Bookings from channels: what arrives in the calendar

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Why	Understand what happens to a booking after a channel sells it — where it comes from, where it is visible, and how it differs from a direct booking.
Who	Hotel administrators and front desk teams who have just connected sales channels (or are about to).
What you’ll get	A clear picture of a channel booking’s journey: how it lands in the calendar, where the source shows in the list, the booking card, and the calendar grid, and what data the channel passes along.
Limitations	Old bookings — the ones made before the channel was connected — do not arrive by themselves: they are imported manually for a period. The channel’s commission is not shown on the booking card.

A channel sold a room — and from that moment the booking lives in the system like any other: the same card, the same statuses, the same row in the Planner. There are few differences from a direct booking, but it pays to know them in advance: where the booking appears, where it came from, and what can be changed in it. Most of the journey happens on its own — understanding the mechanics helps you tell normal from trouble. This article covers the whole journey of a channel booking.

How a booking reaches the calendar

New bookings from connected channels arrive in the Planner on their own: the system accepts them without manual typing, and a notification pops up in the corner of the screen. The booking comes with the guest, the stay dates, and the channel’s booking number — so you can always cross-check it against the channel’s extranet. By the time you open the Planner, the booking is already on the grid.

Availability is shared by everyone: every sale recalculates it for all channels from a single calendar. A room sold in one channel immediately stops selling in the others — there is no separate availability counter for channels. So the picture in the Planner and the picture on the channel are the same picture: what is free is free everywhere.

One caveat: bookings made before the channel was connected do not arrive by themselves — the system starts accepting bookings from the moment of connection. Past bookings are imported manually, for the period you need: see the article Past channel bookings.

One last fork on the journey: if a channel sold the room at the very moment it was placed in the system, the pair of bookings goes to handling — that is the double booking scenario, with its own article covering how the conflict is resolved in the calendar grid.

Where the source is visible

The source is the marker of where a booking was sold: through a channel or directly. It shows in three places, each for its own task:

In the Bookings list — as text in the booking row: “Confirmed by Booking.com”, “Confirmed by Expedia”. A quick scan of the list is the fastest way to see how many bookings came from channels today.
On the booking card — the channel’s logo and name next to the booking’s creation date. You have opened a specific booking — the source is right there, no filters or search needed.
In the Planner — the channel’s logo on the booking bar. The grid shows sources right on the plan: you can tell a channel booking by sight, before any click.

Direct bookings have no source: you sold them yourselves, so they need no marker. That is why a channel booking is recognized at a glance — in any of the three places.

There is also a fourth, service place: the advanced filters of the Bookings list hold a “Source” filter. The three places above answer “where did this booking come from”; the filter answers “what did this channel sell over a period” — it picks out one channel’s bookings when you need a selection, not a glance.

Channel data on the booking card

A channel booking opens on the same card as a direct one: guest, stay dates, rate, and cancellation policy are ordinary card fields, filled in from the data the channel passed along with the booking. There is no separate “channel-style” card — you work with the booking like any other: payments, documents, and guest messages are handled on the same tabs as for a direct booking.

The only dedicated place is for the channel’s raw data: the “Channel information” tab, the twelfth and last in the row, next to “History” (a tour of all twelve — in the article Inside the booking card). Inside the tab is a section with the data the channel passed along with the booking — in the shape the channel delivered it, not re-laid into card fields. The section may be collapsed — expand it by clicking its header. If the channel passed nothing beyond the ordinary fields, the block inside will be empty — that is normal, not a glitch.

What the card does not have is the channel’s commission. How much the channel kept from the sale is not shown on the booking card: do not look for it among the fields and tabs.

Moving bookings in the Planner

Bookings from channels are not moved with the mouse in the Planner — manual moving is off for them by default (as it is for group bookings and bookings of 5 rooms or more). The system protects itself this way against desync with the channel: if the room changed only in the PMS, the channel would keep believing the guest is in the old one.

Clicking such a booking opens the card — the room and dates are changed through the booking card, not by dragging across the grid. For direct bookings nothing has changed: the mouse-move restriction covers only channel, group, and large bookings.

Result: a channel booking is moved with documents, not with the mouse — edit the card first, and the grid will show the booking in its new spot on its own.

Changes and cancellations from the channel

The guest extended the stay, changed the dates, or canceled on the channel’s side — the system pulls this in on its own: changes and cancellations travel in the same stream as new bookings, and there is nothing to handle by hand. No retyping the change, no separately notifying the channel. There is no separate screen for such events — the booking’s data is updated in the ordinary course of things.

How quickly a channel passes a change on is up to the channel: there are no fixed timeframes. Your own cancellations mirror the same path: a booking canceled in the system flows out to the connected channels on its own — there is no need to notify the channel separately.

Honest limits

Two limits we will be upfront about:

CSV export of bookings can filter by source. Exporting one channel’s bookings as a separate file is a filter setting in the export, not hand-picking rows. A separate article on the export is in the works — we will add the link once it is out.
The channel’s directory may be empty right after connecting. Until the channel delivers its room types, there is nothing to map — the mapping dialog will tell you the channel’s directory is empty and ask you to check the connection and the hotel ID in the channel. The fix is to check the connection and the external property ID: how mapping works and what to verify — in the article Mapping: match channel categories and rates.