Galaxy LightSpeed Product Details

Galaxy LightSpeed Product Details

Key Features Galaxy LightSpeed, our newest Property Management System, builds upon the trusted feature set, dependability and performance of our Galaxy/UX system with the additional functionality of a highly intuitive graphical user interface. Offering a dynamic home page design for easy system access, the environment provides user-friendly, intuitive entry with custom pages based on the needs of the user. Using a mouse or keyboard, the system self-guides users through core business processes and has been designed to diminish training time and increase front desk productivity. The system is fully scaleable for any sized property and utilizes the power of Java, IBM/Informix' Dynamic Server and Hewlett Packard's HP 9000 or Dell’s Linux platform. Users enter the system via standard web-based log-in protocols. The dynamic home page displays need to know information based on the user-id and is specific to tasks needed to complete daily tasks within their department. Security limits the window displays to simplify screens and ease navigation through the system. Standard information displayed for all users includes the House Dashboard, Guest Services, Concierge, Groups in-house, Daily Information and Local Weather. Additional options are added to this "portal" home page as security rights allow. • • • • • • • • • •

Over three decades of intellectual capital based on tried and true Industry Intelligence Intuitive design utilizing graphical web displays and "portal-like" views Flexible deployment using the internet or your local network Multiple entry devices including PC, thin client, kiosk, or PDA Single server design on either HP UX Hardware or Intel based server technology Intuitive navigation via mouse or keystroke shortcuts Dynamic Home Page customized window display (tasks and functions) unique to operational standards Evergreen Policy conformity - enabling upgrades from prior versions of Galaxy Robust suite of interfaces including Point-of-Sale, Yield Management, Banking, Communications, Security and Key Lock, Management Tools, Sales and Catering, Central Reservations, Internet, XML Web Booking and Back Office Integrated multi-property capabilities

Module Details Dynamic Home Page Users enter the Galaxy LightSpeed system via standard web-based login protocols with user-id and password. Upon entry, the customized user home page displays the need-to-know information for users to complete their daily tasks efficiently based on their security and job function. Standard home page windows display information such as House List, House Dashboard, Guest Services, Concierge, Groups and Wholesalers, Daily Information and Local Weather. Simple mouse-clicks or keystrokes easily activate functions within each window. Once functions are activated, users are virtually self-guided through their daily activities. Galaxy LightSpeed’s "portal-like" view assumes multi-tasking is a way of life for hotel associates. Users will all be aware of house status, arriving guests, and other information critical to the success of the day by starting from a central focus point. A sidebar Menu opens up to detailed levels of functionality allowing users to run through a process in either a "wizard-like" fashion or directly to the point they wish to go. Drill down functionality allows screens to show minimal information or delve deeper into the database without leaving the guest record. Multi-property installations can jump between hotels within an organization from the home page with the click of a mouse for cross selling capabilities. The screen always shows what hotel is active and who has logged in. Security controls where users can go protecting multi-property installations from seeing information as required.

House List Directly integrated into the Galaxy LightSpeed Home Page, the House List focuses attention on your most important asset, your guests. Information on all guests arriving, departing, or in-house is at your fingertips in this multi-functional frame. Search for a guest to see if they've arrived, enter a message to call home, or check guests in all from a single point of entry. The House List shows VIP and Club members to allow recognition these guests deserve. An icon indicates guests with existing messages.

House Dashboard The Galaxy LightSpeed House Dashboard is the pulse of the operation. It shows real time statistics of house movement, ins and outs and what's remaining to sell. Walk-in a guest and be sure you are selling the best rate of the day as it displays on this screen. The forecast button provides an in-depth view of the week ahead and makes strategic and tactical planning much more fluid on the fly. The Guest Services area can be accessed to track guest issues and ensure a higher level of guest satisfaction by improving awareness of their needs.

Groups and Wholesalers Nothing communicates the flavor of the guests in-house better than being able to quickly identify the types of groups you are currently hosting. Whether they're arriving today or have been in-house a week, you can quickly see the groups and wholesalers listed on the Home Page. Meetings are indicated for guests using catering space and banquet events can also be displayed even if they do not have guest rooms.

Daily Information The Galaxy LightSpeed Home Page contains plenty for space for important daily information. Tabs allow information based on department to communicate to the key "need to know" groups in an easy to find format. Enter corporate or hotel information for all users, or even enter notes to Housekeeping or Reservations in their own area. To make sure your staff is always on top of things, use the helpful Tips Of The Day for a higher level of efficiency.

Reservations Select Reservations from the Galaxy LightSpeed menu and a clear two month calendar opens up that not only shows you dates and days but also includes availability and house sell status at a glance. The number of rooms available to sell is displayed each day, and color-coded symbols indicate house sell restrictions such as minimum length of stay, dates that are closed to arrival, or closed for sale. Select arrival and departure dates and quickly check available rates by room type without making a reservation. Look up prior guests in guest history by name or membership number. Once you've completed entering guest and stay information, LightSpeed provides a summarized recap of the reservation. You can easily edit any part of the reservation from the recap screen prior to confirming with the guest.

Registration Select Registration from the Galaxy LightSpeed menu to check-in a guest, or simply check-in directly from the Home Page. Only guests arriving today are listed to help speed the check-in process. With a minimal number of keystrokes, the guest is on their way to their preferred room.

Cashiering Cashiering is used to maintain guest transactions and settlements. Once transactions are posted, items may be displayed, modified, canceled or transferred and are supported by comprehensive audit trails for tracking activity. Foreign currencies and corresponding local currency exchange rates may also be viewed through this module. If a currency exchange has been performed, the transaction will be displayed on the daily Cashier Transaction Report for balancing purposes.

Associated Guest Services Associated Guest Services are easily accessed within the Galaxy LightSpeed system and include: • • • •

Group Processing Travel Agency Commercial Firm Tracking Wholesaler

Group Processing Group Processing is the central data repository for all group business. Key group information is readily accessible for quickly executing group guest registrations, multi-member check-outs and summarized group billings. Because billing instructions vary widely from one group to the next, Group Billing Patterns provide the means to differentiate diverse levels of billing based upon individual guests or the group as a whole. For example, multiple billing patterns may be created for different levels of guests in a particular group or may also be modified as needed during a group's stay. Billing patterns also help eliminate any confusion over where to post group member charges. All guest charges are posted to the guest and the system routes them to the group master.

Travel Agency Travel Agency is used to monitor and maintain travel agency information for purposes of tracking statistics, calculating commissions and issuing payments to qualified agencies. Travel agency information includes marketing statistics, accounting details, special service data and contact records. In addition, travel agency checks may be voided or reconciled through this module.

Commercial Firm Tracking In addition to tracking various corporate statistics, incentive programs may be defined and monitored in Galaxy LightSpeed for travel coordinators located at various corporate sites. These incentive programs may award travel coordinators with perks, complimentary items, discounted rates and VIP privileges based on business activity and revenue volume.

Wholesaler The Galaxy LightSpeed Wholesaler module provides two key features - room allocation and availability forecasting. Employing industry standards, this module manages wholesaler availability based on gross rooms, net rooms and actual rooms sold. Users control the inventory and have the freedom to define blackout dates as well as re-allocate the number of rooms back into general availability as a free sale block. Long-term availability can be quickly updated using the Wholesaler feature. This module provides a simple means for transacting individual and block reservations and offers complete forecasting, production and analysis reporting. Wholesaler master records can be entered and modified on Galaxy LightSpeed to keep track of the duration of a wholesaler's contract, the wholesaler's address and phone numbers, contact names, rates and current availability. Reservations can be made against a wholesaler master record individually or in groups. Trace dates may be entered to indicate when a specific event should occur (eg. Renew contract).

Management Services Galaxy LightSpeed’s Management feature provides an automated rate selection process for a given guest profile, and it can also be appended by management to place additional sell conditions on room inventory. House Sell Maintenance is used to control the status of the entire room inventory for a given date range. It provides the flexibility to immediately react to occupancy changes without having to modify individual rate schedules. Rate Schedule Sell Maintenance is used to control the status of a specific rate schedule for a given date range. It is most often used to close promotional rates during periods of high occupancy. Rate Category Sell Maintenance is used to control the status of a group of rate schedules for a given date range. This is an alternative to Rate Schedule Sell Maintenance and it functions much in the same way except it is used to manage an unlimited number of rate schedules through the use of Rate Categories. Accommodation Sell Maintenance is used to control the status of individual room types for a given date range. It provides the flexibility to immediately close room types without having to modify each rate schedule. In addition, it provides the ability to temporarily increase allocations of specific room types. This alleviates situations where a specific room type is oversold while overall inventory remains open. Statistics Management is used to define and monitor statistical information for marketing purposes. This includes market segments, business sources as well as state codes for a given marketing region, which provides flexibility in defining geographical regions. For example, the region "USSW" (United States Southwest) includes the state codes "AZ" (Arizona) and "NM" (New Mexico). Room Management is used to provide managers with the necessary reporting tools to control the house - blocked rooms, pending rooms, out-of-order rooms, room status, wait-listed reservations, reservation activity statistics and confirmations.

Fax Confirmations The VSIFax fax confirmation feature within Galaxy LightSpeed allows the immediate facsimile or e-mail of on-line confirmations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, worldwide. It can be programmed to transmit at night, when rates are less expensive. It will also automatically retry on busy signals. Additional features and benefits include: • • • • • • • • •

Property logo integrated into the FAX confirmation design for increased brand awareness Complete logging, reporting and accountability are available on-line and through the daily Night Audit process Clearly defined FAX parameters can be implemented E-mail capabilities. Benefits of the fax interface for confirmations include: Enhances your staff’s productivity Builds brand value Increases guest satisfaction Maximizes profitability

Housekeeping This module is a key tool for your Rooms Division management team. Utilizing this singular screen, your team is able to monitor room statuses and prepare for daily room inspections. Utilized as a productivity tool, housekeeping attendant schedules can be entered to generate a cleaning schedule that designates housekeeping stations and total number of credits that individual attendants may be assigned on specific days. In addition, the cleaning status of each room is monitored by the system. For example, housekeeping cleans a room with a "Vacant/Dirty" status and changes the status to "Vacant/Clean." The system records the change and makes that room available for check-in.

Night Audit The Night Audit is performed daily to close the current day's revenue transactions. The associated processes produce various reports on the current day's activity, clear daily files, and reset them for the next day. Night Audit also updates revenues and marketing statistics appropriately, posts nightly room charges, and reminds the operator to perform a backup of the database onto magnetic tape.

Guest History Galaxy LightSpeed’s Guest History screen is used to enter and store guest history records. These records summarize each guest's previous stay and include guest names, addresses, revenue totals and other visit details. Information from guest history records may be transferred to new reservations for streamlined data entry. In addition, associated revenue totals may be displayed for a guest's specific visit via a query that can then be utilized for strategic or marketing analysis.

Database Maintenance Various codes and parameters used throughout the system are set up and controlled by management via Galaxy LightSpeed’s Database Maintenance module. Examples of options which are defined and maintained through this module are accommodations, transaction codes (that is, revenue locations), room numbers, settlement types, printing options, currency exchange rates, seasons, value-added taxes, club parameters and hotel information. The Rate Schedule process identifies a rate structure for a given market segment based on a seasonal date range. Special rules may be defined and applied to each rate schedule to offer additional flexibility. These include the minimum length of stay, maximum length of stay, maximum occupancy levels per room type, valid days of week (useful in restricting promotional rates during peak occupancy patterns) and valid start days (useful in defining weekend rate structures). Day Use rates can be set up and used for visitors occupying rooms for the day only (that is, not overnight). Upon entering and registering a Day Use guest, the system automatically posts the associated room charges, special service fees and add-ons to the appropriate guest folio. During the sell process, only valid room types are presented to the user. This is useful in controlling the "up sale" of room types for promotional market segments. Extra components may be added to the rate schedule to define a combination of services and amenities. These components, known as Package Allocations, may be posted on a defined basis in addition to the basic room rate. The Extended Packages feature simplifies the maintenance of designated packages since it does not require coupons for package items. Its components may be defined to handle the most demanding packages.

Security Galaxy LightSpeed’s Security screen controls the security privileges of each user. Each user is assigned a unique agent log-in that permits access to specific programs related to their responsibilities. For example, a front office agent may be given access to reservation and registration functions only and not access to database maintenance functions that might require a higher level of security.

Accounts Receivable Accounts Receivable is used to enter and maintain detailed information on monies owed to the property by guests, groups, companies and travel agents. Included are credit card and direct billings for corporate accounts, individuals, and groups. The transactions in this open item system are documents, which consist of folios, invoices, payments, adjustments and finance charges. Accounts receivable agents can post invoice billings, apply payments, enter debit and credit adjustments to customer accounts and issue both invoices and statements. In addition, individual folios may be easily transferred from one customer account to another with full audit trails provided. Once entered, accounts receivable information is available in a variety of formats. Accounts receivable agents can display summaries or detailed listings of monies owed as well as an account listing of outstanding receivables categorized by time periods. Furthermore, special aging departments can be created to organize and track the status of receivables according to the needs of the property. The Accounts Receivable Master Billing feature enables properties to prepare a custom-formatted cover letter, summary of charges and detailed listing of transactions to enhance the group and corporate billing process. Separate master billing parameters can be set up and assigned to customer masters so that the master bill can be customized to fit the needs of the companies involved. For example, one company may request that food and beverage charges be combined, whereas another company may ask for a separate total for each. Each property defines the categories and sub-categories of the charges for

use in the summary and detail formats. Detail formats can be produced for guests (for example, individual group members) and non-guests (for example, entire groups). This level of functionality eliminates the need to retype bills for groups and companies.

Extended Services Galaxy LightSpeed’s Extended Services module contains menus and programs, which are associated with optional packages such as the Folio Summary Package. The Folio Summary Package aids business travelers and other guests with expense reports. A folio summary, which summarizes folio charges by date and revenue columns, may be printed at the end of the guest's folio.

Contact Us For more information or to arrange a Galaxy LightSpeed demonstration, please contact Galaxy Hotels Systems Sales and Marketing at (714) 258-5800, toll-free at (800) 624-2953, or email us at [email protected].