SkySales

SkySales is the advanced web-based booking and check-in tool for the New Skies system. It is used by the general public for booking flights as well as by travel agencies booking flights on behalf of their customers.

Similar to other New Skies booking tools (SkySpeed and RZ), SkySales pulls inventory from SkySchedule, fares from SkyFare, and role settings from SkyManager. The concept of using roles is very important for SkySales as it enables you to provide a variety of functionality to anyone booking a flight.

All SkySales users are considered agents, and each receives permissions regarding their rights and accesses via their roles that are configured in SkyManager. Passengers can be one of many types of users, each with a different role. You might include are a registered user, an unregistered user, and a frequent flyer user, for example. SkySales enables you to set different permissions levels for each of these roles. Thus, passengers do not have to be registered users to make a booking. However, passengers may choose to register with your airline given the additional functionality that might be available to registered users, such as using credit as payment for a flight. If a passenger is not registered, they follow the role settings for the WWW Anonymous role that is configured in SkyManager. If the passenger is registered, they follow the role settings for the WWW Member role.

SkySales will save your airline time and effort by allowing travel agencies to self-register from your website. The initial SkySales page contains a link for agencies to register. When an agency registers for the first time, an administrator login is created. Once the administrator login has been configured, individual agents from the agency can create their unique logins. Once a travel agency is registered, it will appear in the Organizations node in SkyManager as a pending agency. At this point, all you need to do is change the setting from pending to active to allow the agency to make bookings through SkySales.

Permissions, Roles and Skins There are many rights that you can enable via the roles in SkyManager. Examples include:

• The maximum number of connecting flights to show to the customer.
• The booking of open jaw flights.
• The use of various payment types.
• The ability to book senior citizens or military passengers.

Please refer to the SkyManager courseware for instructions on adding roles and permissions. Just as permissions are determined by the role, skins determine what is presented. Skins enable you to alter the appearance of the SkySales page depending on the user. For example, you can set up a travel agency skin that contains fewer graphics or a different flow than a skin for a frequent flyer. Skins can also determine what is displayed in the drop-down lists. For example, a user can have permission to view availability for eight months, but the skin can limit the availability list to six months. Skins are not mandatory, but if used, they are associated to a role in SkyManager.

Resource files, also located in SkyManager (Resource Management), contain application specific information used in various parts of the system. The resource files affecting SkySales include:

• Style sheets for the “Thank you for registering” letter, including the languages that you build the letter in.
• The order of drop-down lists in SkySales. If there is no resource file, then drop-down lists display alphabetically.
• Maintenance of a list of words that the customer types at the end of the booking to ensure that the booking is legitimate. This prohibits robotic testing of credit cards on your site.