Table of content

"Analyze" tool

The customized analysis

The analysis tool in RateBoard offers versatile possibilities how to assess your data. With a sophisticated combination of filters, distribution and reference you could create your own analysis perspective on the individual KPI’s.

Overview and navigation

For the setup of your analysis you could use the following tabs which will be described in detail later in this text:

• KPI

• Filter

• Distribution

• Reference

With help of those tabs you create your own analysis which will be displayed in the chart below. Optionally you also could use the “Table” view.
The assessed period could be changed by the slide control below the chart. Therefore, you just click and hold the slider (light blue) and move it left or right to your desired period. You could also use the slider to narrow down or widen the period you want to assess. The minimum here would be a two-week period and the maximum are 6 weeks you can display in the chart.
The lower chart where you set the slider to the period you want to assess is set up to show you calendar weeks. The calendar weeks you could identify by the gray bars in this chart. Once you defined a period to assess the analysis chart will always start with a Sunday on the left and will end with a Saturday on the right. Saturdays and Sundays are always highlighted by a deeper gray in the analysis chart.
The chart is indicating you if an event is set for a specific day. This year’s events will be displayed with a yellow bar on top of the chart. Previous events will be indicated by a gray bar.

Open

With a click on a single bar of any given day you could open the detail overview. How the detailed overview works will be described later in this text.

Setup of tabs

KPI

To setup your analysis you first choose one of the given KPI which will be shown in the chart. You can choose from:

• Revenue 

• Occupancy

• ADR

• RevPAR

Depending on what KPI you choose it will be used for every data displayed. This means if you add more details to your analysis (like a filter) all values will refer to your first chosen KPI.

Filter

A filter is used to show all available data for one particular information. If I choose for example the combination of the KPI “Occupancy” and the channel filter “booking.com” then the chart will show me how much Occ in each individual day is generated by this channel. No other information will be included in the chart. 
To set filters you have the following options:

• Pickup

With the pickup filter you can choose if you would like to display the pickup of the last day (1 day), last three days (3 day) or the last seven days (7 day). If you set a pickup filter you will see how many room nights were picked for each individual day based on the chosen period. IMPORTANT: This function will always show you the net-pickup. This means that rooms that were reserved and cancelled within the one, three or seven days will be deducted automatically. Pickup and pick down will not be displayed separately. 

• Room Categories

The room categories you can choose as a filter are based on your settings in the inventory configurations (same as in Manage). If you have distributed your single room types into sup-categories in RateBoard (e.g Standard, Superior, Suite etc.) you could use this setup to assess your data. IMPORTANT: To be able to use this filter you have to have your inventory capacity information setup in RateBoard first. This setup you can do in “Settings>Inventory” if you click on tab “Capacity”.

• Room Types

If you like to assess the performance of one individual room type you use this as a filter. Once you selected the filter for e.g. your double standard room the chart will just show you the values of this room type. IMPORTANT: To be able to use this filter you have to have your inventory capacity information setup in RateBoard first. This setup you can do in “Settings>Inventory” if you click on tab “Capacity”.

• Segments

The filter per segment you could use to assess one particular segment in the selected period. If you choose for example occupancy as an KPI and “Leisure Groups” as a segment the chart will show you the occupancy booked by this segment per day. The segments available for this analysis will equal the segments you set up and use in your PMS.

• Channels

If you set up a filter for a specific channel only this information will be shown depending on the value of the selected KPI. If I choose the KPI “Occupancy” with the filter of “Website” the chart will show just the occupancy generated by your own website for each day. The channels available for this analysis will equal the channels you set up and use in your PMS.

• Countries

Filtering data by country gives you the opportunity to analyze the selected origin of your guest based on the chosen KPI. If you for example select the KPI “Occupancy” with a filter for your German guest, the chart will show you how much occupancy is generated by just German guest per day. The countries available for this analysis will equal the countries you set up and use in your PMS.

Distribution

The distributions are working a little different then the setting of filters. If you select a distribution the chart will not just show a single information like in the filter. In fact, it will display all available data adding up to the total of your selected KPI. If you for example chose “Occupancy” as your KPI and “Segment” as your distribution the chart will show all available segments and their relative proportion of the total occupancy. By this the shown data is a composition of all available information. 

You could use the following distributions:

• Segments

If you select the distribution by segment all available segments per day will be displayed in the chart. The segments available will equal the segments set up in your PMS.

• Countries

A distribution by country will give you all countries of origin of your guest adding up to your total KPI value. The countries available will equal the countries of origin of your guest in the PMS.

• Room type

The distribution by room type will show you the composition of all your individual room types on a given day. IMPORTANT: To be able to use this filter you have to have your inventory capacity information setup in RateBoard first. This setup you can do in “Settings>Inventory” if you click on tab “Capacity”.

• Room category

Distributing by room category refers to your individual settings in the “Inventory” by e.g. “Standard”, “Superior”, “Suite” etc. This way you could assess how the individual categories are standing to each other proportionally on a given day. IMPORTANT: To be able to use this filter you have to have your inventory capacity information setup in RateBoard first. This setup you can do in “Settings>Inventory” if you click on tab “Capacity”.

• Channels

A distribution by channel will give you an overview how the channels are composing to the total of your selected KPI. All channels available will equal the channels you use in your PMS.

• Pickup

The distribution oy pickup could be done by the last day, the last three days and the last seven days. Contrary to the pickup filter the pickup distribution will not blend out all other information. This way you can assess your pickup while you also see the previous reservations that were on the books before.

Reference

The selection of the reference helps you to define the comparison data. You have the following options available to setup comparing periods:

• Final last year

• Same time last year (YTD)

• Final 2 years ago

• Same time 2 years ago (YTD)

In general, you have always the option to decide the format of the reference date. You could choose from a reference per date (e.g. 03/12/19 vs. 03/12/18) or per weekday (Wednesday 03/12/19 vs. Wednesday 03/13/18).

Save Presets

By saving presets it gives the user the possibility to immediatly use custom filter settings.

Presets are useable in the index tab Analyse → Analyse in Forecast and Market or in Analyse → Budget.

Open

At first the needed filters (KPI, Filter, Distribution, Reference, 2nd reference) are chosen. This configuration will be saved, with a custom name as a preset, by clicking on “New preset”.

If more than one preset is saved, switching between the preset can be done by clicking on the wanted preset.

To delete a certain preset, click on the waste paper bin next to the preset.

Detailed view

By a click on a specific day in the chart you will be directed to the lower part of the analysis page. Depending on what reference format you choose (per data or per weekday) the tiles in the detailed overview will give you the information of the current performance vs. the reference day. The comparison in the tiles will be displayed by the deviation to the YTD data.

The comparing date could also be set individually by overwriting the field. Therefore, you also could have a detailed comparison with every other date for example vs. a last year’s event day.
Below the comparison tiles you will find the tile “Characteristics” and a table overview based on your configurations of the analysis.
With the characteristics you could assess the booking development or rate changes for every day individually. The current years development will be displayed by a blue line and the reference date with a gray line. If the arriving date is still in the future the blue line will be dotted to show you the forecasted development.

You will notice that the booking curve can also go up and down. The reason is that, the curve shows also the cancellations of the date you selected to analyze more in details.

Market Data

What does your competitor do?

You will find the market data (market demand and competitor prices) as part of the “Analyse”. At the upper part of the page you will find the tab “Market” which you select to open the Market Data.

In order to assess your competitors, you can customize the data displayed by selecting filters in the given tabs. The available filters contain:

1. Room category

2. MinLOS

3. Meal type

4. Persons

5. Cancellable

6. Market Demand

7. Occupancy

In the standard configuration all filters are set to “Any” and “Show”. This means that the chart displays the absolute lowest price available.

Setup for a price evaluation of double occupancy prices in the standard category

Navigation

As well as in the analysis “Forecast” you could define your period assessed by moving the slider below the chart. This happens by clicking on the slider and dragging and dropping it to the required period. The maximum period to analyze are 6 calendar weeks. You could easily identify a calendar week represented by the blue bars in the overview.

You could use your cursor to stop over the explanation part below the chart. This will highlight the rate development of the individual competitor. Furthermore, you could select or deselect a specific competitor in order to hide the information in the chart.

You could also display your chosen period in a table format. Therefore, you just click on the field “Table” up-left over the chart. The data presented in the table format will always represent your setup done with the filters in the tabs.

The table format data could be exported as a CSV or PDF file if you need it.

If you want to set general rules on the rates you want to shop (e.g. standard occupancy always per 2 persons)  you can manage them in the specific  section: Settings - Competitors. Here you will find the article with the instructions on how to do that.

Pick-up

How many bookings for what time where done by the guests?

The Pick Up is one of the major figures for Revenue Management. It represents the dynamic of the company's performance. When many new reservations were made, we call this a strong Pick Up and if only few reservations were entered we are speaking of a weak Pick Up. This figure is used for both room nights sold and revenue of these room nights.

Let´s have a closer look at this Analyse Tools in RateBoard. First some filters must be set:

• Define the date range

• Choose whether you want to see the Pick Up for the room nights or the revenue

• Click on the “Refresh” Button

In our example, we want to have a look at the Pick Up made in a week in August 2019 for room nights:

• The vertical axis shows the room nights

• The blue columns show, how many room nights were booked on this specific date for any date in the future.

• The red columns show how many room nights were cancelled on this specific date for any date in the future.

• By hovering over a column, you get the details for this specific date. In our example, there were 25 room nights booked and 30 room nights cancelled, on the 23 August 2019 for the future.

When you choose the filter „Revenue”, the Pick Up will be shown in revenue generated in € for the future on all the dates in the time range. So, the vertical axis no longer shows the room nights, but the revenue. When hovering over the columns, the detailed revenue is shown for this specific date. In this example € 3.729 were booked for dates in the future on the 23 August 2019 and € 5.940 - were cancelled for dates in the future on the 23 August 2019.

When the setting is changed to „Current year and last year” both, room nights and revenue picked up will be displayed for the current date range and the same period last year.

On the last picture for the Pick Up, we can see how the Pick Up is distributed over the future. This is possible for both room nights and revenue. Let´s have a look at the example given in the picture:

• The vertical axis shows the rooms nights

• The blue column shows how many room nights have been booked in the given time (20 - 26 August 2019). 

• The grey columns show what has already been on the books (OTB) before the set time (in our example 20 - 26 August 2019 ). 

By using the two filters in the time line (red arrow), the graph can be shown in more detail for the filtered period. So, for every period you can go into more details.

Reputation

Guest perception: The good's the bad's

To analyse your guests feedback, Rateboard is getting data from the platform TrustYou. TrustYou is analysing a huge variety of feedback platforms and OTAs (online travel agencies), to summarize your hotels' feedbacks.

With this tool, you get the summary of the most important platforms with your average score and a link to the platform. This makes it easy to check for feedback by platform and to check how the feedback average varies between the platforms.

The Meta Review summarizes all reviews and gives an average score for all feedbacks, different languages, or by number of people travelling. You can even read what your business guests are writing. With this tool, it is easy to get an overview on what is rated best in the hotel, and what your guests do give a lower score for. So, you can always see where there is room for improvement and what is it your guests like in the hotel.

Budget

The bigger picture

KPI’s, comparing data and time frames could be set up to individualize your budget overview. This way you always see what you want.

The standard timeframe configurations are the following:

• start = the first of the last month

• finish = last day of the current month in one year

The standard configuration of the KPI’s shows the following figures:

• Revenue

• Occupancy

• RevPAR

The standard settings for the series are the following:

• OTB/Final CY “on the books/final current year”

• YTD LY “Year to date last year”

All key figures and time frames could be set individually with the configuration options in the budget.

Time frame settings

As stated in the introduction you could set the time frame for your analysis individually. Therefore, you just choose the start date (from) and the end date (to). 

Furthermore, it is possible to choose how the data should be displayed. The options here are: per month, per week and per day, as in the picture above.

Please keep in mind that a selection of a weekly or daily display of data might lead to a longer loading period.
It is also possible that to display the choice "per day" you must reduce the analysis period by one month. Once the option is displayed you can widen the selection to the desired period.

KPI’s

With the selection of KPI’s, you could choose which one should be displayed in the budget. Just select or unselect the figures that you currently need. You can select up to 5 individual key figures that you would like to assess in the budget.

The available key figures include:

• revenue (standard setting)

• occupancy (standard setting)

• rooms sold

• rooms available

• ADR

• RevPAR (standard setting)

To select or unselect a key figure you just tick the boxes shown in “KPI’s”.

Series

The series are used to extend the possibilities comparing different time frames. The standard settings here are the following:

• OTB/Final CY (OTB = ”on the books”/final current year” that indicates the current booking situation of this moment of the year)

• Final LY (final result of the last year)

• YTD LY (“Year to date last year” = the qualifying date showing the historic booking situation last year vs. today)

For a deeper analysis for comparing different time frames you could add the following options to your analysis:

• Final 2Y (final value two years ago)

• Final 3Y (final value three years ago)

• YTD 2Y (qualifying date comparison for the booking situation two years ago)

• YTD 3Y (qualifying date comparison for the booking situation three years ago)

• New 1d (shows pick up of the last day)

• New 3d (shows pick up of the last three days)

• New 7d (shows pick up of the last seven days)

• Goals (Goals/own KPI’s could be set up at “Settings>”Budget Settings”. Have a look at the article about how to set your Goals here).

Due to the flexible settings it will be easier for you to assess periods that are more likely to occur every two or three years. An example would be Easter or a fair that is taking place every two years. 

Group by

There is no standard setting for the “Group By” options. However, it gives you the opportunity to select the following settings for your displayed budget:

• Hotels (for the user operating more than one hotel with RateBoard)

• Segments (e.g. group, business, leisure)

• Channels (e.g. website, telephone, Booking.com)

• Country (country of origin of your guest)

• Room Type

Differences

The last column "Differences" can be shown or hidden (default settings).
If you decide to show it, the difference between your current and historical datas will be displayed next to the values, as in the picture below.