We can’t overstate how important the planning process is: If you don’t have a viable plan that corresponds to the type of outage your property is actually experiencing, then Parts 2 and 3 won’t matter much to you. Here in Part 2 we’ll cover the operational aspects of an unexpected systems outage.
Keep in mind that your contingency operations plan must account for different kinds and durations of outages. Planned maintenance for four hours is a different kind of problem to prepare for than losing the server room to fire or flood.
Working around cloud-based systems outages is different than losing your premise-based systems. One system failing is different than losing all power to the campus, perhaps due to a hurricane, earthquake, or other natural disaster. Your plan, which should be unique to each hotel, needs to accommodate the full range of possible outage types. Another important point to reinforce from Part 1 is that contingency operations plans need to be created, maintained, and owned by the operating departments. Front Office, Housekeeping, Accounting and Food and Beverage (F&B) have to execute the plan, so they need to own it. Information Technology (IT) isn’t responsible for the planning and execution, but rather for the restoration of normal operations as quickly and reliably as possible.
WORKING THE PLAN
So. Your PMS is down for whatever reason. You might not know why it’s down or how long it’s likely to be down. But since you took Part 1 of this series to heart, you have a plan in place and are equipped with timely back-up reports and have crash kits located in key operating areas. As noted in Part 1, these reports include a guest list sorted by room and a guest list sorted by name. Each list should encompass in-house, expected, and departed guests. Either or both should include key information like arrival/departure dates, room rate, rate plan, group/package codes, folio balances, number of guests, and any special service codes.
You also need a contingency report that shows the current and future housekeeping status of every room: occupied/vacant; dirty/clean, expected departure, blocked for arrival, etc. Your regularly scheduled set of backup reports will likely contain more reports (future reservations, future availability, OOO, credit balance, etc.), but these would be the minimum to maintain operations for a day or two.
Your crash kits should contain paper registration cards, carbonless duplicate paper, miscellaneous charge slips, etc. You’ll also need printed copies of various spreadsheet forms you’ve prepared in advance. Since you can’t assume you’ll have access to shared drives, computers, and printers, you’ll need hard copies. If you can work on a laptop and print things out as needed, that’ll simplify the downtime operations exercise immensely.
At a minimum, these forms should include cashiers’ reports, a room status ledger, and room attendant assignment sheets. You’ll want two versions of the room status ledger: one for the front office with names, dates, and rates and a second version for housekeeping that focuses on room status. A guest list by name might be useful, as would cashier’s reports for F&B outlets.
WHERE TO START
The first thing to do when you realize the system isn’t coming right back up is to appoint a person or team (depending on the size of the hotel and the business levels) to manage room status updates. You can think of this role as analogous to the rack clerk role that was common in hotels before automation. This person controls who gets checked into what room. They need to be in constant communication with housekeeping to keep the two room status ledgers synchronized.
The front office version might look something like this, with the start status capturedfrom the last housekeeping status report from your backup reports:
Whereas the housekeeping version might read:
While the rack clerk(s) are getting organized, the front desk needs to prepare for checkins and checkouts. If the downtime begins in the morning, the first task is preparing for theremaining checkouts. If it starts in the afternoon or evening, focus on arrivals.
Checkouts:
For checkouts, use carbonless dupe paper from the crash kit to prepare folios with the beginning balance and room rate from the backup reports. File these at the front desk by room number. As F&B charges are carried or called in from outlets, add these charges to the running balance and refile. Just record lump sums and ignore breaking it down by food, beverage, tax and tip. When someone actually checks out, record the card number and amount on the folio, give the guest one copy and reserve the other for use in creating a cashier’s report later. Tell the rack clerk the room is vacant. Shred and secure folios with card numbers post-recovery.
Checkins:
To prepare for check-ins, create registration cards for expected arrivals. Coordinate with the rack clerk to block rooms for specific requirements. The rack clerk should communicate blocked room assignments to housekeeping for prioritization.
As guests arrive, the rack clerk should give assignments to the front desk and update the room status ledger with check-in information. The front desk agent will then create a folio and file the registration card and folio by room number. And they should note arrival times on the registration card to support recovery.
Night Audit:
If the outage extends into a night audit cycle, you’ll need to assign team members to update the folios with room and tax positing. At some point, top management should determine if they need to manually compile some form of daily revenue report from the folios or if it’s better to wait for the system to be restored, go through the recovery process, and let it catch up and generate reports from there. And that’s a good segue to Part 3, the recovery phase of contingency operations. Look for it in the next issue of Hospitality Upgrade.
