User Profiles? What's this all about then?
User Profiles are new to Jomres 9.20, they are designed to make it easier for property managers/hosts to get a feel for their guests and is particularly useful to those managers who want to approve bookings manually instead of automatically accepting bookings (Booking Enquiries plugin required for that functionality).
Previous to this version, guests were created as registered users in the CMS, and they could create reviews for properties. Their account information was used to automatically populate booking forms, but other than that their profile information was unused.
In 9.20 I have expanded the functionality of Jomres to allow Guest and Hosts/Property Managers to add more information to their Edit Account page.
This information comes in two flavours, public and private.
Public information includes their name, the region (county/state) and the country they live in, and a new About Me section. The About Me section supports simple Markup (hint button on the page gives them advice on what to use) and gives them the opportunity to describe themselves in more detail.
Private information includes more detailed address information, including an email address (doesn't need to be the same as the registered user's email address), contact details plus some private information that they can choose to enter which will give hosts more confidence that the user is legitimate if the user chooses to enter it.
It also includes a new Special Requirements field. This information is used on the Booking Confirmation page and pre-fills the Special Requirements section on behalf of the guest, although that can be changed on that page if required. Any change is specific to the booking and the change is not reflected back to the user's profile.
A new menu option in the Jomres main menu appears under the Edit Account link, and is titled "My Profile" and this allows the Guest/Host to view their profile information.
In this screenshot I am a super property manager viewing my own information :
This is the same view, but because I'm not logged in I don't see the private information
The view is the same for registered, logged in users who are not that user.
Underneath the basic profile information more information will appear, depending on what information is available in the system.
In this screenshot you can see the profile of Manager Jones (a normal manager/host in Jomres) with his properties listed underneath. If the profile being viewed is a super property manager then no properties are shown because the list would potentially run into the thousands.
If you want to change the order that list items are displayed (because, for example, you have normal property managers with lots of properties) then you could edit this template file and move the {HOST_PROPERTIES} part underneath {HOST_REVIEWS}, for example.
Underneath that you can see the reviews that the user has left for individual properties. If you're a host/property manager you might want to use this to judge, for example if the guest seems to be the right kind of person for your property. Do they prefer a spotlessly clean property, or are they more comfortable with a more rustic, shabby chic type place? As the property manager you know your own properties best and viewing the guest's reviews will give you an opportunity to judge if you and they are a good fit.
Underneath that again you will see the Host Reviews of the guest (more on that in a moment).
This is another opportunity for hosts to get a feel for their (potential) guests. What do other managers have to say about them? Were they party animals or quite as a mouse?
How can a manager/host easily see a guest's profile?
In the new version there is a link added to the List Bookings, List Invoices and List Guests pages, clicking on that link will take you to the guest's profile page.
Clicking on that link will take you to the guest's profile page, and because they are your guest you also have access to their private information.
This same information can be seen on the Reservation Details page, under the Guest tab.
How does a manager add a review of a guest?
Right now the guest review functionality is very basic. It's just text based without any scoring. I thought it best to leave it up to the reader to decide what their impressions of the guest were, based on the review text.
On the Guest List page, in the options next to each guest, there's a new option to review a guest
When the manager clicks on that link then they can leave their review
This is the information that will appear on the guest's profile page in the "What others said about me" section.
Property reviews now include a link back to the guest's profile.
Summary
The purpose of these changes is to link user's information up more clearly, and to give hosts the opportunity to provide reviews of the guests. At this time there's no way for site managers to police or score guests based on their own reviews, if there's demand for that functionality I'll certainly consider adding it.
It also gives guests the chance to say a little bit about themselves. I chose not to link users to any other CMS plugins, such as community builder because Jomres works in both Joomla and Wordpress so in this case it's better to make this functionality stand on it's own two feet. That said, there's always potential for doing that in the future, if the feature is requested by site administrators.