Honestly, we are doing the instructor led training and we are finding it very frustrating. It seems like there are 10 steps where our old system had 2 steps. Is it worth it?
Thank you for that! I just read it to my GM and she and I are sitting here like…we have 121 rooms and 1 property. Our current system sucks and is no longer supported by the company so we had to change.
I feel for the properties doing the cutover now. We cut over in July and had SO MUCH support it made the whole thing so easy. Our sister property cut over in late November and the support they got was nothing compared to what we got. I thank goodness we did it first so we could be their support if needed. We felt the same at the beginning but we are almost 7 months into it and I love it. As a GM I have access EVERYWHERE at the palm of my hand on my phone. I don’t have to carry my bulky lap top or IPad with me anymore. From an agent perspective it’s frustrating because what took 5 clicks in synxis takes A HUNDRED in opera but the capabilities of it are amazing. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the full capabilities of the system and I’m already impressed. I HATE that there’s no way to pre auth rooms prior to arrival like in synxis. (Unless I’m wrong and someone else found a way PLEASE PLEASE tell me how lol) I felt the same way when we cut over from nitevision to synxis too and I needed up loving synxis so I’m expecting opera to be the same! Good luck friend!
It is the devil you know, but it is trash.
Our company finished a migration to Opera earlier this year. It does seem needlessly complicated but there is a reason for that. Opera can literally do anything and integrate with almost anything, so it kinda has to be. We started as a small hotel many years ago. Now we are 4 properties, over 400 rooms combined, each property has dozens of banquets/year, we have a guest profile list in the tens of thousands, and full F&B, Retail, and other services. We provide a level of service that is not quite but almost 5-stars.
I find it helpful to explain Opera as not a single system but a (rather poorly laid out) accumulation of many different systems. So if you have a F&B operation, you get that module. If you have a lot of events and need to manage G&E they have a module for that. If you want to outsource your marketing they have a module for that. If you want to streamline revenue management, they have a module for that. Integrate wifi/in-room entertainment, module. Guest communication, module. You name it they have a module.
Now I have no idea how they planned and developed Opera, but to me the disjointed nature of how you use the system is a by-product of them continually adding features and capabilities over time. Or they just hate the people who use the system. Who knows?
Is it worth it to use it? Well that depends on your operation and how many properties you have, what outlets and services each property provides, how your accounting works, etc… Our move to Opera allows us to use one bookkeeper for 4 properties, 1 night auditor for 4 properties, 1 revenue manager for 4 properties, 1 G&E manager for 4 properties, etc… The efficiency on labor positions has already paid for the cost of installing and maintaining the system.
But do I hate using this system for day-to-day operations and does it seem needlessly complicated? Yeah.
I called wyndham tech and they turned on pre stay charging for us. They were hesitant because they want a physical card before we do anything, but I explained our reasoning and they agreed. We have people from overseas booking a suite for 20 or more nights and screwing us by not showing up after we have rearranged everything for them. Honestly, wyndham tech and opera tech have been lifesavers for us. I know most of them by name and most of them remember me lol. They’ve really helped us personalize the system to our properties needs.
What really gets me is, in synexis long term stays would have their card charged weekly when the audit ran. Then we just sent them their folio. I have to try and remember every week to go in and charge our long term stays because Opera isn’t set up to do that.
It’s called credit card batch authorization, you can schedule it or manually run it based off your authorization rules