How to Unlock a Hotel Network's True Value with Hospitality Dashboards
Hotel networks continuously transfer terabytes of data generated by guests and hotel operations. As hotels deploy IoT modules, sensors and other smart devices, the amount of network traffic will increase exponentially. Historically, it has been a challenge to collate network traffic and intelligently display actionable data about the connected guest experience and the overall health of a hotel network. This article from Ruckus Networks discusses how the increasing use of open APIs is making it easier for hotels to unlock the true value of their networks by facilitating the creation of custom, information-rich hospitality dashboards.
Offering far more than basic NOC utilities, these versatile network management stations are enabling hotels to rapidly resolve guest Wi-Fi issues, significantly reduce network down time and more efficiently deploy APs, switches, IoT modules and smart devices. Put simply, hospitality-centric dashboards are helping hotels provide higher quality of service (QoS), thereby increasing customer satisfaction and bolstering brand loyalty. Open network architecture, which includes open APIs, is key to creating these hospitality-centric dashboards which allow actionable data to be accessed easily and quickly. This is particularly important in the age of smart hotel rooms, as hotels are now prioritizing the display of data in a user-friendly format to enhance the guest experience and streamline hospitality operations.
Customer Dashboards
A hotel dashboard typically offers an intuitive user interface (UI) that provides a graphic-based, holistic view of network activities in near real-time. Below are a number of real world, hospitality-centric dashboard fields that hotels have created using Ruckus open APIs:
* Network Management Station (NMS) – Provides a simple or detailed charted view of all guests, devices, installed locations and their current state. NMS also enables drill-down options of OS and browser type over an extensive date range, while facilitating the easy tracking and categorization of internet traffic patterns. Hotels are using the analysis of traffic patterns to optimize targeted ads and loyalty offers to guests.
* Smart Room Snapshot – Hotels are enhancing the guest experience and building customer loyalty via the continuous optimization of smart rooms that automatically adjust to accommodate guest preferences. This dashboard field offers a succinct status ‘snapshot’ of installed IoT devices such as guest locks, smoke detectors, thermostats and window shades, along with connected TVs, casting devices and smart speakers such as Sonos, Amazon Alexa or Google Home/Chromecast. Snapshots are drilled down in near-real time or analyzed over specified long-term date ranges. It should be noted that this dashboard field is particularly important for connected devices such as panic buttons, security sensors and high-bandwidth guest medical monitoring devices.
* Property Management System Window – This dashboard is integrated with existing property management systems to display average daily rate, (ADR), revenue per available room (RevPAR), occupancy rate as well as the status of food and beverage stocks. An integrated Property Management System also offers access to online check-in and check-out services, online booking engines, room service options, maintenance management, guest-staff communication applications and HR payroll.
* Troubleshooting Service Center – Displays a detailed graph view of service tickets and their status (i.e., submitted, open and resolved), as well as drill-down details about each event for non-technical staff. This feature is used to streamline troubleshooting efforts by highlighting past events and successful resolution methods.
* NOC Technical Toolkit – Includes rapid MAC lookup for unauthenticated devices, circuit stress tests and general utilities to monitor the health of wireless and LTE APs, IoT modules and controllers. The NOC Technical Toolkit also serves as a centralized, long-terms repository for the storage of trouble tickets, technical system logs, field service records, billing information and BOM materials.
* Device OS Updates – Analyzes how device updates affect circuit consumption and network performance. Helps optimize future updates by comparing timelines, as well as performance before, during and after.
* Energy Savings Corner – Hotel staff drills down to view long-term circuit consumption, whether by hour, day, week, month or year. This dashboard field provides valuable information that is used to help reduce power consumption, as well as optimize energy efficiency and circuit availability.
Hotels around the world are actively leveraging open APIs to create a new generation of advanced hospitality-centric dashboards. Offering far more than basic NOC utilities, these versatile network management stations have been proven to increase customer satisfaction and bolster brand loyalty. However, it is important to emphasize that continued innovation in the hospitality sector is contingent upon network solution companies supporting a truly open ecosystem for their partners and customers. History has shown us that industries and companies tend to prosper when the supplier community innovates with new ideas and open architecture. This is precisely why the hospitality industry should encourage the continued use of truly open APIs that enable hotels to unlock the true value of their networks.