The Timeline is a graphical display of all bookings in a selected time interval, organized primarily by space type and secondly by space number within that space type. On the Timeline, you can zoom in and out to view more or less data. This is useful not only to display a greater number of bookings simultaneously but also to optimize usage on mobile devices. It provides a visual representation of all activities related to reservations that happen within your property. This helps you provide better customer service and ensures a smooth check-in and check-out process.  

To view the Timeline, in Mews Operations,

• click the  Timeline icon on the Dashboard, or
• go to the main menu  > Reservations > Timeline.

In this article, you can learn about:

• Timeline features
  • Reservation status colors
  • Housekeeping status colors
  • Filters
    • House use booking
      • To create a house use booking
• Timeline data
  • Spaces
  • Reservations
  • Calendar events
• Timeline management
  • Move
    • Overbookings
  • Lock or unlock
  • Create a reservation
• Stay settings and the Timeline
  • To view or edit your settings
    • Reservation assignment strategy
    • Availability calculation strategy
• Occupancy overview using the Timeline

Here, you can view a detailed description of all the features, filters, and data available on the Timeline and how best you can use them. 

Timeline Features 

The reservation status and housekeeping status colors in the Timeline are more vibrant, to help you distinguish between the different statuses.  

Reservation status colors

• Orange: Reservations that require urgent action, such as no shows or expired options, such as a missed check-in or check-out.
• Blue: Reservations that require action today. They are either bookings that you need to check in or check out by the end of the day. If a guest completes their online check ins on the day of their arrival, the reservation status is blue.
• Dark grey: In-house reservations, do not require action today. They are already checked in and have a check-out date that is later than today.
• Yellow: Reservations that indicate out-of-order spaces. An out-of-order space is no longer available for sale.
• Light grey: Reservations that are either in the past or future and do not overlap with today, thus do not require action today. House use bookings are indicated in purple.
• Green: Reservations that have completed online check-in at least 1 day before their arrival date.
• Dashed line: Optional reservations that are unconfirmed or have not reached their release date.

Housekeeping status colors

• Yellow: Out-of-order space, a long-term action.
• Red: Out-of-service space, an urgent action, you cannot check-in a guest in the space.
• Orange: Dirty space, needs attention but not an urgent action.
• Green: Inspected space, a completed action.
• Blue: Clean space, an actionable item waiting for completion.

Filters

At the top of the Timeline, Mews provides with a few different filters:

• Arrows: Click the double arrows to move the Timeline forward or back one month. Single arrows move the Timeline forward or back one week.
• Today: Clicking on always takes you back to today's date, which Mews always highlights in blue on the Timeline.
• Optimize space allocation: This feature is only available for Enterprise packages and functions only in Hourly and Daily view. Click  to automatically consolidate your reservations for a clear overview of availability. Click here to learn more.  
• Search space: Type in the to search by:
  • the name of your space categories, or
  • the space number, to view spaces with criteria matching your search terms.

The Timeline automatically scrolls to the first matching term and the search highlights the results in grey.  The search bar indicates if there are multiple matching results containing the same name. For quicker navigation, you can use the icons in the search bar  to move to the next or previous result.

• Select date: Use the to go to a specific date.

• Select time unit: Click on the drop-down menu to select the time unit to display. You can choose:

  • Hours: To view reservations in an hourly format.
  • Days: To view daily reservations, or
  • Months: To get a monthly overview of your reservations. Note: In the Months view, you can view all your reservations booked per day, night, or month.

• Select Timeline view:  Click on this drop-down menu to zoom in and out on the Timeline. Select from Default, Comfortable, and Compact to choose how many reservations you want to see at once.
   

On the top right side of the Timeline, click on Filter icon to see the following filters:

• Select service: Choose from the bookable services that you have set for your property. For example, Stay, Day use, Parking, Office etc. Note: Only those bookable services that are configured and enabled for your property are visible here. You can learn about creating more bookable services here.
• Floor: Choose which floor or floors you would like to view.
• Space feature: Choose from the features your property offers. For example, Balcony, Sea view, Garden facing.
• Space category: Choose from the space types that you have set for your property.

House use booking

Use the House use icon to block spaces for internal use. You can use 'House use' bookings to block spaces for internal use, such as to create reservations for your property's employees or management.

Note: House use bookings block spaces from your sales, but do not impact your average rate and occupancy data, as you use the space for internal purposes. Hence, you should use House use reservations sparingly so as not to interfere with your revenue. 

To create a house use booking

1. Go to the Timeline and click on the House use icon. 
2. In a new window, you can see the following fields to complete:
   • Block Name: Enter a brief description to display in the reservation block.
   • Assigned space: From the drop-down list, select the space that you'd like to book.
   • Start: Date and time that house use booking should begin.
   • End: Date and time that house use booking should end.
   • Notes: Any additional notes or information that you want to include.
3. Click Create, and Mews redirects you to the Timeline where you can see the reservation block.

To undo the action and remove a house use booking, open the reservation and click  Delete on the top right of the screen. You can learn more about removing a house use reservation in Mews Operations here. 

Timeline data

Spaces

The far left column on the Timeline contains a list of your space categories.

• As you zoom in and out, you may notice the use of 'Short names' here due to limited space.
• Within each of these space categories, you can see all corresponding space names or numbers, each with its own row. Mews also displays space numbers in the corresponding space status color for easy identification.
• If any spaces contain other spaces within them, for example, a dorm with multiple beds or a co-working space with multiple desk spaces, the Timeline represents even them, as Mews gives each subsequent space its own row on the Timeline.
• All space numbers are clickable and are a direct link to the corresponding space properties page for each.
  • The space properties page for each one contains all details regarding the status of that space.
    • From this screen, you can quickly change the status of the space to Dirty, Clean, Inspected, Out of service, or Out of order.
    • You can also find a summary of any recent out of order blocks. To view any recent space status changes select the ‘All’ button. This opens the space state change action log.

Reservations

Bookings appear as blocks on the Timeline, which occupy a period of time that corresponds with the length of the booking.

• The Timeline space blocks all accurately represent both arrival and departure times for each booking and Mews always displays them in the appropriate action color.
  • The Timeline displays each booking with the name of the reservation owner in Last name, First name format.
  • If you assign the customer any Customer classifications, you can also see those corresponding icons just after the customer's name.
• When you click on any booking, a "Smart detail window " with reservation details opens.
  • From this screen, you can select the Manage or Group buttons located at the bottom of the window to open the Reservations management screen, or
  • Use the applicable action button to check in or check out that booking.
  • View an AI-generated summary of any guest’s preferences, past and upcoming stays and special requests. Note: This is only available for properties with a Pro or Enterprise subscription. 
  • Within the Smart detail window, you can click on the  Profile icon for a direct link to that customer's profile, where you can manage any of their personal details as necessary.

Note:

• A  icon may appear before the name of the customer, which indicates that the reservation is for a female guest who has a reservation for one single bed in a dormitory or multi-bed space. This feature is very useful for hostels that promote all-female dormitory spaces.
• A  Lock icon before the customer's name indicates a locked booking and you cannot move or upgrade it. Click here for a full description of managing reservations on the Timeline. 
• A  Group icon on the booking indicates that the reservation is a group booking, or that it is friends and family of hotel staff. 
• A  Returning icon on the booking indicates that the reservation is a returning customer. The number inside the icon shows the total number of previous stays at your chain or individual property.
• An  Upgraded icon on the booking indicates a reservation upgraded from a lower category. 

Timeline management

Move

Click on and drag-and-drop any unlocked reservation blocks to move them across the Timeline. You can use this method to update reservations to a higher space category.

• After you drag-and-drop a booking into a higher category, an upward arrow icon appears on the reservation block in front of the customer's name, indicating an upgrade of the booking. 
  • If you do not lock the booking after you upgrade it, the system may try to move it back down to the originally booked space category for revenue optimization.
    • To prevent this from happening, Mews recommends you change the space category in the Reservations management screen under the Properties tab.
• The Timeline does not allow downgrading reservations to a lower category using drag-and-drop, which is helpful for preventing accidental downgrades.
  • If you do wish to downgrade a space category, you have to do this manually in the Reservations management screen under the Properties tab.
• If you move one unlocked reservation block and then drop it on top of another, the system automatically tries to reassign the booking that was previously in that slot.
  • If there is no other suitable space, Mews places that booking into an overbooking slot.
    • Once Mews places a booking into the overbooking slot, you have to manually move it to a suitable space allocation. Find more information about overbookings below.

Overbookings

When you create new bookings, Mews automatically allots them a space on the Timeline.

• If a property overbooks a category, meaning if they create more bookings than the number of spaces available, the system automatically creates overbooking slots in which it places that reservation until the property is able to resolve the conflict.
• Mews displays these slots in red, indicating that urgent action is necessary, and uses 'overbookings' as temporary placeholders for bookings not yet moved to an available space.

You can resolve overbookings by moving the reservation block from the overbooking slot to a vacant space, which then automatically removes that overbooking slot from the Timeline.
 

Lock or unlock

When you select a reservation on the Timeline, all booking information appears in the Smart detail window on the right. Within this window, you can find a Lock icon, which you can use to lock or unlock this booking from being edited.

• Locking the reservation means that you can no longer move the booking.
• You primarily use the lock spaces feature to prevent employees from accidentally moving any reservations.
  • You may want to lock a booking for various reasons, for example, if a returning guest specifically requests their assigned space.
• Mews automatically unlocks bookings only in the case where you edit arrival or departure dates. Therefore, it is important to lock the reservation again after editing these booking details, to prevent someone from moving it.

Create a reservation

Creating reservations from the Timeline lets you book services for your guests while viewing availability. You can create reservations within the Timeline view based on the service’s time unit: 

• Day/Night services: Use the day view. 
• Hourly services: Use the hourly view. 

You can learn more about creating reservations directly from the Timeline here. 

Stay settings and the Timeline

You can configure some stay settings to manage your hotel’s inventory and correctly show bookings on the Timeline. 

To view or edit your stay settings

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu  > Settings > Services > Bookable services.
2. In the General settings section you can see the following options relevant to the Timeline. 

Reservation assignment strategy

Choose how Mews assigns new reservations: 

• Bottom up: Mews assigns new reservations starting with lower space numbers first.
• Top down: Mews assigns new reservations starting with higher space numbers first.
• Random: Mews assigns spaces at random, ensuring that all spaces receive the same number of bookings. Note: If you have a lot of business travelers, we recommend against this setting, as it spreads groups all over the hotel.

Availability calculation strategy

Choose how overbookings impact your availability: 

• Diffusive: Mews transfers overbookings to your lowest available space category and those numbers would automatically reflect in your availability calculation system wide.
• Discrete: To prevent overbookings from affecting the vacancy of any space types that you did not select originally.

Occupancy overview using the Timeline

Click on  and choose a bookable service that you want to check the occupancy for, for example, Stay, in the Select service filter and choose 'Month' in the Select view filter.  

You can now see a general overview of your reservations booked per day, night, or month in a monthly view. You can also see reservations for up to ten months.

• For long-stay services, this gives you a quick overview of the gaps in occupancy at your property for any particular month.
• This helps you plan your promotions or special offers to create business opportunities in those periods of low occupancy.