How does shared inventory work?

Calendar View & Shared Inventory

When the shared inventory feature is activated, and the room setup and linkage are finalised, the system will automatically create blocks ( or connecting blocks) in the virtual units corresponding to existing reservations in the linked physical rooms.

Automatic Block Creation:

  • Manual Updates: If a new reservation or blocked date is manually added to a physical room linked with a virtual room, the system will automatically create a corresponding block in the virtual unit to prevent overbooking.
  • External Updates: The same process occurs when reservations come in from external sources such as API, IBE, Booking.com, or Expedia. A corresponding block will automatically appear in the linked virtual unit.
  • Reverse Process: If a virtual room type is booked through any of the above-mentioned platforms, the system will automatically create corresponding blocks in the linked physical rooms.

Example:

In the provided screenshots:

  • Physical rooms Connecting Superior DoubleConnecting Superior Triple, and Connecting Superior Twin are mapped to the virtual room Connecting, which is linked to the Connecting virtual room type.
  • When a reservation is allocated to the Connecting virtual room type, the corresponding physical rooms will be automatically blocked.

Restrictions:

  • These automatically created blocks cannot be deleted or moved, either from the virtual units or from the physical units.
  • Each block will always display the corresponding reservation ID as a comment.

Handling Reservations in a Shared Inventory Linkage

  1. Moving Reservations Between Linked Physical Rooms
    • When a reservation allocated to a physical room is moved to another physical room that is part of the same shared inventory linkage, the corresponding blocks in the virtual unit will automatically follow the change.
  2. Moving Reservations to Non-Linked Rooms
    • If a reservation allocated in a virtual room is moved to a physical room that is not part of the shared inventory linkage, the corresponding blocks will be automatically deleted.
  3. Deleting or Changing Reservation Status
    • If a reservation within a shared inventory linkage is deleted, canceled, or marked as a no-show, the corresponding blocks will automatically be removed from all affected units.
    • This behavior works both ways: changes in the physical or virtual room trigger corresponding updates.
  4. Splitting Reservations
    • Virtual Unit Splits: If a reservation in a virtual unit is split, the corresponding blocks in the linked physical rooms will also be split accordingly.
    • Physical Room Splits: If a reservation in a physical room that is part of the shared inventory linkage is split, the corresponding block in the virtual unit will remain intact until the split reservation is moved to a different unit. At that point, the corresponding block in the virtual unit will be split and adjusted to reflect the new allocation.
  5. Group Reservations
    • For group reservations, when member bookings are allocated to physical units that are part of a shared inventory linkage, the corresponding block's comment will display all the member reservation IDs.

Shared Inventory on the Reservation & Group Page

For reservations and group reservations allocated to a virtual unit, a new section called "Shared Inventory Details" will appear on the detailed page, below the Reservation Details or Group Details section:

Purpose of the Shared Inventory Details Section:

  1. Display the Original Guest Profile Distribution
    • This section shows how the system initially distributed the guest profiles when the reservation or group reservation was created.
    • Important Note: The guest profile distribution follows the "next available" rule and is independent of the occupancy settings of the physical units. For example, if a reservation or group reservation is made for 6 guests, the system assigns these profiles one by one to available units until all profiles are allocated.
  2. Enable Users the Modification of Guest Arrangements
    • Users can adjust the arrangement of guest profiles based on their preferences by clicking the Edit button next to the Physical Room Arrangement title.

Editing Guest Arrangements:

  • Clicking Edit opens a popup window where users can rearrange guest profiles between physical rooms.

    • Blue: Indicates the original arrangement.
    • Yellow: Highlights modified guest profiles whose original locations have been changed.

      Color Indicators:


  • After making changes, clicking OK prompts a final confirmation popup summarizing the modifications:

Special Rules for Hungarian Users:

  • If the company is based in Hungary (Company Country = Hungary), the system does not allow physical units to be left empty or without allocated guest profiles due to NTAK synchronization requirements.
  • A warning message will alert the user if they attempt to leave any units empty:

Logging Changes:

  • Any changes made to the guest profile arrangement are logged in the Change Log for easy tracking and auditing.

 


Important Notes About the Shared Inventory Section on the Reservation Page

  1. Accompanied Guest Profiles
    • If the reservation includes "Accompanied Guest" profiles, these will be automatically allocated to physical units, primarily due to NTAK synchronization requirements.
    • If the accompanied guest profile is updated with real guest data, this will also be reflected in the Shared Inventory Details section.
  2. Removing Guest Profiles
    • Removing a guest profile in the Guest Details section will also affect the Shared Inventory section. The removed guest profile will no longer appear there.
  3. Applicability of the Shared Inventory Section
    • The Shared Inventory section is added to the reservation page for both individual and group reservations allocated to a virtual room.
    • However, reservations originally created for non-virtual room types will not have a Shared Inventorysection.
  4. Moving to a Virtual Room Type
    • If a reservation originally placed in a non-virtual room type is later moved to a virtual room type, the Shared Inventory section will automatically appear on the reservation page.
  5. Splitting Reservations
    • When splitting a reservation (individual or group) allocated to a virtual room type, the Shared Inventorysection will display the connected physical units. Users can move guest profiles between these units.
    • However, if the split parts of the reservation remain in their original locations and are not moved, rearranging guest profiles in the Shared Inventory section becomes unnecessary.

Shared inventory & NTAK:

In terms of NTAK synchronisation, the reservations that are allocated in a connecting / virtual unit are handled as group reservations.


Shared Inventory & Reports

Virtual Room Types and the "Remove from Occupancy" Toggle

Virtual room types automatically have the "Remove from Occupancy" toggle activated and locked by default. While this typically excludes a unit's data entirely from statistics, for shared inventory, the toggle only affects occupancy-related metrics.

Key Behavior:

  • Reservations in virtual room types will appear in reports, but the virtual unit's data will be excluded from occupancy metrics in these reports:
    • Performance Reports (occupancy %)
    • Forecast Reports (occupancy %)

Example Scenario:

  • A reservation is allocated to a virtual unit for July 5–9, 2025.
  • Guest Report, Georeport, and Bookings by Channel Reports:
    • The reservation will appear in these reports, even with the "Remove from Occupancy" toggle activated.

  • Daily Performance Report:

    • In the example, the property has 18 units altogether, out of these 18, the virtual unit has 4 connecting physical rooms, that are populated with the connecting blocks due to the reservation allocated to the virtual room. The occupancy displayed in the Daily performance report is 30.77 % , that is calculated the following way: 4 / 13 x 100 = 30.77 % If we would take in consideration the virtual units as well, the occupancy would be calculated the following way: 4 / 18 x 100.

    This is what we mean by excluding the virtual units from the reports only in terms of occupancy metric.

Important Notes:

  • When filtering the Performance Report for only virtual room types, the occupancy will always show 0%, and the available room nights will display incorrectly.

Shared Inventory in Housekeeping (HK) Planning and HK Application

Handling Arriving/Departing Reservations

  • If there is an arriving or departing reservation in a virtual unit (with its physical units blocked), the reservation is displayed in the relevant HK section (both planning menu and app) along with its component physical rooms.
  • Automation of HK Statuses:
    • When the HK status of the virtual unit is modified, the HK status of all its component physical rooms is automatically updated.
    • Note: This is a one-way automation. Changes to the physical room's HK status do not affect the virtual unit.
  • Indicators for HK Staff:
    • In the HK planning list, physical component rooms are marked with a light blue tag: “Booked as virtual room”.
    • In the HK app, a link icon is used to denote this setup.


    • Possible scenarios include:
      • Arrivals in physical component rooms and departure in the virtual unit.
      • Departures in physical component rooms and arrival in the virtual unit.
      • Both departure and arrival in the virtual unit.
    • For onboard reservations in virtual units, the component physical rooms are not displayed in the arrival/departure columns but are still mentioned separately:

      Handling Onboard Reservations


  1. Reservations in Physical Component Rooms
    • If there is a reservation in any of the physical component rooms of a virtual unit, the physical room is listed in both the HK planning list and the HK app, just like any other physical room.
  2. Empty Virtual Units and Physical Rooms
    • If both the virtual unit and its physical component rooms are empty, or if there are no arrivaldeparture, or onboard reservations, the virtual unit is not listed in the HK planning list or HK app.
  3. Comment Handling
    • If there is a departing guest in a physical room and an arriving guest in the virtual unit (or vice versa), only the arrival comment is displayed.
    • Upgrade Note: This behavior will be improved in Version 2.