The Mitel Connected Guest’s iLink product module provides Loop with a generalized integration path to a hotel PMS (Property Management System).

About iLink

The Connected Guest iLink product supports integrations with over 60 PMS types/vendors. iLink is a software module, typically deployed within iCharge, iConnect and certain other products in the Connected Guest Connected Guest Portfolio. iLink is deployed as either on on-premise, a cloud service or a cloud service with a small on-premise connector.

Loop Integration

The Loop-iLink integration facilitates API-based interactions between Loop and the hotel PMS. The predominant tie-in is the simple retrieval of guest record and stay information including check-in events. The diagram below captures this exchange:

Of the Interaction Stories proposed for Loop-PMS integrations, those available through Connected Guest include:

• Guest Loop Invitation on Check-in Event (see page 4)
• Guest Detail Lookup on New Loop (see page 5)

Additional interaction stories coming soon:

• Guest Detail Refresh (see page 8)
• Guest Detail Lookup on Staff Loop Create

Guest Invitation on Check-In Event

Interaction Story Summary

On arrival of a guest, a ‘check-in event’ is generated by the hotel PMS and sent through iLink to Loop. Loop catalogues the guest record locally and then delivers a templated (with smart fields) email or text message to the guest:

The system will send an email if the guest has an email address attached to their profile. It will send a SMS text if the guest has a phone number attached to their profile.

Loop does not detect ‘landline’ numbers – all phone numbers received will be treated as SMS-ready. The guest will receive both an email and text if both numbers are included. An optional time delay can be configured (e.g. 15 minutes to allow the guest time to ‘get settled’).

Supported PMS Systems

All LFI integrations support this integration story.

Guest Detail Lookup on Loop

Interaction Story Summary

On arrival of a guest, a ‘check-in event’ is sent from the hotel PMS through iLink to Loop. Loop catalogues the guest record locally:

On creation of a new Conversation, guest information is loaded from the local store based on room number and optionally phone or email matching. If matched, a link is created between the Loop user and guest record. The newly linked guest information is made available to Team Members through the UI for their convenience and to better engage the guest through Loop.

Presenting guest information through Loop avoids ‘swivel chairing’ (where the associate would note the room number, open the PMS, search using the room number for the guest name, and returns to Loop to interact).

Catalogued Information

Guest information cataloged by Loop based on check-in events includes:

Guest first name	Check-in date	Room number
Guest last name	Check-out date	Guest ID number
Guest mobile number	Checked-in status	Group name
Guest email address	VIP status

 

Matching Guest Records

A new Conversation includes a room number and either a phone number or email address provided by the guest. The catalogued guest information contains room and optionally contact information.
If for a given guest record contact information is present, a strong match is made automatically.
If for a given guest record contact information is not present (e.g. was never collected during hotel booking or check-in), Loop cannot strongly confirm the identity of the guest an a workflow is presented to associate users via the Inbox to confirm the guest’s identity and optionally link the loop guest to the hotel record, or
otherwise ignore the match. Both are detailed below.

With Room AND Contact Information

In the case the guest opens a loop and provides their room number and contact information:

1. Room number is used to pull the guest record.
2. Contact information is verified against the guest record.
   a. If verified, guest information is linked and displayed to Loop Team Member.
   b. If not verified, the manual linking process is initiated.

With Room ONLY

In the case the guest opens a loop and provides their room number only:

1. Room number is used to pull the guest record.
2. The manual linking process is initiated.

Supported PMS Systems

All LFI integrations support this integration story.

Administration

Configuring Fields & Invitations

Configuring Invitation Template

First, configure one or more ‘Invitation’ type templates in the Loop Admin pages:

 Please note: Unlike the CSV Invitation workflow, automated check-in invitation will not have access to various custom fields provided via CSV import file. The fields available to automatic invites are limited to the following (* values as provided by the hotel PMS system via Connected Guest):

• Location
• Guest email address*
• Guest mobile number*
• Guest name*
• Guest room number*
• Arrival date*
• Departure date*

The configured invitation template can be managed from the templates list:

Configure Scheduled Task

Next, configure a “Send Invitation” scheduled task:

Select the corresponding invitation template to use:

If desired, set a delay for the message (e.g. allow the guest 15 minutes to ‘get settled’ before sending the
welcome message):

Loop supports sending automated invitation immediately upon check-in. Provide “0” for the offset value to
enable this behaviour.

Configure the Connected Guest Link

Loop admin configuration for all Connected Guest integrations, when enabled on the account, is as follows:

Multiple Connected Guest servers may be configured:

 

Per Connected Guest server, Loop locations are mapped to Connected Guest ‘Sites’:

Where:

• URL for Connected Guest: A URL that we provide to the Connected Guest server to contact Loop at. The suffix is randomly generated. It can be edited, but these need to be unique across all accounts, so you might not be able to get the suffix you want.
• Connected Guest Server URL: The URL we should contact Connected Guest at for a refresh.
• wsuserkey: The secret key that Connected Guest will send us to authenticate requests. Provided by Connected Guest.
• Site to Location Mapping: Enables mapping of the "site" sent by Connected Guest to a Loop location. If your Connected Guest server is not multi-tenanted, then you need to leave the "site" field on the left hand side blank and provide a location. The UI currently only lets you map locations from the current account.

Note: iLink processes all requests asynchronously. Loop maintains a local copy of all necessary information to fulfil these integration and linking steps. 

Multi-site Configuration

With multiple Loop Accounts (shown below, left), multiple iLink instances (shown below, middle) and multiple hotel PMSs (shown below, right), Loop can support the following configurations:

Mapping between iLink ‘location ids’ and Loop locations is completed in Loop’s admin pages (shown previously).

Supported PMS Systems

Connected Guest’s iLink product (V6, released August 2015) supports integration to over 60 PMS systems,
however, not all PMS systems provide a full API for all Loop use-cases. Based on Benbria’s first-hand experience,PMS system integrations are categorized into the following three levels:

1. Loop-Full Integration (LFI) - Have been verified by Benbria to fully support all Connected Guest integration stories.
2. Loop-Limited Integration (LLI) - Have been verified by Benbria to only partially support the Connected Guest integration stories. Please see integration story for detail. A LLI integration story will either be missing certain data (e.g. missing guest phone/email on lookup) or missing certain integration stories (e.g. guest detail lookup not supported).
3. Loop-Basic Integration (LBI) - Have not been verified by Benbria. Such PMS will support the following fields as a minimum: Guest name, Room number, Check-in date, Check-out date.

Data & Use-case Support

The following table highlights Loop’s support for certain PMS fields and use-cases based on the level of
integration supported: