Note: the screens you see in this article might not match your BookingBuilder exactly, but don't worry about that- the differences are just cosmetic and the directions will still work.

How to use BB- the Basics

A core feature of BookingBuilder Desktop is the power to book travel on the web, automatically getting the needed information from the GDS, putting it into the web page, and then sending confirmation info from the web site to the GDS.  It can also help find fares much more efficiently with IFQ.  

This article covers the basics first.  The Tips and Settings section after that delves into the extra settings and features you might want to look at after you've been through the rest.

The Icon

BookingBuilder watches what goes on in the GDS and on supplier websites, and it offers to help when it thinks it can- it will pop up messages asking if you want it to at various points.  Because of that, the BB icon down by the clock changes colors to tell you how it is doing at a given moment.

• Green means it is connected to the GDS and ready to go.
  
  
• Yellow means it is not connected to a GDS.  Very few features will be active, and most of the menu options aren't clickable.  If your GDS is running and it has been a few minutes since it and BookingBuilder were turned on, something is probably in need of repair.
  
  
• Red means it is busy doing something like an availability search, or downloading updates.  Give it a moment, and if it seems like it is taking longer than it should, make sure there isn't a BookingBuilder screen still open and waiting for your input.

Availability

This represents the basic workflow- you might find your own, but this is a good place to start.

1. Enter an appropriate availability command in your GDS- A30MAYLASLAX, or 130MAYBWIONT, etc.
   
   
2. Depending how your BookingBuilder is configured, you will see a yellow notification box on the lower right, or the BookingBuilder availability screen might open.  If you do see the yellow box, click on it to open the Fare Search (availability) screen.
   
   
   
   
3. That screen will have the availability search at the top, and the results at the bottom.  
   
   If you click the Web button on the lower left, BookingBuilder will open each one of the Supplier sites that came back as a result on the bottom, and fill in the dates, city pairs etc on each of those web pages.  That is probably more pages than you want to open, though- see below.
   
   
   
   
4. You can change the search criteria on the top, and the results in the bottom will update in real time.  You can type different dates, or use the Calendar button.  You can change the city codes by typing in those fields.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. The search assumes a round trip, but you can also quickly make it one way with the X button next to the return.  You can also add legs to the trip by filling in the dates and city pairs in the lines at the bottom.  Be aware that some airline websites (including swabiz.com) do not support multi-leg trips.  If you add a third leg, the results for those will disappear in the area below.  In that situation, you must book multiple one-ways.
   
   
6. You can change passenger count and class of service here too.  Some carriers don't allow class of service in their search.  If you seem to be missing one in the results, try un-doing your class of service selection.  You can see by the C icon in the results if they do or not- blue is yes, grey is no.
   
     
   
   
   
7. The Include Alternate Airports checkbox is usually left unchecked unless needed.  It expands the geographic area of the search, in case the first choice is unavailable due to weather or other events.  You can see the full list on the lower right of the screen.  If you leave all the cities checked, when you click Web, BookingBuilder will open more than one copy of each page, so it can complete each search.  If that isn't what you are after, you will want to un-check all but two of those Cities before you hit Web.  The top Cities checkbox will check or un-check all the cities at once.
   
   If you check or un-check the Alternate Airports box, it will stay that way for future bookings. 
   
   
   
   
8. Some suppliers don't respond with a definite yes or no to the search, but instead that they 'serve the market'.  The Include Serving Suppliers checkbox will show carriers that respond in that way, or keep them from showing. 
   
   This is an individual preference- if you book a lot of tickets for serving suppliers, such as Air Canada or Amtrak, you might leave it filled in, but un-check it otherwise.  This will stay the way you set it until you change it again.  You can tell which ones are serving in the results by whether the airplane icon is highlighted or not- in the default colors, it is blue for regular suppliers and gray for serving suppliers.
   
     
   
   
9. Down in the Filters area, you will want to make sure only the sites and city pairs you are interested are filled in.  Clicking the top Web checkbox will un-check all the sites, (or re-check them if you click it again).  Once that is done, fill in the ones you want.
   
   
    
10. Some suppliers require logins, which BookingBuilder can store.  If a supplier you've decided to open supports multiple stored logins, you might have to pick one out before you proceed.
    
    
    
    

Web Button

Once you have your suppliers picked out etc, you can click either the Web or the IFQ button.  Web is for when you either know the site you want to book on, or have it narrowed down to a few.  IFQ is used when you need to compare a lot of different sites.  It is much faster than manually visiting them all, and is covered below.

1. Clicking Web will open the sites of any selected suppliers, log in with stored credentials if there are any, and enter the search terms.  BookingBuilder will open the site in the browser you have selected.   
   
   
   
   
2. Once BookingBuilder has opened the page, it will enter the search criteria, and perform the search if possible (you might have to click the search button on some sites).  
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click through the site and pick out the flights, bags, etc.  The next time BookingBuilder pops up will be on the passenger information page- where the carrier wants to know just who is traveling.  
   
   
4. If you click Yes when it asks if you want to fill in from profile...
   
   
   
   
5. It will pop up a message explaining what to do.  Once you have the PNR ready, and click OK, BookingBuilder will start entering commands in the GDS to get the passenger information.  Depending on just how your BookingBuilder Group is configured, you might get other popups, asking you questions or giving information.  
   
   
   
   
6. Next you will see the BookingBuilder profile screen.  
   
   
   
   
7. The information here is what will be entered into the supplier site when you click OK.  It can be changed: for instance, if you need to select a different phone number, email or address you can click check boxes and radio buttons to pick different ones.  You can also simply type in any of the fields. 
   
   If you notice information missing from this screen that is actually in the GDS profile, please let someone know.  How profiles are stored is not standardized, so each BookingBuilder Group has custom code to read them.  If something isn't coming over, it might mean the profiles were changed, new formats have been added, or something along those lines- in any case the support staff at BookingBuilder can help.
   
   
8. Once you have clicked the OK button, the information will be filled into the supplier site.  The next time BookingBuilder does something will be when it reads the confirmation page.
   
   

Confirmations

1. When BookingBuilder sees that you are on a confirmation page, it will try to read the page and package the information for the GDS.
   
   
   
   
2. Clicking Enter Information into GDS will do just that- all the parts of the record will go in to the GDS using the formats created for your Group, and depending on what options you select (keep reading for those).
   
   If anything doesn't go in properly, it is worth looking in to- the formats  may need adjusted, or the way BookingBuilder reads the web page might.  If something goes wrong,  you can use the Send Confirmation to Support button.  You can get back to this screen after it closes by right clicking your BB icon and then choosing Open Saved Confirmation.  
   
   
3. There are check boxes at the bottom- Remarks, Air Segments, Non Air Segments and Pricing Record.  Those control whether that information will be entered into the GDS.  They will stay the way you set them for all the confirmations after this, until you change them again.  If your record is missing something, make sure you haven't accidentally un-checked one of those.
   
   
4. Some suppliers, such as Swabiz, do not include the ticket number on the confirmation web page, so BookingBuilder can't put it into the confirmation.  The Ticket Number field can be used to enter that information manually, if for instance you have it in email.  Paste it in and click Set, and then BookingBuilder will enter that too.  
   
   There is also a way to get BookingBuilder to read the confirmation email from the supplier instead of the web page, which can be useful if it includes extra info (for Swabiz, that means the ticket number).  See the Tips and Settings section for that.
   
   
   
   
5. The Commission Percentage and Cap fields can be used to set those, in combination with the Commission amount.   See Tips and Settings for more detail.  

IFQ

Instant Fare Quote, as mentioned above, lets you shop around at lightning speed by performing the search you entered on as many websites as you picked, but all at once.  It puts the information into a table.  

This is a feature that can be turned on or off for a Group- if you don't see the button, it isn't turned on, so check with your BookingBuilder Administrator.

Not every supplier participates in IFQ- if they do, they will have a blue quote icon, and if they don't, it will be grey.

 

1. After filling in the search, click on the IFQ button.
   
   
   
   
2. The IFQ tab will open on the Availability screen.  The status of each search is displayed at the top.  'Fare Check Complete- No results' means that supplier doesn't have anything that matches the search.  'Fare Check Complete' means the results are below.  You might also see errors once in a while (see Tips and Settings).
   
   
   
   
3. The Settings section lets you sort by the last flight leg.  You can also change the currency display to whichever you like from the list in the drop down. 
   
   If you un-check the Close when Book button is clicked checkbox, the screen will stay open.  If you do additional IFQ searches while leaving this screen open, they will each be in their own tabs, which can be handy for comparisons. If you do close the screen, the tabs will be gone when you reopen it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. The Filters are a powerful way to rapidly narrow down the results.  Combined with sorting the columns in the results, you can zero in on what you are after very quickly.
   
   
   
   
   1. Time lets you define ranges for departures and arrivals.  For example, you might have a passenger that just doesn't want to get up that early, and use this to filter out 'red eye' flights, or a traveler that needs to get somewhere by 3pm or not at all.
      
      
   2. The Flight section has a Nonstops checkbox- filling that in removes all flights with connections in the results.   
      
      
   3. Also in Flight, the Class of Service drop down will contain classes based on the various suppliers in the results.  For instance, Amtrak has a class named Flexible, and you will only have that as an option here if Amtrak returned a result.  
      
      
   4. Total Duration displays in hours : minutes format, and it can be very handy for that passenger that doesn't want to "be flying all day".  It does the math as you slide it around, and removes any result with a duration higher than what you set it to.  
      
      
   5. Sources are sites that themselves aggregate search results- Expedia, Orbitz and similar sites unchecked here will remove them from the results below.
      
      
   6. Suppliers are of course removed from the results when you un-check them.
      
      
   7. Connections can be unchecked to remove those results, for passengers that prefer to avoid certain stops.
      
      
5. Now that all of that is in place, lets look at the results on the bottom.  
   
   
   
   
   1. You can click any column header to sort by it, and click it again to reverse the order. 
      
      
   2. You may see that the buttons on the lower right are all grey- that is because you need to select a result first- if you click on a row, it will highlight and the buttons will become usable.  
      
      
   3. If you click Book, it will open the supplier site, just like the Web button.  
      
      
   4. Clicking Document will open a popup asking for the Reason and any Comments.  If you click the Document button on there, the flight information will be entered in the GDS as a remark, and so will anything you have put into the Reason and Comments fields.  This can come in very handy if you are required to 'show your work' on fare selection.
      
      
      
      
   5. The Email button doesn't become usable until you click at least one checkbox in the Email column, and you can click as many as you like.  When you push that button, BookingBuilder will try to open your Microsoft Outlook (if you have that installed), start a new message, and put the selected flight information into it.  The checkbox at the top of the column next to the word Email will fill them all in or un-check them all.
      
      
      
      
      
      If you don't have Outlook installed, (the web version doesn't count), BookingBuilder puts the information on your clipboard instead, so you can paste it into whatever you do have.  
      
      
      
      
   6. If something goes wrong during all this, you can click the Send to Support button, and that will open a screen.
      
      
      
      Fill in the name, phone number and email if they aren't there already (or change them if they aren't correct of course).  The Description field is where you can say what went wrong.
      
      You can pick out a monitor in the Screenshot drop-down, and Take Again refreshes it.  
      
      Click Send, and all the information about the IFQ will be on its way to Support, where it will create a ticket.

Tips and Settings

 We skipped some things above that aren't quite basic- they are in this section.

Searches

1. If you perform a search a lot, you can save it to a list of Favorites by clicking Searches, then Add Favorite. 
   
   
   
   Organize Favorites lets you reorder them by dragging them up or down.
   
   
   
   Clicking Favorites lets you select one of them, and then fills in the cities.  You will still need to enter the dates.
   
   
   
   Similarly, Recent will let you select from your last 10 previously performed searches to run them again.
   
   
   
   
2. Clicking Options, then Notification Window Settings will let you control the 'yellow box'.
   
   
   
   
   
   Max Height means what percentage of your monitor the yellow box will take up vertically- that is, if you get so many results that it gets in your way, you can limit it here.
   
   The Hide Airport List checkbox keeps those out of the yellow box.
   
   
   
   Clicking Options, then  Settings gives you access to 'Alert when maximum pages exceeds'.  Setting the number determines when BookingBuilder will ask if you meant to open that many pages at once when you click the Web button.  That gives you the chance to cancel.
   
   The 'Default to Round trip' checkbox determines whether BookingBuilder fills in the return leg automatically or not.
   
   
     
   
   
   
3. On the lower right of the Availability screen, there is a checkbox labeled 'Close when Web button is clicked', which of course closes the screen when you do that.  It will stay the way you set it.
   
   
   
   

Confirmations

1. One trick that you can use for some suppliers, such as Swabiz, is to cancel the first BookingBuilder confirmation popup, and instead find the confirmation email from the supplier.  In Outlook, open the email  (the Reading Pane doesn't have the option we need). 
   
   Find the Move area on the ribbon, click to display the extra items, and then use View In Browser. You can also enter 'view in browser' in the 'Tell me what you want to do' box.  The email will open up as a web page.
   
   BookingBuilder will read the confirmation and fill in all the information, including the Ticket Number.  Now you can use Enter Information into GDS and it will be included.
   
   
   
   
2. You can set the commission the way you need it to be.  Change the drop down that says Ticket Number to Commission, and enter the amount.  Click Set.  Now you can use the Percentage and Cap fields to set those values, and the commission will be included when you click to enter into the GDS.
   
   

IFQ

Each of the status results at the top of the IFQ tab contains more information if you need it.  When you put your mouse over any of the rows a button will appear on the right hand side that looks like an underscore, '_'.  Clicking that reveals more step by step information about that supplier during the search.  

That can help track down what went wrong if there is a problem.