UC Hospitality Setup and Administration

UC Hospitality is a powerful cloud-based UCaaS solution designed specifically for the hospitality industry. Our solution provides hotels and resorts with a comprehensive suite of communication tools that enable them to communicate more effectively with guests and staff and manage their operations more efficiently. Our easy deployment, management, and scalability enable streamlined communication with guests and staff, enhancing the guest experience and improving overall operations. 

 UC Hospitality can seamlessly integrate with many existing property management systems, allowing for a streamlined workflow and reducing the risk of errors.   Our Enhanced unified communication capabilities provide a wide range of communication tools, including voice, SMS messaging, video conferencing, messaging, and more, enabling hospitality industry clients to communicate with guests, colleagues, and vendors easily. This multi-tenant single pane of glass provides an interface to manage communication services from one central platform, simplifying the management process.

The solution has powerful call center capabilities, efficiently managing high call volumes. Reporting tools provide valuable insights into call traffic, volume, and wait times, enabling data-driven decisions to optimize operations and improve the guest experience. UC Hospitality is fully managed, eliminating the need for infrastructure expertise. We offer a Centralized platform, software updates, and rolling upgrades to ensure zero downtime, so you always have the latest features and improvements. No more forklift upgrades and the associated downtime and learning curves.

The Administrative and Front Desk GUI, Including Hotel Self-Management, provides a user-friendly interface that simplifies the management of hotel communication services. This feature lets you easily manage your communication services, monitor usage, and troubleshoot issues. The screenshots below demonstrate specific hospitality industry functionality.

The Hotel Page

The Hotel page controls many of the defaults that will apply system-wide and the Serial Box if in use. Tabs include:

Permissions

Set calling permissions for guests and set what permissions staff can offer guests.

Cleaning Codes

Set the cleaning code numbers and description and defaults upon check-in/check-out. This is required. 

When a guest checks out, the housekeeping staff will use the phone in the guest room to inform the property management system when the room is done being cleaned and ready for new guests. These codes, sometimes called status codes, can be defined here so they reflect correctly in the Browser Console. 

The hotel must set a label for each cleaning code it wants to use. If these are not set, the system will say that room status codes are unavailable when *2 is dialled.

There are no universal defaults for cleaning codes, which will often differ even among hotels with the same PMS system. A best practice is to work with the housekeeping staff to determine the codes. The Template option enables you to create a template of these settings to apply to future sites that you install.

Dial Plan

Add extension translations for things like the operator call group. This is used when analog phones have hard-coded speed dial buttons that do not dial 0 or other common extensions.

This page allows additional extensions to be created for any existing extension. It is most commonly used to create extensions for the operator call group based on analog phones' hard-coded speed dials. 

Examples: guest room phones dial *50 for the operator

Add / Edit

This is the number dialled by the analog phone or extra extension that needs to exist.

The location where the call will be routed with the Dialed Number is called.

These optional notes allow tracking of why a dial plan was created or what phones they support.

Drop-in Messages

Here, messages can be set up that staff can easily drop into a guest's voicemail box. These messages are an optional way for hotel staff to communicate with guests. If the hotel staff frequently leaves the same message for guests, then drop-in messages should be considered a way to reduce staff labour and ensure a high-quality message every time. These messages are pre-canned voicemail messages that hotel staff can quickly set to drop into guests' voicemail boxes. For example, "You have a package waiting for you at the front desk."

Setup TTS Voice 

This button allows the selection of a voice to be used for all text-to-speech drop-in messages.

Add Drop-in Message

A simple name for the message. This name is presented to the hotel staff, so it should be easy to understand.

Set Message

Clicking this button will allow a new message to be created using text-to-speech or uploading a message from local storage (i.e. your computer). 

Always play any text-to-speech messages to ensure correct pronunciation and timing. 

Deleting Drop-in Messages

 Clicking the Clear button will delete the text-to-speech message.

Web Console

This controls who has and does not have access to the UC Hospitality Browser Console and what options are provided to hotel staff.

Show Checkin: Should the browser console allow users to check in/out guests.
Show Move Room: Should the borwser console allow users to move a guest to another Room
Show Room Status:  Should the browser console display room status.
Show Call Billing: Should the browser console display guest call billing data and reports.
Restrict Login by IP:This is a whitelist not a black list of IP addresses. Thus if you enter the IP 1.2.3.4 then only people accessing the browser console from 1.2.3.4 will be allowed to log in, all others will be blocked from logging in.  Because the UC Hospitality Browser Console is a shared URL for all hotels a user will be able to see the login screen from an IP not on the whitelist, however they will be blocked from logging in.
Users Exclueded From IP Restriction:  Any users listed here will be allowed to log in from any IP, even if the above restrict login feature is in use.
Localization:  You have the ability to set language and other localized settings.

Wake-up Call

This allows the setup of extensions for guests and staff to set up wake-up calls. Here, extensions for guest and admin wake-up call setup can be defined, along with the users with permissions to set up wake-up calls.

Add / Edit Wakeup Calls

Dialplan for Guest to set Wake-up: Sets the extension that guests can dial to setup wakeup calls.Open image-20230613-175537.png
Dialplan to Set Wake-up Call for a Guest (e.g. Front Desk): Sets the extension that staff can dial to setup Wake-up Calls.
Users with Permission to set Guest Wake-up Call:  Hotel staff must have permission to setup wakeup calls via a phone call. To grant that permission list the users here.
Wake-up Call Prompt Message: Set default prompt message.

Timeframe

The feature is being redesigned; more info to come.

PMS (Property Management System) Setup

If a Serial Box is used, its MAC address is added here. This page will also display if the device is online.

Name: A name for the device, normally “Serial Box”.
MAC: Enter the MAC address of the serial box without colons.
Site:  If you are in a dual brand situation you can select the site here.

You can set up the PMS by selecting it from the drop-down menu, adding credentials, and associating the device with a unique property identifier.

Serial Logs

 This page displays the Serial Box's logs for troubleshooting. It will also display the logs of any attached Serial Devices for debugging and troubleshooting purposes. There is a date filter, but there is nothing to add or edit on this page.

Call Accounting

 Sets billing rates on outbound calls.

Call Accounting : Allows the setup of rate tables for outbound calls from guests. Call accounting must be enabled to work.
Rule Options	0-9: Any single digit x: Any dingle digit ?: Allows the proceeding digit to be dialed or not (i.e. 1?xxxxxxxxxx will allow 10 digit dialing with or without the leading 1) *: Any digit, unlimited length
Default Rules: Click the Default Rules button to begin the process.	Select from Local, International, and NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administrator). Local: Uses the hotels main number to automatically define what is a local call from that area. This feature saves a lot of setup time and hassle. Adding the default Local rules will add several hundred rules. International: Basic 011 rule Long Distance: Basic 1?xxxxxxxxxx rule

Call Center Features

Reporting - Queue Stats   Review queue performance Volume Calls Handled Average Talk Time Calls Handled Calls Offered Calls Forwarded Average Hold Time Service Level Abandoned (adjusted/total/rate) Average Wait Time Average Handle Time

Agents: Equip your call center with skilled agents who can efficiently handle customer inquiries and provide excellent service.

Attended Console: With our intuitive attended console, supervisors can gain full control over call management and seamlessly monitor and assist agents.

Call Announcement: Keep your team informed with call announcements, ensuring smooth call transfers and minimizing customer wait times.

Call Dispositions: Easily categorize and track call outcomes with our call disposition feature, enabling you to analyze and improve customer interactions.

Monitor, Whisper, and Barge: Real-time monitoring, whispering, and barging functionalities enhance agent performance and training.

Queue Call Back: Offer your callers the convenience of a callback option, reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction.

Real-Time Wall Boards: Monitor call center performance at a glance with real-time wall boards displaying key metrics and statistics.

Skill-Based Routing: To optimize customer service levels and ensure calls are directed to the most suitable agents based on their skills and expertise.

Time of the Day, Day of the Week Reporting: Comprehensive reporting based on specific timeframes provides insight into call patterns and trends.

Call Queues: Efficiently manage incoming calls with unlimited call queues, ensuring every customer is promptly attended to.

Wait Time Announcement: Keep your callers informed about estimated wait times, reducing frustration and enhancing their experience.

Hosted Voice Benefits

Lower startup costs and monthly savings

There is no PBX or phone system equipment to buy or lease, no maintenance contracts, and no fees for account changes. All you need are IP phones and a voice gateway.

Work smarter with advanced features.

Flexible features save time and improve communication with customers and 
colleagues. Easy-to-use features include web management for easy administration, visual voicemail, find me/follow me, and many more, listed below.

• One flat rate monthly bill.
• UC Hospitality comes with unlimited nationwide long-distance. 
• Our SIP trunk offering eliminates the surprise of fluctuating long-distance bills, and the monthly bill is typically much lower than most carriers. 

UC Hospitality Capabilities

Web Managament Portal The web management portal allows management of all the options and specific features of your business phone system. Some of the features include: voicemail, complete call history, call forward management, and much more.	Advanced Call Routing Advanced call routing allows incoming calls to be forwarded to multiple destinations so you can ring your cell phone, business phone, or even your home phone.
Auto Attendant An auto attendant greets your caller with a customized greeting allowing them to choose options based on their needs.	Music and Messages on Hold Play custom hold music or create a unique marketing message with special offers and notifications. On hold music can be changed at any time using the web management portal.
Visual Voicemail (Voicemail to Email) Voicemail can be delivered directly to your email inbox allowing management of voicemail like regular email.   Voicemail Transcription: Enables or disables voicemail transcription.   Options:Send email when mailbox is full: Notifies the user via email when their inbox is full. Send email after missed call: Sends the user a notification when they miss a call even if no voicemail is left.	Time Based Call Routing and Greetings Route calls or play a custom greeting based on the time of day or holiday.
HD Voice HD Voice delivers call quality that has to be heard to be believed. HD Voice allows users to hold conversations as if they were sitting right across the table from one another.	Toll-Free and Local Phone Numbers Choose a toll free and/or a local number to ring your phone system or we’ll port your current number. Add additional numbers to give a multi-city appearance.
Multi-Site Enjoy the same features and the same 3 digit dialing at each of your sites. Calling someone in another site is as easy as calling someone in your own site.   Sites are used for a dual brand hotel setup. Users will rarely be assigned to a site, but rooms commonly are.	Mobile Integration Take full advantage of the phone system from anywhere.