Transcript File - The Hudson Group

Portal Construction 101
Why Customize Portals?
The following slides allow you to view the basic steps involved with creating a Group Portal on
your Hudson Web Reservation site.
Portals are modified web reservation pages designed to look and feel like unique custom
branded sites. You can build these for existing clients, create one for a prospect that you are
giving a sales presentation to or for a convention that is visiting your city. It will take you a short
while to go through this presentation but you will find that once familiar with the process, you
can create a portal in about 15-20 minutes. Many Hudson clients have seen significant growth in
their web revenue through the use of custom portals.
This slide presentation may be viewed on your desktop. It is hoped that you will follow along in
your own system and repeat these steps as you proceed. By the end of this brief presentation,
you will have created your own group portal. After you have finished the presentation, additional
presentations are available to you to further enhance and modify your portals.
Step 1 – Create the Group Profile
Create a Group Profile in
your local system:
Type: Group
Alias: Login ID*
Export: Yes
*The Alias should be
maximum of 8-10
contiguous characters,
may be letters and
numbers and should
generally be UPPERCASE.
Step 2 – Upload the Profile
While in the profile window, select
Tools > Update the Web.
This action will upload the new Group
Profile to your web reservation Site.
You will first be prompted to save
your new profile. After you save, the
upload process will occur and should
produce a results window confirming
the profile was uploaded.
If you encounter an error at this time,
you should contact Hudson Tech
Support for assistance.
Step 3 – Login to Online System
Login to your online web
reservation utility page. (This is
typically your Hudson web
reservation site but with the URL
ending in /resutil.
Once logged in, you will be
presented with the Main Utility
Menu page.
Step 4 – Locate Uploaded Group Profile
On the Favorites Tab, select
the Group Configuration
option.
From the drop list at the top of
the window, browse to and
select the Group Profile that
was created in local system
and uploaded.
Ex: ACME Widget Corp.
Step 5 – Profile Tabs: General
The Online Profile is divided up into a series of Tabs. Some information and rules have already
been uploaded from the local system. Information on some Tabs will be revised to customize
the “look and feel” of the portal. Typically, no changes are needed on the General Tab.
Welcome Tab
The Welcome Tab is where you can type in a custom message that will greet users of the
portal. This will override the current default welcome screen message. You may use HTML
formatting command to change the appearance of the message. See Portal Configuration 201
for examples of what information may be inserted here.
Logo Tab
The Logo Tab is where you will specify the link to an external image (could be company or
group logo) that should be displayed on the Group Portal. How to add this information will be
covered in Portal Configuration 201.
Colors Tab
The Colors Tab is where you will be able to change the color scheme for the portal. You can use
Hex Color Codes to specify a color to be used. Use of colors will be covered in Portal
Configuration 301.
Options Tab
The Options Tab is where you will override many web reservation site defaults. This is the
‘heart’ of the portal configuration process. This will be covered in Portal Configuration 401. The
example in the box below shows that we are changing the order of the boxes on the Welcome
screen so it will show Arrivals (first), then Departures, and the Verify option. Hourly and Point to
Point have been omitted for the purposes of this demo portal.
Discounts Tab
The Discounts Tab will typically reflect any special discount rules that were in the profile created
in the local system. You will not normally need to change or adjust these codes, if present. You
may however use this page to change discount rules for the web profile, if they are different
from what the Group will receive for discounts on Agent entered reservations.
Locations Tab
The Locations Tab is where you can specify (restrict) the locations that users of the portal will be
able to select from. This can be useful for example, when the portal is for a conference, or
group, that will be travelling from the airport to a very few select hotels or office locations. In this
case you will enter the Fare Keys, from the fare files, in the locations field(s). Fare keys should
be separated by a comma. This will be demonstrated in Portal Configuration 301.
Strings Tab
The Strings Tab may contain
custom text that is to be
displayed for a group on
confirmations, vouchers, web
tickets etc. It might also
contain information about how
to locate a greeter at an
airport.
Note: The Hudson “Token” is
listed next to each box (ex:
GROUPSTR1). Inserting
%GROUPSTR1% in a
document will result in the
displayed text being inserted.
Exceptions Tab
The Exceptions Tab might contain information from the local system profile that help control how
fares are calculated for a group. You probably will not need to manually enter information into
these fields. If information appears here, and you have questions about how it is controlling
displayed fares, please contact Hudson Tech Support.
Step 6 – The Portal Link
While viewing a group profile on the web reservation system, you will see a Portal Link at the
bottom of the screen. This link may be used to open your web reservation system and go
DIRECTLY to the client web reservation portal. This URL may be copied and emailed to a
client.
Original Site
The original web
reservation site looked
like this….
New Portal Created
Our new ACME2012 Portal
looks like this:
More in the Series
The next steps:
Now that you have your portal built, you will want to further revise and customize to enhance its
appearance, use and appeal. Check out the other presentations in this series for more
information.
• Portal Configuration 201
•
•
•
Portal Configuration 301
•
•
•
Add a custom welcome message
Add a company logo
Add custom colors
Restrict locations
Portal Configuration 401
•
Advanced options