Connecting your Hotel PMS to luca
This configuration connects your hotel’s PMS to luca so reservations, guests, and payments can flow automatically between both systems.
1) What does “PMS connection” mean?
Your Property Management System (PMS) is the central system where your hotel manages:
- Reservations
- Guest profiles
- Check-ins and check-outs
- Payments
- Folios (invoices)
- Room charges and extras
By connecting your PMS with luca, both systems can talk to each other automatically instead of staff doing things manually.
This allows luca to:
- Import reservations in real time
- Send messages to guests
- Let guests complete their pre-check-in
- Book packages (e.g. breakfast, parking)
- Send payment information back to the PMS
- Update guest profiles in the PMS
- Create or update folios (invoices)
Once configured, most of this happens in the background without your team needing to do anything.
2) What happens after the connection is set up?
After a successful connection:
- New reservations from your PMS will appear in luca
- Guests can receive automated messages (e.g. pre-arrival, check-in, check-out)
- When guests pay or update details, this can be written back into the PMS
- Charges (like city tax, extras, or breakfast) can be posted to the correct folio
- You can filter which bookings should or should not be processed
This turns your PMS from a standalone system into part of your guest journey.
3) What are the main configuration fields (in simple words)?
Below is a non-technical explanation of the most important fields you see in the configuration screen.
Connection Credentials (provided by your PMS / IT)
These fields allow the two systems to securely talk to each other:
- Hotel ID → Your hotel’s unique identifier in Oracle
- Chain Code → Only needed if you belong to a hotel chain
- Host Name → The address of your Oracle system
- Client ID / Client Secret / App Key → Security keys from Oracle
- Use WebSocket → Enables real-time updates instead of periodic syncs
Usually your IT team or Oracle support provides these.
Payments & Folios (how money flows)
These fields define how payments and invoices are handled in the PMS:
- Business Folio Window No. → Where charges should appear in the guest’s bill
- Cashier ID → Which “cashier profile” posts charges
- Payment Method → How payments are recorded (e.g. luca Pay)
- Currency → Defaults to your hotel’s main currency
- Deposit Policy Code → Rules for deposits if you take prepayments
- Fiscal Terminal ID → Relevant in some countries for fiscal reporting
Invoices (Folio PDFs)
- Folio Type → The template name Oracle uses for guest invoices
- Example: TSE_FOLIO
- This determines how your invoices look.
How updates appear in Oracle
You can choose how luca communicates changes back to Oracle:
- Payment notifications → Can appear as:
- Alert (most visible)
- Trace (less visible)
- Comment (least visible)
Same logic applies to:
- Guest profile updates
This is mostly a preference of your front desk team.
Language Mapping
Some Oracle setups use:
- 2-letter language codes → EN, DE, FR (standard)
- 1-letter codes → E, D, F
This setting ensures guest language is sent in the correct format.
Which reservations should be included? (Filters)
You can fine-tune exactly which bookings should sync with luca.
Examples of filters you can apply:
By contact details
- Email filter → e.g. only sync guests with certain email domains
- Phone filter → e.g. only German/Austrian numbers
- Include reservations without phone & email? → Usually “yes”
By market segment
Examples:
- LEISURE
- CORPORATE
- GROUP
Useful if you treat certain guests differently.
By booking source
Examples:
- WWW → your website
- GDS → global booking systems
- TAC → travel agents
Travel agents
You can decide:
- Which travel agents should be included (e.g. Expedia, Booking.com)
- Which source code they should use in the PMS
Guarantee & payment rules
You can define special payment logic based on guarantee codes or rates, for example:
- Only registration required (no payment)
- e.g. company-paid stays
- Only extra charges required (like city tax or breakfast)
- e.g. corporate or group bookings
- No payment required at all
- e.g. staff rates or complimentary stays
This is important to avoid charging guests incorrectly.
Breakfast handling
To avoid guests booking breakfast twice, you can define patterns that identify breakfast in your PMS by:
- Package code
- Description
- Transaction code
This ensures clean billing and no duplicates.
Austrian hotels (Registration Form)
If your hotel is in Austria, you may need to specify:
- The custom field in Oracle that stores the consecutive registration form number.
This is required for legal compliance.
Exclude specific arrival dates
If there are blackout dates (e.g. Christmas, New Year, special events), you can exclude reservations arriving on those dates from syncing.
Example:
2024-12-25, 2024-12-31, 2025-01-01
Exclude entire rate codes
If certain rates should never be processed (e.g. internal staff rates), you can exclude them completely.
Example:
STAFF, INTERNAL, PAY_EX
4) Need help?
If you are unsure about any field:
- Contact your IT team, or
- Reach out to the luca Support Team, or
- Ask your Oracle consultant
Most fields are typically set once and rarely changed.
5) In one sentence
This configuration connects your hotel’s PMS to luca so reservations, guests, and payments can flow automatically between both systems.