Connecting a front-desk system is what turns a Wi-Fi sign-in into two fields instead of a form. It reads who is staying and until when, and nothing else — no rates, no folio, no card details. A page each below, so the property can read what is involved before the site visit rather than during it.
Five with a connector of their own, and one route for everything else. The difference that matters most between them is not the setup — it is how quickly each one tells us a guest has arrived.
Connected out of the box, and the only system here that tells us about a guest as it happens instead of waiting to be asked.
Through OHIP. The most demanding of these to set up, and the one where two easily confused credentials are both required on every call.
Through the Connector API, on a token the property generates itself. A reservation with no surname on it is a guest who cannot sign in.
One key, and the checked-in list read to the end rather than a first page — otherwise the rooms above 200 quietly fail.
Through protel I/O, at the address of your own endpoint. protel Air and an on-premise protel are not in the same place.
A URL, how to authenticate, and which field means what. There is no release of ours to wait for — and most independent properties run something regional that will never justify a connector of its own.
Resort Manager sends each arrival, room move and departure at the moment it is entered, and can re-send the whole in-house list at any time. A receptionist's change reaches the sign-in page immediately.
Every other system here is polled, because none of them will call an address a hotel chooses. So we ask instead — every five minutes out of the box, and as often as every minute if that is what the property wants. In practice a guest checked in at ten past is signing in by quarter past, which nobody standing in a lobby notices. It is worth being straight about all the same.
The full argument for hotels → · And the Wi-Fi half of the job →
The front-desk system, how many rooms, and what Wi-Fi equipment is in the building. That is enough for a straight answer.
