Trying rules out in the Rate Simulator

What it is for

The Rate Simulator tab (the third tab on the dashboard) answers "what would my rules do to a night like this?" without waiting for such a night to come along. Its own words: "Make up a night and see what your rules would do to it. Nothing here is saved and no rate reaches your PMS." It adds: "The math is the same a real run uses, so what you see is what your rules would produce for these numbers."

Use it to check a rule before you build it, to see which of two rules would act, or to see why a price on the calendar is what it is. Everyone on the property can use it.

While it loads it reads "Loading this property's rooms and rules...". Before your first sync it says the property has no active room types yet, and asks you to connect a system and finish the import first.

Night or week

A Night and Week switch sits under the heading. Night is the form below. Week shows seven of your own nights from the date under From, each starting from your calendar and priced with the rules ticked under Rules in play and your test rule, for the room type you pick, with a dot where the test rule acts. A night with a price set by hand, or with no starting price, shows a dash and is not tried. Click a night to open it here: its base prices and occupancy come in from your calendar, with the rooms you can sell that night, each box tinted with "From your calendar" and the day it was read. Typing over a box takes its tint off. The rule playground has the Week view in full.

Try it in the simulator in Why didn't it fire? opens the night form on that night, seeded the same way, with that one rule ticked under Rules in play and the rest unticked.

The night

Under The night:

• Stay date, starting 30 days ahead. The note under it says the date sets the days to arrival. They are counted from your property's date, not your computer's, so the number matches what a real run would see, and a booking window rule reads it.
• Booking speed, a dropdown with Not enough history and the seven levels: Stalled, Much Slower Than Normal, Slower Than Normal, Normal, Faster Than Normal, Much Faster Than Normal, Surging. It starts on Not enough history, and the note says booking speed rules then stay quiet, and that the math is the same a real run uses: a real run keeps them quiet too when there isn't enough history to read a pace. Pick a level to test a booking speed rule. A made-up night has no bookings to count, so the level you pick is taken as read.
• Recent bookings, whole property, shown only while a rule in play has a recent bookings condition. Type how many bookings came in across the property; the number is read for whatever window the rule counts over. Left empty, it isn't counted, and a recent bookings rule stays quiet.
• Booked so far vs usual (%), shown only while a rule in play has a booked so far vs usual condition, with a "?" beside it. Type where the night stands against usual as a percent of the rooms a rule measures: 25 is 25% ahead of usual, -10 is 10% behind. The rooms booked are the ones your occupancy boxes give. Left empty, there aren't enough similar nights to compare with, and a rule on it stays quiet, as it does in a real run.

Your rooms

One row per room type that counts as a room, with its room count under its name. Room types you have unticked as rooms are not here.

An occupancy rule reads occupancy across the room types it measures, added together. Two room types at 92% and 50% with 12 and 6 rooms read as 14 of 18, which is 78%. The rule checks its conditions once, on that one figure, so it acts on every room type it changes or on none of them.

Rules in play

Every rule on the property is listed with a checkbox, all ticked. Untick one to leave it out of the run. Beside each name:

• "ladder" or "event": the simulator's own words for the two kinds of rule. "ladder" is a standard rule (a rule with no booking speed or pickup count condition), which keeps one change on while it is true. "event" is a booking speed or pickup rule, which acts, keeps its change and can act again after its wait. The rest of these docs say "standard rule" and "booking speed and pickup rules".
• "off" when the rule is switched off on the Rules tab
• "fires" when it fires on the night you have set up
• "Watches Standard, Deluxe · Changes Suite" when the rule measures different room types from the ones it changes

Switched-off rules are run here too, so you can see what turning one on would do. With no rules yet: "No rules yet. Build a test rule below to see how one would behave before you commit to it."

Build a test rule

Click + Build a test rule and a smaller rule builder opens:

• Rule name. An unnamed draft is called "Unsaved test rule".
• Up to 9 conditions under "When all of these are true", one of each kind, each with a Metric, an Is dropdown and a Value. Booked so far vs usual is offered once the rule builder offers it. The Is dropdown reads above or below for occupancy, booking window and pickup, fewer than or more than for rooms left, at least or fewer than for recent bookings, ahead of usual by at least or behind usual by at least for booked so far vs usual (a percent, at most 100), and below or above for current rate and ADR. A recent bookings row also has Counted over. A current rate or ADR row's Value starts empty: type the amount. A Booking speed (recommended) row has a Speed dropdown with the seven levels instead, with the rule builder's "?" beside it saying what each speed matches. The metric labels are the rule builder's, starting with Sellable occupancy (%).
• Then (raise the rate or lower the rate), By and Unit (percent or fixed amount ($), with your property's own currency symbol, such as fixed amount (€) in euros).
• The undo box, Take this change back if cancellations remove the bookings that triggered it, ticked to start. It is saved with the rule. Nothing cancels on a made-up night, so it does not change what the table shows.
• Room types, as pills, all on to start.

The draft runs in the table below as you edit it. "Until you press this, the rule exists only on this screen." Discard test rule throws it away.

Save This Rule saves it to the Rules tab switched off, and the screen reads "Rule Added to Rules Tab and Initialized as Disabled". Open in rule builder beside it saves nothing: it fills in + Add a rule on the Rules tab with the test rule, as a new rule, and asks first if the builder already holds a name, an amount, a direction or a rule you are editing. Adding it there goes through the window that shows the days it will change. The button is greyed out until MAYA has read your property's system. On Mews, a test rule with rooms left to sell fills in nothing, because the builder doesn't offer that condition there yet, and the builder shows a note that says why; the same goes on any property while that read has failed. Turn it on from the Rules tab when you are ready: the switch first shows the days it will change, and you apply or skip the price adjustments. To change it first, click Edit on its row. Read Try a rule before turning it on.

The button stays greyed out until the draft has a condition, a number of 0 or more in every Value, an amount above 0 and at least one room type. A Value left empty or below 0 is outlined in red, "Fill in every condition's value (0 or more)." shows under the conditions, and the draft is neither tried nor saved until each one has a number. A test rule set to lower the rate by 100 percent or more is neither tried nor saved: "A rule can't lower a price by 100% or more." shows under By until the number is smaller. With 0 or nothing in By, the draft is neither tried nor saved either: type a real amount. Saving needs Revenue Manager access or higher: a Viewer who presses it sees "Only a Revenue Manager or above can change this."

What would happen

The results table has one row per room type: Room type, Base, Becomes, Change (the move in money, or a dash for none) and Because.

• Becomes is the price after every rule that acts and after the floor and ceiling. A "held at your floor" or "held at your ceiling" tag shows when a limit stepped in, and Because adds what the rules asked for, such as "Rules asked for $412.50."
• Because names each rule that fired, with "(currently off)" beside a rule that is off on the Rules tab, or reads "No rule fires on this night".

Under the table, Didn't fire lists each rule that did not act on a room type in the table, and why. A rule that changes only room types not in the table (a meeting room unticked as a room, say) is not listed:

Amounts in the simulator carry your property's currency sign, the same one the change log's sentences use.

With "Last minute" from Combining with occupancy, set the stay date to tomorrow and each room type under 50% full: the rule reads one figure for all of them together and lowers each by 15%. Push one room type's occupancy up until the shared figure reaches 50% and it acts on none, and Didn't fire says "Conditions not met" with what it saw.

What the simulator simplifies

The math is the same a real run uses, but a real night plays out over days and this is one run. The note at the bottom of the results says so, starting "The math is the same a real run uses, but this preview simplifies three things". In plain words:

• A standard rule is shown settled. On a real night its change goes on when it becomes true and stays on while it is true. Here you see where the night ends up, not each step.
• Every matching booking speed or pickup rule is added. On a real night, when several booking speed or pickup rules match, one wins for that night and room type. Here they all act, one after another, so with a raise and a cut both matching, the result can be smaller than the real move.
• A repeat is shown once. A booking speed or pickup rule that is still true after its wait adjusts the night again on a real night. Here it acts once.
• Booking speed is a level you chose, not a count against similar nights, so there is no "Show the numbers" behind it.

The screen sums it up: "It is one run, not where a night ends up over a week." After a rule acts explains what happens across a week.