Search Order Preference:  System Configuration/Company/Rotation Periods

Rotations Periods and Search Order Preference go hand in hand.

Here is a list of all the Search Order Preferences:

1. Featured Property (internal to the system, always first)

2. Number of Days Reserved

3. Price (Highest to Lowest)

4. Location

5. Property Name

The "Featured Property" search order preference is internal to the system and cannot be set at a user level.  

This setting is utilized when a property is configured as a "Featured Property."  You can set this configuration in Properties/Manage Properties/Misc/Feature Property Check box.  Setting this flag will place your property at the top of the list when a user makes a new reservation (This is only for Short Terms and Seasonals).

Search Order Preferences 2-5 can be arranged to the liking of your own business practice. 

The thing to note about the search order preference is when you have a set of properties that all have "Number of Days Rented" = 2 days, since the number of days are the same, the search order preference must look at the next hierarchy of Search Order Preferences

Example: 

Search Dates 4/15/2008 - 4/22/2008.

Properties returned:

Property 5

Property 2

Property 3

If "Number of Days Rented" for all three properties is 2, then the search order would then use "Price" Highest to Lowest to order the properties.

At this point your probably asking how does this relate to Rotation Periods.  The question here is how are the Number of Days Rented calculated?

It is best to describe Rotation Periods with an example, so lets continuing from above with the dates 4/15/2008 - 4/22/2008.  To calculate the "Number of Days Reserved" the system uses the Rotation Periods setup based on the Start Date you have selected (4/15/2008).  So say I have the following Rotation Periods configuration:

Spring 3/15/2008 - 5/15/2008

Summer 5/16/2008 - 8/15/2008

etc.

The system look at ALL reservations between our rotation period.  So any reservation occupying a property between the Spring Rotation Period dates will be considered in the Number of Days Reserved count.  Then it will order those properties from Least amount of days reserved to greatest amount of days reserved.

If you have further questions in reference to this topic, please contact VRM and we would be glad to further assist you.

Date time frame used when a user attempts to search for a new reservation