Objective
We have enhanced the ING Learning Management System (LMS) to provide credits to user accounts upon attending sessions or webinars presented by FPG. This feature ensures attendance is accurately tracked, credits are properly assigned, and participation is documented for reporting purposes.

Key Features

• Credit Assignment: Automatically assign credits to users for attending designated webinars.
• Content Association: LMS administrators can link courses, content, or learning paths to webinars and specify webinar dates for attendance tracking.
• Attendance Management: System administrators can select one or multiple attendees and record attendance details directly within the system.
• Record Updates: User records are automatically updated to reflect credits earned for webinar attendance.
• Summary Reporting: Generate detailed reports summarizing users who have received credits, including attendance and learning path details.
• Edit and Remove Credits: Administrators have the flexibility to modify or revoke credits to ensure accuracy and fairness in records.

Supported Content Types

Credits can now be associated with:

• Courses
• Content
• Learning Paths

Functionality

For LMS Admins

• Credit Association: LMS Admins can link specific learning paths, courses, or content to webinars and assign credits to attendees automatically based on their participation.
• Edit/Remove Credits: LMS Admins have the ability to edit or remove credits that were assigned to users, ensuring accurate records and fairness.
• Summary Reporting: LMS Admins can generate and export detailed summary reports of users who received credits for webinar attendance, including user names, associated learning paths, and attendance details.

For End Users

• Credit Award: End users automatically receive credit for attending webinars, ensuring their progress and achievements are accurately tracked in the system.
• Notification: End users are notified or receive confirmation when credits are awarded, providing assurance that their participation has been recorded.

Data Flow Overview

1. Content and Webinar Association

   • LMS Admins can select a learning path or content in the LMS Admin interface and associate it with a specific webinar.
   • The webinar's date is specified to enable attendance tracking.

2. Attendance and Record Management

   • Admins select attendees and record attendance details, triggering automatic credit updates in user records.

3. Modifications and Reporting

   • Admins can edit or remove credits in the system, ensuring accurate records.
   • A detailed summary report can be generated, including users’ names, learning paths, and attendance details. Reports are exportable for auditing purposes.

The launch of the Food & Beverage (F&B) package within the IN-Gauge platform. This new addition provides detailed performance metrics for restaurant operations by integrating POS data and delivering KPIs for servers and managers.

Key Features

F&B Package Subscription

• Admins can subscribe customers to the F&B package through the Admin Panel.
• Customers can subscribe to multiple packages simultaneously, including Front Desk, Service Delivery, and Food & Beverage.

F&B Package Roles

Two new roles introduced:

• Food & Beverage Manager: Provides access to F&B department-wide analytics.
• Food & Beverage Server: Offers individual access to self-performance data.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Primary KPIs: Tips per Server, Tip Percentage, Net Sales, Average Revenue Per Guest, Average Check Size.
• Derived KPIs: Number of Guests, Number of Checks.

F&B Dashboard

• Interactive Dashboards: Role-specific KPIs with rich visualizations.
• Date Filters: Filter data by MTD, WTD, YTD, Yesterday, and Weekly options.

Dashboard Cards

• Server Leaderboard: Ranks servers based on key KPIs.
• Average Tip Percentage: Displays tips as a percentage of sales.
• Server Performance: Tracks rank changes over time.
• Performance (Manager): Highlights areas for server improvement.
• Average Check Size: Analyzes bill value trends.
• Average Revenue Per Guest: Shows revenue trends per guest.
• Tips Per Shift: Visualizes tips across different shifts.

F&B Product Taxonomy

• A dedicated taxonomy for F&B products designed to provide a clear and organized structure for classifying various products, ensuring consistency and reporting capabilities across different restaurants and brands. 
• Filters for department-specific products on listing pages.

Additional Enhancements

• Role-Specific Data Access: Ensures security and operational alignment.
• Expanded Card Views: Offers in-depth performance insights for better decision-making.

Scheduled Maintenance Announcement

To support the rollout of these exciting updates, we will be performing a scheduled maintenance to enhance system performance and security.

Maintenance Details:

• Date: Saturday, January 11th, 2025
• Time: 6:30 AM IST (Friday, January 10th, 2025, 8:00 PM EST)
• Estimated Downtime: 30 minutes

Please plan accordingly to minimize any disruption to your operations.

Thank you for your continued support!

Best regards,
IN-Gauge Tech Pro Services Team

As of October 5th, 2024, the Metropolitan card is deployed as the default card on the property dashboard, following requests from customers and our operations team. The card is positioned in the center column of IN-Gauge, directly below the current KPI card.

Understanding the Metropolitan Card

The Metropolitan Benchmarking Card is designed to provide property managers with detailed insights into their property's performance compared to others within the same metropolitan area. It focuses on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as Incremental Revenue, Occupancy, and RevPar Impact, among others. The card visualizes these KPIs through bars, where the length represents the highest value in the area, and color indicates performance relative to the average. Users can view trends over time, export data, and customize which KPIs are displayed.

1. Increased Transaction Value

• How It Helps: By offering upgrades such as room enhancements, extended stays, or premium services (e.g., spa packages), front desk agents can increase the overall transaction value. Higher transaction values often lead to higher commission rates, directly benefiting the agent.
• Impact: Each successful upsell adds to the total revenue generated, which is often tied to commission structures that reward higher sales figures.

2. Personalized Upsell Offers

• How It Helps: The IN-Gauge LMS content educates agents on effective techniques to understand guest wants and needs, enabling them to create personalized upsell offers that are more likely to be accepted. Personalized offers typically have a higher conversion rate, leading to more frequent upselling opportunities and increased commissions.
• Impact: By tailoring offers to the specific needs and preferences of guests, agents can maximize their chances of upselling, directly increasing their commission earnings.

3. Performance Incentives

• How It Helps: Many commission structures include performance-based incentives that reward agents for meeting or exceeding upsell targets. Agents who consistently upsell can earn bonuses or higher commission rates.
• Impact: Reaching specific upsell goals can trigger additional rewards, leading to a significant boost in total earnings for the agent.

4. Cross-Selling Opportunities

• How It Helps: IN-Gauge can also be used to promote cross-selling of other hotel services, such as dining packages, local tours, or transportation services. These additional sales can further increase the agent’s commission.
• Impact: The ability to cross-sell alongside upselling increases the range of products an agent can offer, enhancing their potential to earn more.

5. Enhanced Guest Satisfaction and Loyalty

• How It Helps: Successful upselling that enhances the guest experience can lead to higher guest satisfaction and repeat business. Loyal guests who return are more likely to accept upsell offers, creating a steady stream of commission opportunities for the agent.
• Impact: Repeat guests who are accustomed to personalized service and tailored upsell offers contribute to ongoing commission growth for the agent.

6. Training and Support

• How It Helps: IN-Gauge often includes training modules that help agents improve their upselling techniques. Better training leads to more effective upselling, which in turn increases the likelihood of earning higher commissions.
• Impact: Continuous improvement through training translates to better performance, higher sales, and increased commission.

By leveraging these upselling strategies within the IN-Gauge platform, front desk agents can significantly enhance their commission earnings, contributing to their overall job satisfaction and financial success.

As of August 2024, hotel upselling has become a crucial strategy for maximizing revenue and enhancing guest experiences. Here are some key trends and stats:

1. Personalization: The focus on personalized upselling continues to grow. Approximately 74% of travelers are more likely to book with a brand that offers personalized recommendations, leading to higher upsell conversion rates and increased guest loyalty. Hotels are leveraging data analytics to tailor offerings, significantly boosting their upsell effectiveness.
2. Tech Integration: Technology is playing a pivotal role in transforming the guest experience and facilitating upselling. For example, 67% of guests now prefer using a mobile app for check-in and room selection, providing an opportunity for hotels to offer personalized upsell suggestions through these platforms.
3. Sustainability: With 82% of travelers considering sustainable practices important, hotels are increasingly offering eco-friendly upsell options, such as green room upgrades or sustainable amenity packages. This not only attracts eco-conscious guests but also enhances brand perception.
4. Ancillary Revenue: Beyond traditional room upgrades, hotels are expanding their upselling efforts to include ancillary services like curated local experiences and exclusive partnerships with nearby attractions. This approach can increase revenue per customer by 10-30%.
5. Dynamic Pricing and Yield Management: Upselling is also being integrated with dynamic pricing strategies, allowing hotels to adjust prices based on demand and capture guests with varying spending capacities, thereby maximizing revenue during peak periods.

These trends indicate that hotels are increasingly relying on personalized, technology-driven, and sustainable upselling strategies to drive revenue growth in 2024 and beyond(Upselling Solutions,Bismart Blog,Amadeus Hospitality).

We are enhancing our security measures to support our growing base of global customers by integrating Auth0 with IN-Gauge. This marks an exciting milestone in our journey, as we prioritize the protection of our customers' data and the integrity of our platform.

We understand the importance of a smooth user experience and have carefully designed our updates to minimize disruptions while delivering improved security measures and enhanced capabilities. Rest assured, your login experience will remain consistent and reliable as we continue to prioritize user satisfaction and security.

With Auth0, we are taking proactive steps to ensure that our authentication processes meet the highest standards of security and compliance. By leveraging Auth0's robust authentication and authorization capabilities, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and identity verification, we can safeguard our users' identities and data against unauthorized access and potential threats.

This initiative reflects our commitment to providing a seamless and secure experience for our customers, regardless of their location or the scale of their operations. With Auth0, we can scale our authentication infrastructure to meet the demands of our growing user base, while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to evolving security requirements and industry standards.

Enhanced Security: Auth0 provides robust authentication and authorization capabilities, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and identity verification. By leveraging Auth0's security features, you can protect your application from unauthorized access, data breaches, and identity-related attacks. Additionally, Auth0 offers compliance with industry standards and regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA, ensuring that our authentication processes adhere to best practices and legal requirements.

Introduction of IN-Gauge Metropolitan Benchmarking Card

 Announcing the launch of the new IN-Gauge Metropolitan Benchmarking Card, designed to provide property managers with enhanced insights into their property's performance relative to other properties within the same metropolitan region. 

Key Features:

1. Metropolitan Benchmarking: Property managers can now view the performance of their property against all other properties in the same metropolitan region, enabling them to assess their standing and identify areas for improvement.
2. Comparative Analysis: Property managers can understand how their property's Incremental Revenue, Room Upsell Conversion rates, and Length of Stay compare to similar properties in the metropolitan area, helping them gauge the effectiveness of their revenue management strategies and optimize upselling opportunities.
3. Performance Alerts: Property managers will receive notifications or alerts if their property's performance significantly deviates from the metropolitan benchmark, allowing them to take immediate corrective actions and stay competitive.
4. Customizable Reports: The BI team has developed customizable dashboards and reports for property managers, providing them with a user-friendly interface to access and interpret benchmarking data effortlessly. These reports can be shared with stakeholders and senior management for decision-making purposes.
5. Data Integrity and Reliability: The BI team has implemented data validation and quality checks to maintain the integrity and reliability of benchmarking data, ensuring that outliers or errors are promptly identified and addressed.
6. Predictive Analytics: The BI team has developed predictive analytics models that can anticipate changes in property performance within metropolitan regions, allowing property managers to proactively adjust strategies and stay ahead of the competition.
7. Training and Support: The BI team will provide training and support to property managers on how to interpret and use the benchmarking data effectively, empowering them to make informed decisions and drive performance improvements.

This release represents a significant milestone in our commitment to providing property managers with actionable insights and tools to optimize property performance and drive business success. We look forward to your feedback as we continue to enhance the capabilities of the IN-Gauge Metropolitan Benchmarking Card.

Deployed Feb 1st

We have now implemented a rolling two-year dataset with an annual endpoint within ING, which allows end users to perform queries efficiently. This change is driven by several  reasons, with approximately 90% of users primarily querying month-to-date (MTD) and year-to-date (YTD) data.
 This changes maintains the option for users to download the entire dataset when necessary.

This upgrade significantly enhances performance and processing capabilities on ING in real-time. It impacts the services and the underlying Relational Database Service (RDS) infrastructure, ensuring that user queries, particularly those focusing on MTD and YTD data, are supported effectively and efficiently.

User Stories:

1. As an ING user, I want to access historical reports within ING property and portfolio Dashboards.
2. As an ING user, I want the option to specify a custom date range for historical reports on the Property/Portfolio Dashboard.
3. As an ING user, I want to be able to export historical reports for data beyond the past 2 years on theProperty/Portfolio Dashboard.
4. As an ING user, I want the exported reports to be available in  used file formats like Excel or CSV.
5. As an ING user, I want to receive a notification when my export of historical reports is completed.

1. As an ING user, I should have the capability to export historical reports for data that extends beyond the previous 2 years using the new UI/UX for the Portfolio & Property  Dashboard.
2. On the Dashboard, a popup notification should appear when the calendar selection traverses beyond the last 2 years from the current year within the new UI/UX.
3. From the popup notification, users should be able to export historical data for the selected years in Excel format.
4. Users should have the option to select the desired metric type and year for exporting the historical data report.