Configure the Internet Booking Engine (IBE)
The Internet Booking Engine (IBE) is your direct-booking flow. A prospective guest searches availability, optionally applies a promo code, enters the booker details, pays and receives a confirmation. In the Operations Platform the IBE is called Booking Engine, and you configure it yourself on two settings pages, one for the whole Account and one for each Property. Your edits are staged as a draft and reach guests only when you publish them.
1. What the Internet Booking Engine Is
🛎️ The IBE walks a booker through a fixed sequence of steps:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Search properties | The booker enters dates and occupancy and sees the Properties with availability, each with its lowest price. |
| Search unit groups | For the chosen Property, the available unit groups are listed with their rate plans. |
| Booker data and payment | The booker fills in the booker details and pays. |
| Payment redirect | The payment is processed by the payment provider configured for the Property. |
| Confirmation | The booking is confirmed. A paid booking whose reservations the PMS has not returned yet gets a separate delayed-booking page instead, and a failed payment returns to the booker step. |
The presentation of a Property and of a unit group (names, descriptions, images) is content, so a booker sees your own Account content in every step, not a fixed layout.
ℹ️ The same flow opens in three places: in the guest portal, from the walk-in booking option on a self-service kiosk, and in the booking widget you embed on your own website (see section 12).
2. Who Can Configure the IBE
👤 The account-level page sits in the Operations Platform under Settings → Booking Engine in the Account section. The Account Administrator role (account-admin) can edit and publish it. All other roles, including Account Viewer (account-viewer), see the page read-only.
👤 Every Property has a page of its own under Settings, in the Guest Journey section. On most Properties it is named Booking Engine Rates. On a Property running Apaleo it is named Unit Group Order, because the unit group order is the only card the page shows there (see section 8). The Property Admin role (property-admin) can edit and publish it. All other roles, including Property Viewer (property-viewer), see it read-only.
The Publish configuration button is rendered only for the roles that may edit. With a viewer role the cards are read-only and no button appears.
3. Account Level and Property Level
⚙️ Two pages, two scopes:
| Page | Scope | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Booking Engine | the whole Account | Which Properties appear in search and in which order, the account-wide rate plan order, and the defaults and behaviour of the booking search |
| Booking Engine Rates (Unit Group Order on Apaleo) | one Property | The order of that Property's unit groups and, depending on its PMS, which rate plans it sells, how those are guaranteed, and how its Booking Engine reservations are attributed in the PMS |
Each page publishes on its own. Publishing a Property's page replaces that Property's entries only, so the order you set for your other Properties keeps its position.
4. How Publishing Works
⚙️ Both pages follow the same staged-publishing pattern. The banner at the top of the page tells you where you stand:
- No changes: an info banner. On the account-level page it reads "Manage how your brand appears on the Booking Engine", on a Property's page "Manage how this property is sold on the Booking Engine".
- Unsaved changes: a warning banner reads "You have unsaved changes. Publish to apply them." and Publish configuration becomes available.
- Published: a success banner confirms "Booking Engine configuration published" or "Booking Engine Rates configuration published".
- Invalid fields: an error banner reads "Fix the highlighted fields before publishing", and the field that caused it is marked on its card.
- Conflicts: an error banner counts the open conflicts, and each one is spelled out underneath, for example "Invalid configuration value(s) for field(s) '...' detected. Please review and correct this configuration."
Publish configuration stays disabled while there is nothing new to publish, and while any field is invalid. A publish that still carries a conflict is not saved at all, and the page reports the conflict instead.
5. Property Visibility and Order
The Property Visibility & Order card lists every Property of your Account and decides two things, whether a Property appears in IBE search results at all, and where it appears in the list.
- Visibility: use the Visible toggle per Property. A hidden Property is filtered out of the search results.
- Order: turn on Pin to place a Property explicitly at the top. Pinned Properties appear in the "Pinned - Shown First" zone in the order you set. Everything else stays in the "Default Order" zone, sorted by price with the lowest first. Reorder pinned Properties with the drag handle, or from the row menu with Move to Top and Move to Bottom.
If your Account has more than ten Properties, the card shows the first ten. Select Show all to expand the list.
⚠️ If you hide every Property, the page warns you: "All properties are hidden. Guests will not find any offers in the Booking Engine." The configuration still publishes, and guests find no offers.
6. Rate Plan Order
The Rate Plan Order card decides how rate plans are sorted on the IBE, account-wide.
- Type a rate plan ID into the field at the bottom of the card and select Add. Reorder the entries with the drag handle or the row menu, and take one out with Remove.
- Only the rate plans listed here get an explicit position. Every other rate plan is sorted by price.
- The first rate plan in the list is preselected for the guest, unless a promo code matches another offer.
A rate plan ID that appears twice is marked Duplicate and has to go before you can publish.
7. Search Settings
The Search Settings card sets the defaults of the booking search and four behaviour toggles.
- Adults Only: hides the children selector in the people picker.
- Minimum Child Age and Maximum Child Age: the age range selectable as a child in the booking search. Adult age starts at the maximum plus one, and the maximum must be greater than or equal to the minimum. Both fields are required.
Select Show advanced options for the rest of the card:
- Low Availability Threshold: marks an offer as low on availability once the number of available units is at or below this number. Leave it empty and no such marker appears.
- Default Adults: the number of adults preselected in the booking search.
- Default Stay Length (Nights): the number of nights preselected in the booking search.
- Default Arrival in (Days): days from today preselected as the arrival date (0 = today).
- Maximum Reservations Per Booking: how many Reservations a guest can add to one Booking.
- Show Property Details Below Offers: on the search results page, the Property detail card appears below the offer list instead of above it.
- Ask for Booker's Address: adds the address fields to the booker step and makes them mandatory (see section 11).
- Require Statutory Withdrawal Acknowledgment: the booker has to acknowledge the statutory right of withdrawal before the booking goes through.
- Allow Guest Comments: adds an optional free-text comment (special requests) to the booker step. See Guest Comments in the Booking Engine.
Default Adults, Default Stay Length (Nights) and Maximum Reservations Per Booking must be 1 or greater. The two child ages, Low Availability Threshold and Default Arrival in (Days) must be 0 or greater. A value outside that range is highlighted and blocks publishing.
8. Per-Property Settings
Everything decided for a single Property lives on that Property's own Booking Engine page. Which cards the page shows depends on the PMS the Property runs on.
a) Which Cards a Property Shows
🧩 The cards a Property shows depend on the PMS it runs on:
| Card | Apaleo | Mews | Oracle Opera Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit Group Order | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Channel Attribution | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Rate Plans on the Booking Engine | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Guarantee Mappings | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
A card the page does not show keeps its stored values, so publishing never clears a setting you cannot see.
b) Unit Group Order
The Unit Group Order card lists every unit group the PMS returns for this Property and decides the order guests see them in.
- Turn on Pin to place a unit group explicitly at the top. Pinned entries sit in the "Pinned - Shown First" zone and are reordered with the drag handle or the row menu.
- Unpinned unit groups stay in the "Default Order" zone, sorted by price.
- Past ten unit groups the card shows the first ten, and Show all expands the list.
- If the PMS returns no unit groups for the Property, the card reads "No unit groups found for this property."
c) Rate Plans on the Booking Engine
Only the rate plans listed on the Rate Plans on the Booking Engine card are sold on the IBE for this Property.
- Add rate plan ID opens a dialog. Enter the rate plan ID exactly as it is set up in the PMS. The IDs are free text, because the PMS list cannot be read for you.
- Take a row out from its row menu with Remove. A duplicate ID is marked and blocks publishing.
- On Oracle Opera Cloud every row also carries a PMS Guarantee Code that has to be mapped under Guarantee Mappings.
⚠️ An empty list publishes, but the Property then shows no offers at all. The page says so: "No rate plans are listed, so this property shows no offers on the Booking Engine."
ℹ️ An added, changed or removed rate plan ID does not reach the PMS integration by itself. Once your draft is free of errors, the page asks you to request a rate plan synchronization after publishing. Publish first, then request the synchronization via a Support Ticket.
d) Guarantee Mappings
The Guarantee Mappings card maps a PMS guarantee code to a LikeMagic guarantee type, so the IBE knows how a booking on that rate plan is secured. The guarantee types are Prepayment, Credit Card, Company and 6 PM Hold.
- Add mapping opens a dialog for the PMS Guarantee Code and the LikeMagic Guarantee Type.
- Every code used on a rate plan above has to be mapped here. A rate plan without a code reports "Add a guarantee code", and a code without a mapping reports "Code ... has no LikeMagic guarantee type". Both block publishing.
- With nothing mapped yet, the card reads "No guarantee mappings configured."
e) Channel Attribution
The Channel Attribution card decides how Booking Engine reservations are attributed in the PMS. Both values are free text from the PMS world.
- Booking Source: the PMS source stamped on every Booking Engine reservation, for example
WEB. - Booking Purpose: the PMS purpose stamped on every Booking Engine reservation, for example
IND.
9. Search Entry and the Booking-Only Portal
Two things decide how a booker reaches the flow at all, and neither one is a self-service setting.
- The search entry. Whether the search button in the top navigation, the search tab in the bottom navigation, the extend-stay search and the walk-in option on a kiosk appear is switched per property by LIKE MAGIC. If a Property should sell direct bookings and the entry is missing, request the activation via a Support Ticket. The account-level page states it too: "The Booking Engine is turned off for your account. Changes you publish here take effect once it is enabled." You can prepare the whole configuration in the meantime.
- A booking-only portal. A portal can be reduced to the Booking Engine. The navigation then collapses to the search entry alone, the start page opens the search directly, and after a booking the confirmation sends the booker into a new search instead of into the guest journey. This applies to the whole Account and is switched by LIKE MAGIC, so request it via a Support Ticket.
10. Promo Codes
Guests apply a promo code in the search filters, before they pick an offer. The platform validates the code and applies the discount to the matching offers, and the matching rate plan is then the one preselected. Use codes for campaigns, corporate rates or partner offers. For creating and managing the codes, see IBE Promo Codes.
11. Booker Data
The booker is the person making the booking, who can be someone other than the guest. The IBE collects the booker details on the booker-and-payment step:
- First name, last name and email are always required, and so is accepting the terms and conditions.
- The address (street, postal code, city, country) is asked for and required only with Ask for Booker's Address turned on (see section 7).
- The acknowledgment of the statutory right of withdrawal appears only with Require Statutory Withdrawal Acknowledgment turned on.
- The comment field appears only with Allow Guest Comments turned on, and takes up to 1000 characters.
The booker's preferred language is recorded from the language the portal was in at the time of the booking.
12. Embedding the Booking Widget
Besides running in the guest portal, the IBE also ships as an embeddable booking search widget for a property or brand website, and its search pages take deep-link parameters. See Booking Widget & Deep Linking.
13. Troubleshooting
- Publish configuration is disabled: check the banner. Either nothing has changed yet, or a field is invalid. An invalid value and a duplicate ID are marked directly on the affected card. Fix them and the button becomes available again.
- There is no Publish configuration button: your role can read the page but not edit it. Account-level changes need Account Administrator, property-level changes need Property Admin.
- A conflict is reported instead of a publish: nothing was saved. The message names the field or the IDs, for example unit groups the PMS no longer returns ("Some configured unit group(s) are not found on PMS. Please remove them from this configuration."). Correct the entries and publish again.
- Guests do not find a Property: check the Visible toggle in the Property Visibility & Order card (see section 5), and check that the Property's own page does list rate plans (see section 8).
- A card is missing on a Property's page: the cards depend on the Property's PMS (see section 8). A Property running Apaleo only ever shows the unit group order.
- A Property's page warns that the Property is not shown: the banner "This property is not shown on the Booking Engine. Changes you publish here take effect once it is visible." means the Property is hidden from Booking Engine search, or the Booking Engine is not switched on for it. You can still prepare and publish its configuration.
- A published rate plan is not sold: the list of rate plans reaches the PMS integration only after a rate plan synchronization. Request it via a Support Ticket (see section 8).
- The search entry leads to a different booking site: an external booking engine URL can be set for a portal, and the search entry then opens that site instead of the built-in search. It is set by LIKE MAGIC, so request a change via a Support Ticket.
14. Conclusion
The IBE is your direct-booking storefront, and you own its configuration. At Account level you decide which Properties guests find and in which order, how rate plans are ranked and preselected, and how the booking search behaves. At Property level you decide the order of the unit groups and, depending on the PMS, which rate plans that Property sells, how they are guaranteed and how its reservations are attributed. Whether the search entry exists at all, and whether the portal is reduced to booking only, is switched by LIKE MAGIC on request.