Today is the internet age. It almost goes without saying that any business to survive today must make it's presence felt on the internet. CARS+ provides two tools to accomplish this: Webres and WebXML.

WEBRES

Webres is a Thermeon managed and hosted web feature that allows the public to book reservations directly into a client's reservation file. Webres consults the active CARS+ files to find:

Webres can be customized to meet many of the client's business rules. The booking pages can fit within an Iframe that the client has put up on their existing website or it can be completely hosted by Thermeon.

Within Webres, two versions are available:

Standard Webres: This version presents multiple pages of information that the renter responds to. A possible layout of these pages are:

  • Page 1: Booking details (Pickup/return locations and pickup/return dates and times)
  • Page 2: Available classes for the location and date indicated on page 1 along with a rate for each class
  • Page 3: Reserve-able options
  • Page 4: Reservation estimate and the opportunity to commit to the reservation.

Standard Webres is designed for the general renting public.

Expert Webres: This version has a single scrollable page that presents everything that the Standard Webres has on it's multiple pages. The presentation often has less textual prompts as to what is being asked for. As the name implies, this presentation is designed for an experienced Webres user not the general public. Businesses such as body shops, insurance adjustors and travel agencies who want a faster means of booking reservations use this format of webres.


WEBXML

XML is one of the universally accepted standards for passing data from one computer system to another. The list of data fields that can be sent and received plus the formatting rules required is called an "XML Schema". WebXML is a published XML schema that can be used by a website developed and hosted by the client or by a third party who does business with the client, to communicate to a CARS+ system hosted by Thermeon. All of the same data queries that occur with Webres, listed above, can take place via WebXML (rental locations, fleet availability, current rates, etc.). A significant difference is that WebXML is not limited to a single rate product within a session. WebXML is often used by reservation brokers and rental operations who want more control over their website.

Differences between the Two

Feature

 Webres
 WebXML

Hosting of the Website

 Thermeon hosts the Webres booking pages
 Thermeon DOES NOT host the Website that "talks" to CARS+

Maintence of the Website

 Thermeon maintains the design and development of the booking pages
 The design and maintenance of the Website is the CLIENT'S responsibility (often done by a third party Web designer).
Communication to CARS+
 As Thermeon is hosting both CARS+ and the booking pages the communication all happens internally and invisibly
 The "foreign" website must communicate to CARS+ by sending and receiving XML formatted messages that adhere to the published WebXML schema
Implementation Process
 Can be set up quickly and be made operational
 Requires development by the client or their web developer, then testing and certification by Thermeon before the site can be made operational.


WEBXML DEVELOPMENT

As stated above, WebXML requires development by the client or his agent. As an aid to this, Thermeon provides the developer the following tools on line at a developer's site:

Developers must contact Thermeon Customer support to have an account set up on the developer's site.


MORE ON XML

The following is a brief introduction to XML in general.

As stated above, XML is one of the universally accepted standards for passing data from one computer system to another. The list of data fields that can be sent and received plus the formatting rules required is called an "XML Schema". Think of a schema as the published "dictionary" of the individual pieces of data that can be passed or received and the rules on how to format the data. Data is sent between two angle brackets"<>" and within those brackets is the schema's name for the field and the actual data. For example, one of the pieces of data that can be sent to CARS+ via XML is the desired pickup location. That piece of data would be sent to CARS+ as follows:



CARS+ will receive this message, recognize it as an XML message, know that the characters after the schema field name "Pickup locationCode" and within the quotes are to be written to the reservation file in the CARS+ field Res-loc-out.

The assumption is that the broker has a website or application that among other things will accept a renter's last name. When the broker does a commit to a reservation after filling out all required fields, the pickup location and date/time as well as all other data defined in the CARS+ XML schema are sent to your CARS+ system as a single XML message. CARS+ will accept that data stream, parse the message and attempt to insert a new reservation into your Reservation file. If the write is successful, CARS+ will send a new XML message back to the broker with among other things the new reservation number as a confirmation.

The CARS+ XML Schema outlines the fields and layout for the following messages:
CARS+ will accept queries for data for:

CARS+ will accept a XML message for a new reservation to be stored (or edits to an existing reservation)

CARS+ will pass out XML messages containing: