Synchronization logs

During synchronization MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin downloads bookings from external booking platforms that are linked in the Bookings tab > Sync Calendars. The reports of these imports are available by clicking the 'Calendars Sync Stats' button in the top panel:

Click on the property names to see the detailed reports:

Each synchronization imports all the existing bookings of a property from a booking platform. Each booking (event) has its unique ID which is called UID. During the first sync, all the bookings are recorded at Bookings > All Bookings tab. In the sync logs it is indicated with the following message:

After that, if the same bookings are being imported, our plugin simply skips them and you see the message like this:

If there is any conflict, the booking will not be imported. A booking is considered conflicting if:

1) it overlaps another booking for the same accommodation:

To find out more about the conflicting booking, go to the Bookings tab > All Bookings and search by its #. In the editor of this booking, you can see where this booking came from. As long as this booking is present on your website, the conflicting booking will not get imported.

2) the same booking (booking with the same UID) has already been imported, but for a different accommodation:

It is not possible to have the same booking for different accommodations. According to the iCal documentation, each event has to have its unique id. You may see this error message if the calendars are/were not linked correctly.
Make sure that each accommodation (in Bookings > Sync Calendars) is linked to a unique external iCal calendar. If the sync has already been done with incorrect linking, fix the links and trash the incorrectly imported bookings. After that empty the trash. The next sync will import the bookings correctly.

Note: To make the dates available, simply cancel or trash the booking. A booking is considered fully deleted if it is deleted from Trash, too.

The main aim of  iCal synchronization is to avoid overbooking so it was developed to share availability among booking platforms only. It is not safe enough to transfer customer or payment data, so booking platforms share none to limited data. All the information received from other booking platforms is stored in the logs of each booking:

There is no unified standard to sharing booking statuses in iCal too. So our plugin cannot know if an imported booking has been cancelled or edited on an external booking platform. If it happens, you would need to cancel/edit the imported booking manually on your website, too.

The iCal sync feature gives you a tool for keeping the availability up-to-date across all the booking platforms, but it does not guarantee smooth synchronization at all times. It largely depends on how the linked booking platforms handle the iCal system.

Known issues:

1. Some platforms dynamically change the id of each booking during each sync. So if a booking is imported for the second time, it is recognized as a new conflicting booking with new UID but for the same dates. If the conflicting bookings have the same dates, you can simply ignore such error messages.

2. Airbnb and HomeAway give the same id to different bookings. This happens when the admin blocks several accommodations with the same start date. It can be avoided if you add any private note to each set of dates (row) as shown in the screenshot from Airbnb:

We try to keep the listing up-to-date to help our customers avoid confusion during syncing. If you find any other issue, feel free to submit a support ticket to us.