Developer Guide

Supported Messages

• OTA_HotelAvailRQ/RS - used by SiteMinder to retrieve a list of active rooms and rates for a hotel from the booking channel.

• OTA_HotelAvailNotifRQ/RS - used by SiteMinder to update availability and restrictions to the booking channel.

• OTA_HotelRateAmountNotifRQ/RS - used by SiteMinder to update rates to the booking channel.

• OTA_HotelResNotifRQ/RS - used by the booking channel to deliver reservations, modifications and cancellations to SiteMinder.

Best Practices

Response Time Expectations

Endpoints should aim to respond within 1-2 seconds on average, with sub-1-second response times being ideal. When processing Availability, Restrictions, and Rates messages, the endpoint must respond with either a 'Success' or 'Error' message promptly. SiteConnect enforces a 20-second timeout for update requests, but this is a failsafe. Consistent timeouts or prolonged response times should not occur frequently or persistently.

Performance Testing and Scalability

Conduct thorough performance testing on production servers and endpoints to ensure they can scale with the number of hotels connected in production. SiteConnect may push large amounts of data, such as up to 750 days' worth of Availability, Restrictions, and Rates, within a short period. This data load can be significant, especially when multiple properties go live simultaneously or push large updates. Additionally, SiteConnect operates on a set update period, meaning the connection must always be able to accept updates for the agreed period (e.g., up to 365 days from the current day) at all times.

Timezone Considerations

Ensure hotels are informed about any necessary timezone settings within the Booking Channel extranet. SiteConnect pushes Availability, Restrictions, and Rates based on the hotel's local timezone as configured in the Channel Manager, with server timestamps set to GMT for EMEA and AEST/AEDT for APAC. Consider these timezone settings when accepting Availability, Restrictions, and Rates push updates to avoid conflicts during message processing.

Multiplicity (M)

In the Specification tables M refers to the number of instances or occurrences of an element or attribute that are allowed or required in a given context. It defines how many times a particular component (element or attribute) can appear within a specific structure.

M	Definition
1	The element or attribute must be present exactly once.
0..1	The element or attribute is optional; it can be present zero or one time.
0..n	The element or attribute can be present zero or more times, with no upper limit (where n represents an infinite number of occurrences).
1..n	The element or attribute must be present at least once and can be present any number of times, with no upper limit.
n..m	Specific range, the element or attribute must be present at least n times and no more than m times (where n and m are specific numbers).

Help Centre

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• Video: Connect, map and enable a channel

Integration Requirements

Message Structure

Error Handling