WO2006128970A1

WO2006128970A1 - Booking system and server

Info

Publication number: WO2006128970A1
Application number: PCT/FI2006/050224
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mikko Marttinen
Original assignee: Lahden Aitiopaikka Oy
Priority date: 2005-05-31
Filing date: 2006-05-31
Publication date: 2006-12-07
Also published as: FI7212U1; FIU20050197U0

Abstract

The invention is related to a booking server comprising a first interface (41) for communication with service renters, processing means (42) for controlling the operation of the server and a mass memory (43) for long-term storage of information. According to the invention the server comprises protective means (42, 48) for identifying the various service renters and allowing them to access their own booking information (49) and means (45) for storing rental booking sector-specific rental booking rules (47) in the mass memory (43) and for associating them to the corresponding sectors, the rental booking rules being adapted to control the processing means to maintain the booking information of each service renter in the mass memory. In addition, the invention is related to a booking system comprising a booking server and a terminal of a first service renter adapted to provide a rental booking system of service renter and to allow a terminal of a second service renter to use the common server with the first service renter.

Description

Booking System and Server

Field of the Invention

The invention is related to a booking system and a booking server, especially, but not exclusively to a rental booking system and server.

Background of the Invention

It is typical to the rental service sector that the same products or services are repeatedly rented, while the same products or services, i.e. the rental object, must not be simultaneously rented to two different customers. In the rental service sector an order is usually called a booking. When a product or service is rented, it is said to be booked or it has a booking. Therefore, in the rental service sector an invoice arises from a service booking, as correspondingly the rental object becomes bound and cannot be rented to others.

A party providing rental services, such as, for example, a car rental, temporary personnel service, machinery rental, equipment rental, costume hire or premise rental company, can generally be called a service renter. Service renters may also be parties offering services for conference premises, appointments, ticket sales, boxes, entertainment, restaurant or accommodation. As a supporting service to the main business, booking services may be provided by health, repair and maintenance suppliers, acting as service renters. A service renter refers to a party operating directly at the customer interface. The service renter does not necessarily own the rental object, but it may rent further the services and commodities of its principal.^" Service renters have often in common individual products or services and limited resources related to them. Due to the limited nature of the product and service resources, records must be kept of the bookings related to products or services to avoid overbooking. A large number of various booking systems have been developed for the rental service sector and are available on the market, by means of which the booking situations are managed and double bookings are attempted to be prevented. However, the systems on the market are intended to function locally in the service renter's local area network or in individual workstations (PC). The systems are typically in use of an individual company or a chain of companies.

A booking system functioning as a separate system on paper, on a computer or on a private network is problematic both for the service renter and the customer. Known systems have a number of drawbacks from the point of view of the customer:

Part of the service renters are small and local companies, due to which the market has become fragmented. When searching for rental services the customer often has to contact several different companies to find the service he/she needs for a suitable time period.

Automatic updating and search of the booking situation information from the separate systems of the rental service providers is technically difficult. On the other hand, manual updating of an Internet site based on the advertisements of the service providers would be impractical, prone to errors and slow. - If the customer does not have the contact information of all the service renters, he/she may remain without the service he/she needs, even if the service would be available, because he/she does not know where to ask for the service.

Correspondingly, the service renters experience the following difficulties: - The system (for example, a notebook or calendar) ties the employee or employees to a certain work location or to a certain area of local area network. - If the employee does not continuously work near the booking system, but deals with this task in addition to other duties, this may significantly deteriorate the quality of customer service in the following ways, among others: • The service bookings cannot be confirmed before the real time booking situation has been checked, in which case the customer has to wait for the information whether the rental service is available or not. • It may be necessary to interrupt the customer service situation and to return to the matter after checking the booking situation.

• If the service has been promised on the basis of information in the employee's memory, it may be necessary to cancel the service due to a double booking. • The updating of the booking situation may also be forgotten, and a whole booking may be unrecorded due to a human lapse of memory.

Of course, it would be possible to develop a computer-based system for the management of the bookings of the rental service, but acquisition of such a system would be disproportionately expensive with respect to the extent of the business operations of small service renters. Acquisition of an information system, as well as companies' other investment decisions, is based on the commercial profitability of the investment. In the worst case, the benefit obtained with the system would never cover its acquisition costs. The system may also become unusable before the end of the planned service life due to lacking system updates, for example if the system supplier discontinues its operations or otherwise lapses updating the system. The system requirements of different rental services are slightly different, even if the basic problematics in the sector is similar regardless of the products or services. For example, a system customized for box rental is not as such applicable to car rental. Due to the companies' solvency, or in some cases the small size of the market, companies developing booking systems have not customized various booking systems for all purposes. No operating computer- based booking system is available for all rental service companies, even if the company would be ready to acquire such a system. On the other hand, customizing and development of a whole system to be used by just one company is, most often, commercially totally unprofitable. Therefore, the development costs cannot be reduced to a reasonable level for a small company by sharing the costs between several companies. Partly due to the above-mentioned reasons, the chaining of companies has begun, and established company chains are growing and are successful at the expense of small and unchained companies.

Due to the above-mentioned problems, the service process is not efficient from the point of view of both the rental service provider and the customer. In addition, the rental service provider may lose its turnover when the customer chooses another service provider because the customer service process functions badly.

Summary of the Invention

It is a purpose of the invention to avoid or at least reduce the problems related to the prior art and at least offer an alternative to implementations according to the prior art.

According to a first aspect of the invention a server is provided that comprises: a first interface for communication with the service renters; processing means for controlling the operation of the server; and a mass memory for long-term storage of information; characterised in that the server comprises: protective means for identifying various service renters and for allowing them to access their own booking information; and means for storing rental booking sector-specific rental booking rules in the mass memory and associating them to the corresponding sectors, the rental booking rules being adapted to control the processing means to maintain the booking information of each service renter in the mass memory.

The server according to the first aspect advantageously allows use of a common resource allocation server from several different sources and using a plurality of different sets of rules so that each source can be provided with a set of rules corresponding to the intended use and with an operation of the server according to this. The same server may also be used by a plurality of various service renters. Service renters need not have their own equipment and their own software, but when they so desire they may monitor the booking information concerning themselves on publicly available network terminals in libraries, for example.

In addition, the server may comprise another interface for communication with the end-users' network terminals and for supplying and/or receiving information to/from the end-users' network terminals. Said means for supplying and/or receiving information to/from end-users may include means for issuing booking situation reports and means for making bookings.

The server according to the first aspect does not necessarily provide making of bookings at the end-users' network terminals, but optionally they may be allowed to check the supply of a desired service renter at a desired time and potentially to perform preliminary or binding bookings. The server may comprise means for charging the booking automatically in connection with the booking by using an online bank or credit card, for example.

According to a second aspect of the invention a booking system according to claim 4 is provided.

A terminal of the first service renter may be adapted to store unfinished input information to a transmission buffer and to retransmit it if the connection between the first service renter's terminal and the server is broken during input of information. Alternatively, the terminal may be adapted to buffer the information being input and to deliver it to the server in a batch-like manner, when the input of information is finished. In this way, the connection time can be minimised, which is advantageous when using a modem, for example. A party who offers a booking system for use by service renters for a determined period against payment may be called a service provider or a rental booking service provider. The concept of a service provider corresponds to the concept of application service provider (ASP) commonly used in the context of application rental services. The service provider may also develop and maintain a booking system intended for a certain service renter group.

Brief description of the drawings

In the following the invention will be described in detail by means of examples with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 shows an exemplary system;

Fig. 2 shows an exemplary user interface diagram of a service provider;

Fig. 3 shows an exemplary user interface diagram of a service renter; and Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a server according to one embodiment of the invention.

Detailed description

According to the present invention, application service provisioning and a system can be provided where a system operating on an Internet server and used with an Internet browser includes a database being used as a data storage common to all service renters. Users log in the system by means of a user name and password. The privacy of the information is based on the user names used in the system. The service renters may only update information in the system that they have themselves entered to the system. In addition, the service renters may use and view information the service provider has stored in the system as common information visible to everyone or as information visible to a certain user group. For each service renter group practicing in similar rental service business operations, a single system can be customized and developed, which all rental service companies practicing similar rental service business operations may rent for their use. Fig. 1 illustrates a situation, in which several service renters practicing similar rental service business operations and, on the other hand, a plurality of various users of the same service renter may simultaneously use the common booking system in various usage situations with various terminals. Fig. 1 also shows how customers of a rental service may receive real time information on the booking situation and service renters with different Internet terminals by means of an Internet portal related to the booking system. Instead of the Internet the server can be accessed with a telephone modem, for example. Fig. 1 shows a group 110 of various users, a group 120 of various locations, in which the users of group 1 use the system, a key to the structure 121, a plurality of operational equipment 130, techniques by means of which the users can access the Internet, various user interfaces for using a booking system application 160, a booking database 170 and a copy of it 180. Fig. 1 also shows customers 193 using the system with their user locations 194 and equipment 192, by means of which they can access the Internet portal 152 through different techniques 191 and the Internet 141 and, through it, the booking system application 160.

The database includes reference keys related to the basic key specification identifying the service renter to all the information stored in the system so that the information entered in the system by the service renter itself is only visible according to the reference key specification with the service renter's own user identifiers. The password related to the user name may be static or dynamic. Dynamic identification may be implemented by using a chip card, for example, so that the user enters his/her own PIN code and responsively the chip card forms a cryptographically relatively strong password. The password formed may be a single-use password.

The service provider of the system maintains the system by entering and maintaining all the common information belonging to service renters in the system, for example in a box booking system an ice rink-specific event list. The service provider monitors and grants access rights to the system, takes care of the operation of the system and potential further development and invoices the service renters for the use of the system. To support the invoicing the system may comprise monitoring means to measure the volume of use, so that the service renter can be invoiced on the basis of connection time,- number of rental booking events and/or new recordings, for example.

A service renter is a rental service company using the system for the management of the booking and invoicing processes related to its own business operations. The use of the system is similar to the use of its own separate booking system from the point of view of a customer. A system customer enters and maintains itself fully independently the customer, booking and invoicing information related to its own business operations with the difference that the system is used through the Internet and that the log-in to the system takes place at a certain network address by means of a user name and password granted by the service provider. The service renter pays for the use of the system to the service provider according to a predetermined agreement. In order to avoid loss of information due to a possible connection break, the system is advantageously determined to maintain unfinished input as dumps for each service renter so that after the break the user can return to the interrupted information input. This can be implemented for example so that a browser application (such as a Java program) allows storing the form in use encrypted with the customer's identifiers to a local memory means to be sent to the server after a new connection has been established.

Rental service customers are the end-users of the rental booking system who do not necessarily form a customer relationship with the service provider. The rental service customers use the Internet portal related to the actual booking system when looking for a certain rental service for a certain point of time. The Internet portal related to the booking system is a real time or at least a significantly real time information channel public to all Internet users using the information in the actual booking system to present the service renters' contact and booking situation information in the system's Internet site. The system primarily provides an information channel for the customers; therefore, the customers do not necessarily have rights to use the actual booking system. If an opportunity for online payment is included in the system, the customers may also be given an opportunity to make a booking independently directly in the booking system. The system may also be implemented with sector-specific rules so that both the technical arrangement of the booking and invoicing are customized sector group-specifically. For example, typically restaurants are not paid a service fee for bookings of restaurant tables. In this case the rental booking system may, as a requirement for a table booking, charge a relatively small booking fee from the end-user for the benefit of the service provider, in which case the period invoicing of the rental service customer him/herself (a monthly or annual fee, for example) may correspondingly be reduced or period invoicing can even be given up.

The invention offers a number of benefits: • Several different users working for the service renter can use the system simultaneously.

• The information is updated in one database, in which case the information always remains coherent and up-to-date even, if there were several users of the same service renter. • Single equipment is sufficient for the backup copying of the centralised database and backup copies can be taken cost-efficiently even several times a day.

• Single system can serve service renters from several different countries, when the user messages of the system are indexed and the texts are stored in a help database indexed according to the different languages in use.

• The system is available to the service renters regardless of time and place by means of a PC computer, a mobile telephone or another Internet terminal and an Internet subscription and an Internet browser.

• When the booking and contact information of all the similar rental service providers are in the same database, the technical implementation of the

Internet portal intended for the end-users of the rental services is simple. • The introduction of the system operating on an Internet server is easier for the service renter compared to the conventional applications operating on a workstation or a local area network since the system need not be installed on a PC workstation or on a local area network server. • Further development of the system and the related updates can be more easily implemented in one centralised system than separately updating the systems located in each service renter's own premises. Nor is it necessary to support the old versions after an update, because they are no longer in use.

• The monitoring of the use of the system and the prevention of unauthorised use can be managed well both from the point of view of the service provider and the service renter.

• Offering booking situation information for use of the customers by means of the Internet portal increases efficiency of the operation of both the customer and the service renter. For example, a common table booking system intended for restaurants and a related Internet portal for restaurant customers significantly reduces unnecessary contacts especially at rush hours when the staff has the least time for responding to contacts.

• A system invoiced according to use includes a smaller acquisition risk for the service renter than a conventional application that is paid at once. • Unchained service renters receive scale benefits in the acquisition of the system and marketing of services while the companies remain fully independent and authoritative. The solution provides cost savings for larger service renters and service rental chains.

• Personal user accounts may be established for the employees of the service rental company. Personal user accounts enable control and monitoring of the use of the booking system, in which case the investigation of potential error situations becomes quicker.

• It is technically simple and efficient to produce statistics and analyses on the operations of the service renters using the booking system by means of a centralised booking system solution. • Intelligent features promoting fast information communication utilising the Internet information network may be developed for the system. For example, a box booking system introduced below in this document could have a feature based on e-mail addresses stored in the database, for example, that enables an automatic notification about a change to an event list performed by the service provider to all those parties concerned by the event in question.

• The booking system being run in the public Internet network information may also be selectively distributed to those Internet users who do not have access rights to the actual booking system. For example, in a box booking system introduced below in this document the print-out page of an invoice may be left as a public Internet page visible to all Internet users, but the hyperlink to this page can be kept secret. As desired, the service renter may send a hyperlink for an invoice belonging to the customer by e-mail to the print-out page of the invoice in the booking system. This method of operation saves postage expenses and the invoice may be sent to the customer in real time as necessary. The booking situation information may also be left public in the same manner, in which case the event list selected at any given time by the service renter and the booking situation are always visible at a certain Internet address with defined parameters. Therefore, the service renter may easily implement a hyperlink from its own separate Internet site, for example, to its own real time event and booking situation information in a box booking system.

In the following a box booking system implemented according to one embodiment of the invention will be described, by means of which premise rental companies practicing box rental business operations may manage their booking and invoicing processes.

The system includes two different user interfaces operated with an Internet browser, one for the maintainer of the system, i.e. the service provider, and another for the service renter. Both user interfaces operate at the same network address. The user interface visible at any given time depends on the user name used. Figs. 2 and 3 describe the structure of the user interfaces.

The user interface of Fig. 2 comprises blocks of log-in 201, main menu 202, log- out 203 and events 204, ice rinks 205 and services 206 with related blocks of addition 208, change 209 and deletion 209. The user interface also comprises blocks of customers 207 and service rental company 211 and contact person 212 with blocks related to both of them of addition 213, change 214 and deletion 215. Fig. 2 also shows a key 216 to the parts of the figure.

Fig. 3 shows blocks of log-in 301, main menu 302, log-out 303, own information 304, change 305, own events 306 and deletion 307, change 308 and addition 309 of own events, and event list 310, invoicing 311, bookings 312, boxes 313, customers 314, own services 315, invoice preview 316 and print-out 317. The figure also shows invoicing 311, blocks of addition 318 and change 319, addition 320, change 321 and deletion 322 of bookings 312, addition 323, change 324 and deletion 325 of boxes 313, and addition 326, change 327 and deletion 238 of own services 315. In addition, the figure shows blocks of company 329, and addition 331, change 332 and deletion 333 for this, and a block contact person 330 and also addition 334, change 335 and deletion 336 for this.

Both user interfaces of the system include a log-in form, in which the user must enter a user name and password in order to access the system. With the user names Access to the system is restricted by the use of the user names, and the user is identified.

In the following, the operation of the service provider's user interface will be explained at the form level. With the Customers form the service provider can maintain the information on the service renters (customer in the system) and grant or remove access rights to the system.

With the Services form the system administrator can maintain for each ice rink the service information visible to all service renters.

With the Ice Rinks form the service provider can maintain the ice rink list incorporated in the system.

With the Events form the service provider can maintain an event list for each ice rink visible to all service renters. The events of all ice rinks can be maintained in this centralised manner, and each service renter need not update the event lists separately by themselves.

In the following the service renter's user interface will be explained at the form level.

The purpose of an Event List form is to provide the service renter a quick and clear review of the booking situation prevailing at any given time.

With the Bookings form the service renter maintains the service bookings related to the boxes managed by it. The service bookings can be viewed box-specifically or the service bookings of all the boxes under its own management can be viewed at the same time. A change to the service bookings takes place by selecting some service booking from a service booking listing and by pressing a change or addition button. A delete button deletes a service booking selected in the service booking listing from the database.

With the Service Booking Change form service bookings can be changed or new service bookings can be made. With the form the booking situation concerning the box and event in question can be defined. The system automatically takes care of a case when the box and event are defined as "booked", and new bookings cannot be entered for the box and event in question.

With the Invoicing form invoices can be drawn up for non-invoiced service bookings and the contents of old invoices can be changed. The Invoicing form also includes invoice preview and print-out properties.

With the Boxes form the service renter can maintain information on the boxes managed by it. The service renter can add and delete boxes within the limits of the maximum number of boxes determined for the service renter in question. The service provider defines a maximum number of boxes in the information of each service renter, on the basis of which the service renter's application rental costs are determined.

With the Own Services form the service renter can define its own price list and service supply.

With the Own Information form the service renter can update information related to the user K) granted by the service provider. The address and bank account information visible on the invoices made by the service renter for the customers are based on the information visible on the service renter's "Own Information" form, which the service renter can itself update.

Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a server according to an embodiment of the invention. The server 40 comprises a port 41 for transmitting and receiving information through the Internet, for example, a processor 42 for processing information, a mass memory 43 for long-term storage of information, a working memory 44 for momentary processing of information and an interface 45 for the maintenance of the server 40. In addition, the server comprises a server program code 46 stored in the mass memory 43 for controlling the processor, sector- specific rules 47, a access right database 48 and a booking database 49 for each service renter (advantageously their own and separate). If each service renter has its own booking database, these are advantageously encrypted using service renter-specific encryption so that even in the event of an error one service renter's information cannot be given away to another by accident or used when another's bookings are made. The access right database 48 advantageously comprises at least one user name and password or a shared secret needed for dynamic encryption for each service renter. In addition, the server 40 comprises the basic information needed for each service renter's invoicing, i.e. a business ID or the name and address of a person in charge and optionally also a telephone number, e- mail address and other contact information.

For reports distributed from the server through e-mail the program code of the server 40 may adapt the server to form report-specific long electronic addresses that are difficult to guess (for example, Universal Resource Locator, URL). The server 40 can also be determined to allow access to the address including the report from a predetermined Internet Protocol (EP) addresses or subnetworks, for example to restrict access to the browsers running in the service renter's own information network. The access right database 48 may be determined to include restrictions based on a source address concerning access to report information. Alternatively, access to reporting may only be allowed using an encrypted Internet protocol (e.g. HTTPS).

The server's 40 program code 46 and/or the sector-specific rules 47 may be delivered to the server by computer-readable media, a message and/or a signal.

According to one aspect of the invention, the server 40 may be implemented by software, for example by a unix, Linux or Microsoft Windows(™) network server. The server 40 has here been presented as a single unit, but optionally it can be provided as a distributed implementation. Correspondingly the server's mass memory 43 is advantageously copied to several mass memory media, for example by using the RAID technique. The program code 46, the rules 47 and the access right database 48 may be stored in a separate block or portion of the mass memory 43 or in a separate equipment, for example in a solid state memory. Writing to the program code 46 and rules 47 is advantageously not allowed through the port 41. Likewise writing to the access right database 48 can be prevented totally or in part through the port 41 in order to make cracking more difficult.

The invention has been explained in the above by means of examples, however, without limiting the invention only to these examples. The opportunities of implementation and use of the invention are restricted only by the attached claims. Thus the different implementation alternatives defined by the claims, also equivalent implementations, fall within the scope of the invention.

Claims

Claims:

1. A booking server (160) comprising: a first interface (41, 151) for communication with service renters; processing means (42) for controlling the operation of the server; and a mass memory (43) for long-term storage of information; characterised in that the server comprises: protective means (42, 48) for identifying the various service renters and for allowing them to access their own booking information (49); and means (45) for storing rental booking sector-specific rental booking rules

(47) in the mass memory (43) and for associating them to the corresponding sectors, the rental booking rules being adapted to control the processing means to maintain the booking information of each service renter in the mass memory.

2. A server (160) according to claim 1, characterised in that the server further comprises a second interface (41, 152) for communication with network terminals (192) of end-users and for supplying and/or receiving information to/from the network terminals (192) of end-users.

3. A server (160) according to claim 2, characterised in that said means for supplying and/or receiving information to/from end-users include means (42, 46) for supplying booking situation reports and means (42, 46) for making bookings.

4. A booking system comprising a booking server (160), server (160) comprising: a first interface (41, 151) for communication with service renters; processing means (42) for controlling the operation of the server; and a mass memory (43) for long-term storage of information; characterised in that the server comprises: protective means (42, 48) for identifying the various service renters and for allowing them to access their own booking information (49); means (45) for storing rental booking sector-specific rental booking rules (47) in the mass memory (43) and for associating them to the corresponding sectors, rental booking rules being adapted to control the processing means to maintain booking information of each service renter in the mass memory, and that the system comprises a terminal (130) of a first service renter adapted to provide a rental booking system of the service renter and to allow a terminal (130) of a second service renter to use the common server (160) with the first service renter.

5. A system according to claim 4, characterised in that the system is arranged to receive bookings from end-users and to automatically notify the end-users of any changes to the bookings made by them, if necessary.