PMS and PBX not communicating 2

[hhallett]

I hope that I can word my inquiry well enough.

I have a hotel customer that has had the problems of displayed guest names not having changed in the past couple of weeks, guest mailboxes and phones having to manually have their COS changed and room housekeeping status changes not registering.

They had a new Property Management System (PMS) called OPERA installed a couple of months ago. For the 3 years prior to this the only issues suffered by their previous PMS were when the link between the PMS and the MerMail would drop. A quick reboot of the old PMS and they were back in business.

The company that installed the new PMS had a little trouble getting the system to accept the data stream from the PBX/MerMail but finally came up with a solution that worked.

Anyway, I've recommended to the customer that they initiate a database swap from the PMS to the PBX/MerMail to try to alleviate what I think is a loss of synchronization issue. The customer says that they aren't willing to do this until I have proven that the problem is not with the PBX/MerMail.

The PBX-VM link and the VM-PMS links both show as up, guest phone COS can be manually changed from the Operator's consoles, guest mailbox COS/password can be changed from the Guest Administration Console (GAC) and if I print the Room Status Report from the switchroom terminal it matches what the Housekeeping Supervisors have written in their log.

I know that the link between the PMS and the PBX/MerMail is mostly a one-way communication from the PMS to the PBX/MerMail. If I put my laptop on the VM-PMS interface cable I'm not certain if I'm seeing the correct data information as it all looks foreign to me.

My knowledge of this is limited. Is there anything else that I can do to prove whether the problem is or is not with the PBX/MerMail?

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[tnphoneman]

I don't remember off the top of my head but there is a command that you can use to monitor the PMS link from another TTY port and you can see what the PMS is sending if at all.

As far as proving that it is not the PBX, I think you have done that already with the terminal. PBX has not changed but the PMS has.

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[StanleySteamer]

The command that tnphoneman is thinking of is in LD 37.
ENL MSGI
ENL MSGO

This will echo the conversation between the PMS and the PBX to all MTC tty ports. The PMS data will be prefixed with a [P] and the PBX data will be prefixed with [M].
Have the front desk check in a guest to see what happens.
It may be obvious when you see it but if you have trouble interpreting what you see then post a sample here.

 

[hhallett]

I've enabled input/output message monitoring as was recommended and have repeatedly seen the following:

PT [STX]IS TEST[ETX] [BCC] <TIME>
MT [ACK] <TIME>

I interpret this as the PMS saying "Are you there?" and the PBX responding "Yes".

I have also seen room status being sent to the PMS from time to time:

MT [STX]ST <ROOM DN> PR MI 0[ETX]
PT [ACK]

This is all that I've seen for almost 2 hours. It is now 11am Pacific and I know that they've had folks checking out this morning. It looks like I'm just not getting the info from the PMS. Does this look like a good presumption or is there something that I might have missed?

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[StanleySteamer]

If you are positive that guests have checked out then I think you are safe to assume the PMS is not sending the check out message. It should look like this:
PT [STX]SE ST <room DN> CH OU[ETX][BCC]17:21:38
MT [ACK]17:21:38

Since the Meridian Mail is in between the PMS and PBX then there is a possibility that it's somehow blocking the check-in/out messages but very unlikely. To eliminate that possibility you can set the mail into bypass mode by setting a switch on the front of the RSm card.

 

[hhallett]

But when I set it to bypass doesn't that prevent the Mail from resetting the VMBs when guests check in/out?

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[StanleySteamer]

But when I set it to bypass doesn't that prevent the Mail from resetting the VMBs when guests check in/out?

Yes but the mail is not resetting anything anyway, right? By using the bypass switch I'm suggesting you can eliminate the unlikely possibility that the mail is interfering with the PMS messages.

 

[hhallett]

I was thinking more along the lines of, if there's no difference in result then I've not really proved anything. But, I'll see what happens.

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[StanleySteamer]

Yes I agree it may not prove much. The point is that you aren't getting any CH IN or CH OU messages at the PBX. You also are not getting any CPND changes. So maybe the MM is somehow blocking the messages.
But here's another thing to try - in Meridian Mail Tools menu there is a Universal Link Monitor. You should be able to see the messages being sent from all three devices.

 

[hhallett]

I'll check tools. The MerMail is Rls 8 and hopefully ULM is not another of the usable tools this doesn't have.

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[hhallett]

I'd like to thank everyone for their aid and support.

It is now midday on a Friday. I've watched the front desk check guests out this morning and I'm still seeing only the

PT [STX]IS TEST[ETX] [BCC]
MT [ACK]

and the

MT [STX]ST <ROOM DN> PR MI 0[ETX]
PT [ACK]

messages. What I am still not seeing are either the

PT [STX]SE ST <room DN> CH OU (or IN) [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

or the

PT [STX]SE CP <room DN> <Name> [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

messages.

Housekeeping says that their still not seeing the room status changes in the PMS software.

The Hotel has finally accepted that it's a PMS problem.

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[StanleySteamer]

Interesting that the PMS sends an ACK when it gets the room status message from the PBX. I guess it just isn't doing anything with it when it receives.

 

[StanleySteamer]

BTW - The "IS TEST" message is most likely coming from the Meridian Mail, not the PMS. You will be able to see that when you get the Universal Link Monitor working.

 

[hhallett]

There is no ULMA in TOOLS for this MerMail. I'm told that it was not available on Rls 8.

Sporadically I see messages like
PT [STX]SE ST <room DN> CO ON[ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

But I still do not see
PT [STX]SE ST <room DN> CH OU (or IN) [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

or
PT [STX]SE CP <room DN> <Name> [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

The IT folks tell me that "work is in progress".

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[hhallett]

Well folks, after all was said and done it turns out that the problem was in
...
...
...
Drum roll please.
...
...
...
The MerMail!!

Yep. This was a strange one to me. When I looked at the messaging stream on the maintenance terminal all that the PBX was receiving from the PMS for close to 2 weeks was PT [STX]IS TEST[ETX] [BCC]. Which, of course, the PBX acknowledged.

Today I put the RSM in bypass and immediately began seeing different messaging. I at first thought that the PBX was finally receiving the update data from the PMS.

I soon noted that there was only one message repeating over and over:

PT [STX]SE CP Z9315 "JODI PORTUGAL'S BABY SH" 23 LA 0 ETX][BCC]
MT [NACK]
MT [STX]MNEMONIC[ETX][BCC]
MT [STX]MNEMONIC[ETX][BCC]
MT [STX]INPUT ERROR[ETX][BCC]

I put the RSM back into normal mode and saw no change in the new errors.

The IT Manager told me that their PMS vendor said that they were only seeing a partial link with the PBX.

I rebooted the MerMail.

I now see the following messaging:
PT [STX]SE ST <room DN> CH OU (or IN) [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

and

PT [STX]SE CP <room DN> <Name> [ETX][BCC]
MT [ACK]

as well as what I was seeing before:

PT [STX]IS TEST[ETX] [BCC]
MT [ACK]

and

MT [STX]ST <ROOM DN> PR MI 0[ETX]
PT [ACK]

All of which I would expect to see. I'll be monitoring the messaging over the next few days to see if the problem returns.

Thanks for all of the good suggestions and encouragement.

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[esoare]

hmm.. So Jody Portugal is haveing a Baby Shower.. Interesting.
es

 

[hhallett]

Actually she had one over 2 weeks ago for that's how long this problem has existed.

I hope that it was a damned good one for all of the trouble it caused.

Regards,
Harry
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[MetlePro]

Sorry to bring this old post back up.
But I'm having some issues with a hotel client which has Opera installed last year on his Option11 with MerMail v 13.13

I just want to know what the port settings are for your PMS interface and the Mermail interface.

Right now, they have it connected from the PMS to the Option11's tty2 configured as PMS.
- TTY > 1200 N 8 2
- PMS > 1200 E 7 2

And that's the only way it'll work.

I'm about to work on getting the PMS connected to the mermail and wanted to know if I should setup the Interface with the same values of the TTY.



Pro reffers to my company, not my status

 

[mrmhar]

Dears

i have connectivity problem with PMS port, the HMS and fidileo are working fine
but between PBX and HMS no connectivity when i test the link from HMS side

i checked the posts and i enabled the log messages i got the following

PO [STX]ST PO[ETX][BCC]20:30:39


the port setting is 9600

PMS setting in HMS is

PMS > 9600 E 7 2

TTY > 9600 N 8 1


please help me

thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks