Vik Channel Manager Official Documentation

The channel manager extension as well as the portals, ofter use abbreviations to describe certain functions or characteristics. Here is a list of words used to shorten the names of certain actions:

Once Vik Channel Manager is installed on your website, the first page that will be displayed in the administrator section is the Wizard.

The Dashboard is the main task of the administrator section of Vik Channel Manager. From this page you can get useful information about your channels and the recent operations.

This is the Configuration page showing some global parameters for the whole extension as well as some Settings related to the channel in use.

The last Menu to the right shows the current channel selected. By switching the channel in use, VCM will load a different menu depending on the actions that the channel can perform.

This Menu will reflect all the channels that were enabled for your personal e4jConnect API Key.

In the screen shot above, the Channel in use is Expedia and we could switch to one of the others.

The channel Airbnb is based on full API connections, it does NOT use iCal calendars. In accordance with the partnership between e4jConnect and Airbnb (2021), the only channel we can provide with this name has to be based on API connections. There used to be an iCal integration for Airbnb which has been dismissed at the moment of the establishment of the API connection, because iCal calendars provide less functionalities than full API connections, and they actually generate more web traffic.

The Airbnb API integration requires the plugins Vik Booking and Vik Channel Manager to be updated or you won't be able to connect your Airbnb account at all!

This Channel Manager integration will let you manage your Hotel/Property listed on Booking.com and perform the following actions:

- Availability, Rates, Inventory and Restrictions "Push and Update"
- New Bookings Download, Bookings Modifications and Bookings Cancellations (this will be done automatically, you will just be notified)
- Close out/Open Rooms on certain dates
- Notify Availability Change on certain dates

This channel supports multiple Accounts/Hotel IDs synchronization.

This Channel Manager integration will let you manage your Hotel/Property listed on Expedia (and/or on any portal of this network) and perform the following actions:

- Availability, Rates, Inventory and Restrictions "Push and Update"
- New Bookings Download, Bookings Modifications and Bookings Cancellations
- Close out/Open Rooms on certain dates
- Notify Availability Change on certain dates

This channel supports multiple Accounts/Hotel IDs synchronization.

The Google Hotel Free Booking Links and the Google Travel APIs are available only to certified Channel Manager partners by Google. The suite of Vik Booking + Vik Channel Manager and E4jConnect are a certified Google Hotel partner.

Thanks to this service, you can turn your WordPress or Joomla website into your most important point of sale to collect bookings, as they will be completely exempt of any fees or commissions!

This Channel Manager integration will let you manage your Hotel/Property listed on Agoda.com (and/or on any portal of this network) and perform the following actions:

- Availability, Rates, Inventory and Restrictions "Push and Update"
- New Bookings Download, Bookings Modifications and Bookings Cancellations
- Close out/Open Rooms on certain dates
- Notify Availability Change on certain dates

Starting from 2023, the synchronization with Vrbo is offered by E4jConnect through API connections, not through iCal. This includes the real-time and two-way API connectivity with all platforms of the Vrbo network, among which we can find Abritel, FeWo-Direkt, Stayz, BookaBach and the old HomeAway. All these channels are part of the Vrbo family network, and although they all belong to the Expedia Group, their APIs are completely separate and different, and they are available under the channel Vrbo API on E4jConnect.

Any iCal-based channel like Holiday Lettings or Flipkey will require the same type of configuration. You basically need to exchange the calendar URLs for each room/listing, by giving to the remote channel the URL of your Channel Manager, and by entering in your system their corresponding remote calendar URL for importing and exporting reservations.

"iCal" (also called as "Generic iCal") is a flexible and customizable channel integration that will let you set up custom iCal channels that are not available on our list, but that support syncing through iCal calendar URLs.

If you only need to export your iCal calendar URLs with third-party platforms without needing to import them, then this is how to go about it.

To activate the connection with Pitchup.com, you'll be asked to insert your user ID and an API key in the Channel Manager. You can see in the screenshots below how to retrieve them.

Here's how you can find your ID:

Here's how you can find your API key:

Enter both the information in the "Settings" page of Vik Channel Manager:

This channel supports multiple Accounts/Hotel IDs synchronization.

To connect your Despegar.com Account with the Channel Manager, read the complete guide on our dedicated page.

This channel is a two-way full XML integration 

The TripConnect channel includes various services: Meta Search for Cost-Per-Click Campaigns, Instant Booking, Review Express, ROI Tracking.

@Deprecated since version 1.7

This function is available only for those channels supporting a two-way full XML integration like Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda etc...

Most of the times, Hotels are listed on more than just one portal. Therefore it is necessary to have a global overview of the remaining availability of the rooms on all the channels. This function is very useful to prevent overbooking even though e4jConnect will synchronize the availability on all channels every time new bookings are received from either a portal or your website.
As long as this function will show the correct amount of units available for each room type, overbooking will be just a bad memory.

The Bulk Availability Inventory Copy is a function that should be used to align the rooms availability of your website with the ones of the channels. This will let you update all the channels by transmitting the current rooms availability of your website over a maximum date range of 1 year.
Channels like Booking.com will reset the availability of your room types upon the connection to a channel manager so this function is very useful to re-upload this data onto the channel and go back online with just one click. It is not necessary to use this function after the first configuration of the channels, you may need to use it during the initial setup and if you will add/modify the configuration of the room types.

Please notice that this function can only be executed a limited number of times per day. The limit is given by the type of your subscription (PRO Level).

The Bulk Rates Inventory Copy is a function that transmits the rates of your room types to all the channels. Only the channels supporting live rates-update requests will be affected. This function is useful to upload the rates onto the channels over a large dates span. Some channels like Booking.com, will reset the rates after the first connection to the channel manager and with this function you can easily re-transmit all the rates for your room types. For modifying the rates of just a few days of the year, once the first configuration has been completed, use the page Hotel - Availability & Rates or the page Bookings - Availability Overview.

Please notice that this function can only be executed a limited number of times per day. The limit is given by the type of your subscription (PRO Level).

When you need to stop the bookings for a certain Room Types on some dates of the year, you need to Close the room. With the Channel Manager you can decide to close the room only on some channels and leave it open for sale on others. This includes also the availability on your website.

The notifications are displayed on the right side of the Dashboard page (main page of VCM) every time the channel manager detects a modification to the availability or whenever new bookings are downloaded (new bookings, modifications and cancellations).

Notifications have 3 Statuses: Success, Success-Warning, Error. If one Channel only returns an Error but all the other channels returned a Success, the global status of the Notification will be marked as Error. However, the notification details will show what channel exactly returned the error and which ones returned a success. The same thing works for the Warning status which is stronger than the Success but weaker than the Error.