuring a property from nothing, the dependencies run in roughly this order, and doing it out of order means going back:
- General system settings first, because the currency and the date format sit underneath everything else and multi-currency in particular cannot be undone.
- Property details, which the booking engine and every guest email draw on.
- Accommodation types and rooms, because nothing can be sold until there is something to sell.
- Taxes and fees, before any price exists to apply them to.
- Policies and reservation types, which reference each other, so expect to visit both twice.
- Payment options and folio configuration and invoicing, which decide how money is taken and how the bill reads.
- Items, services and add-ons, once the taxes they charge under exist.
- Reservation settings and billing features, to turn on the tools the property actually wants.
- Users, roles and permissions last, so that the roles you write reflect the product you have just built rather than the default one.