How to set up the Siteminder and SynXis Interface

By the end of this training article, you will be able to: 

• able to understand the configuration required for the integrated function of HART PMS 

with Siteminder

• map room types 
• map rate codes 
• link a channel to a rate plan 

Before you begin, please contact your Siteminder Support Team to setup Siteminder, inside the platform itself.  

Configuration > Reservations > Distribution  

Inside the bottom part of the window press the Start button for HART to create all channel managers. 

Code shows the code for the channel in this example its STM for Siteminder and SYN for Synxis, this is populated automatically. 

The Distribution Channel field is populated automatically and displays which channel the code belongs to.  

In Source, Segment and How Heard select the default settings your channel bookings should drop in as. 

In Profile the Email field is populated automatically. This will make the guests wizard look for existing profiles with the same email address when bookings are dropping in. However, you can change this setting per channel manager to either Guest Details or Email. 

Now go to Configuration > Access > Interfaces  

This section is password protected; you will find the section to created or change this password in configurations > access > security > financials.  

Inside the middle window select Create. This will open the following window: 

Select Siteminder or Synxis, depending on which interface you wish to create and select Create.  

Siteminder 

For Siteminder make sure the top window reads Siteminder in the Interface section, Distribution in the Type section. Alias and Unit is only to be used in accounting interfaces. 

Inside the second window you must fill in the information provided by Siteminder, this will be your SiteMinder ID, password, hotel, code.  

Please do not change the URL, Availability, Availability URL. These are standard settings for all hotels.  

Inside AutoAllocation 0 stands for no bedroom is being allocated to your bookings when dropping in, if bedrooms should be automatically allocated please change the setting to 1 and save. 

SynXis 

For Synxis make sure the top window reads Synxis in the Interface section, Distribution in the Type section.  

Inside the second window you must fill in the information provided by Synxis, this will be your platforms Username, password and hotel code.  

Please do not change the URL or Availability. These are standard settings for all hotels.  

Inside AutoAllocation 0 stands for bedroom being allocated to your bookings when dropping in, if bedrooms should be automatically allocated please change the setting to 1 and save. 

The Default Status in the above example is set to DEF, we strongly suggest that all your online bookings do drop in as definite, please do not change the setting. 

You have the option of manual adding all the lines one at the time by right click add entry, but you must make sure that the spelling of each line is exactly the same as the one in the screenshot above, or the interface will not work. 

To the right-hand side of your Siteminder and Synxis interface is a small section, this is used to add a second unit to your interface. Simply right click and add entry, fill in the Unit and Hotel Code as provide by your channel manager. 

Now go to Sales > Rate Plans and select the rate plan you would like to link to 

SiteMinder or Synxis from the channel tab. 

In here right click and add entry, select SiteMinder or Synxis from the drop-down menu and save. You can add as many channels to a rate plan as you wish. 

The rate plan code both inside the platform and HART PMS must be identical for the integration to work properly.  

Now go to Configuration > Reservations > Type 

The room type codes both inside platform and HART PMS must be identical for the integration to work properly. 

Inside the middle window highlight the room type you wish to map to your channel manager. Now go to the bottom window, right click and add entry and select the channel manager from the drop down in Channel and free type the code that your SiteMinder support has provide for this room type. Make sure to save once done. 

Once you have synchronised your rates in sales > room yield the integration setup between SiteMinder/ Synxis and HART PMS is completed. 

Trouble shooting online discrepancy.  

If your online rates, restrictions and/ or availability are not syncing with your Hart PMS you must check the mapping of your rate codes, your room type and if a channel was attached to a rate plan inside the channel tab in the first place.  

Please also use the web availability report to check the rates, restrictions and availability you are sending out. You can find this in reports > sales > web availability. Run this report by the day you are seeing an online discrepancy and make sure to select the channel inside the Channel tab you are trouble shooting. 

On the same report is an option to run the communicating log. Select log and run the report for todays date.  

Any entry reading from hart will show the xml you are sending to your channel manager.  

Any entry reading to hart will show the xml you are receiving from your channel manager, so a direct answer to the xml you have send out. 

If the end of such a message reads success your rates, availability and restrictions have been send to the channel manager successfully. If the answer reads error and warning at the beginning of the xml a mapping discrepancy exists.  

This error message will read for example, Warning, rate plan code BB cannot find room type CLA. This would mean that either the room code or the room type you have mapped to the channel manager are not identical to Hart and the ‘mapping’ must be corrected. 

Once corrected, send a new synchronisation from sales > room yield and check your online rates and the communication log again for any furthers errors and correct if needed. 

One other common error message is Error 500. This message means that too many rate codes and room types are being send and the channel manager cannot cope with the volume of this. Remove some room types and check if the channel tabs of deactivated rate plans are still link to a channel manager, please remove these if no longer needed. This will resolve this error. 

Hart Tip: For this to work your Hart Support contact will set up sync and poll services on a machine local to the hotel. Also there is a setting in the cloud Hart will activate, this includes the seconds interval your services are synchronising, which service you are running and whether a log of the entries is to be kept.