Manual Enhanced: Setup & Alerts Overview
The Manual Enhanced screen is a powerful tool that gives you greater control and visibility over your rate strategy. While it’s not a full revenue management system, it provides essential insights to help you make smarter, faster pricing decisions—especially when combined with Auto Tiering or Manual Tiering tools.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the key setup options available within the Manual Enhanced screen. These settings don’t change your rates for you—but they alert you when your attention is needed, based on occupancy trends and booking activity. With the right configuration, the Manual Enhanced screen becomes more than a display—it becomes your early-warning system for revenue opportunities.
Path: Revenue Management Live! > Revenue Management Live! > Manual Enhanced > Setup (right side toolbox)
High Occupancy Alerts
This section allows you to define specific date ranges where occupancy thresholds will trigger alerts. These ranges are year-agnostic, meaning they apply across all years. For example, if you configure an alert for December 20–31, it will apply during that time frame every year. You can choose to display alerts when your occupancy percentage reaches or exceeds a defined threshold (e.g., 65%). Once triggered, these alerts appear on the alert screen and mark the relevant dates for review.
They don’t automatically apply rate changes but instead highlight dates that may require manual adjustments—especially if your competitors are pricing differently or demand is rising quickly.
Pacing Threshold Alerts
Pacing alerts notify you when your occupancy is increasing rapidly within a short window prior to arrival.
For example, you might set alerts like:
- If you're within 5 days of arrival and occupancy has increased by 10% or more, trigger an alert
- If you're within 1 day and see a 15% change, also trigger an alert
These alerts are especially useful if you're not using Auto Tiering, as they draw your attention to dates where demand is surging and rates may need to be reviewed. The system highlights these dates in red on the Manual Enhanced screen, but it won’t specify which pacing rule was triggered—only that the date needs attention.
Even with Auto Tiering enabled, pacing alerts add an extra layer of visibility into booking activity that may influence your strategy.
These alerts help you monitor how quickly your rooms are booking (aka pacing). If you're not using Auto Tiering, these alerts are especially helpful for spotting demand spikes manually. The system highlights the date but doesn’t specify which alert was triggered—just that it crossed your defined pacing threshold.
Competitors
The Competitors section lets you define which competitor hotels you want to monitor and how closely your property’s rates should align with theirs. This section works in conjunction with your Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) subscription, which provides rate data for up to five competitors.
You can only add up to five competitors. These are configured during setup and pulled in automatically after you enter your Subscription ID and click Update Info under the Competitor Rate Shop section.
How to Configure This Section
Each competitor appears in its own row, and you configure the following settings for each:
Example Use Cases
- You may ignore alerts from a low-priority competitor by setting Rate Alert = NO.
- If Competitor A is considered critical to your pricing strategy, assign them a priority of 1 and a tight rate range, such as “within $5–$20.”
- Enable Rate N/A Alert to get notified if that competitor’s rate isn’t available for the day—so you’re never blind to their movements.
Rate Level Alerts (Occupancy Level Alerts)
The Rate Level Alerts section offers advanced functionality designed to help you automate pricing decisions. However, this feature is still being reviewed by our product team and hasn’t yet been fully validated with Lighthouse data.
For that reason, we recommend that most properties leave this section blank for now. If you do choose to explore it, please be aware that results may vary, and system behavior may not yet reflect the final intended functionality.
The Rate Level Alerts section lets you create advanced rules that watch for certain conditions—like occupancy levels or competitor availability—and help guide your pricing decisions by suggesting a new tier and closing selected rate levels.
This feature is considered optional, and most hotels do not need to configure this section. If you’re unsure, we recommend skipping this setup for now.
What This Section Does
This area allows you to define rules that:
- Trigger alerts based on a combination of:
- Your on-the-books (OTB) occupancy
- Forecasted occupancy level (Low / Medium / High)
- Availability of selected competitors
When those conditions are met, the system can:
- Suggest a specific rate tier
- Automatically close one or more rate levels (if configured)
The alert will display on your Manual Enhanced calendar to help you take action quickly.
This feature is currently under review and limited testing.
While the system may display alerts and suggestions, the automatic closing of rate levels may not function consistently yet.
If you choose to use this section, we recommend monitoring results closely and keeping your setup simple.
We’ll provide additional guidance and examples once testing is complete and the feature is fully supported.
Consider using the Rate Level Alerts section to create customized occupancy-based rules—without involving competitor availability or rate closures.
For example, you might set alerts such as:
• At 40% occupancy – stay at the base tier
• At 60% – move to tier 8
• At 91% – treat as sold out and shift to tier 9
This approach can offer a more tailored way to manage tier changes than relying solely on the default high/medium/low occupancy levels.
General Settings
This area allows you to control how the system handles alerts, displays rate data, and calculates forecasting trends.
- Rate Level to Ignore Alerts: Use this setting to enter any rate levels (e.g., B, G, E) that you don’t want the system to generate alerts for. This is helpful when working with internal, employee, or negotiated rates that don’t follow the same strategy as public rates.
- # of Days to Forecast: This defines how far into the future the system will generate alerts. Most properties use a 14- to 90-day range. There's little benefit to getting alerts for dates several months away, as long-range forecasts often shift based on evolving demand.
- Room Type for Rate Displays: Select which room type the system should use as the base when displaying your rate and comparing it to competitor rates. This is often your lowest category room, which acts as your benchmark.
- Historical or Budget: Choose whether to compare data against historical performance or budget goals. Use Historical when you have reliable past data; Use Budget if you're a new property, recently switched systems, or your past data (e.g., from pandemic years) is unreliable.
- Forecast Trend Adjustment: Decide how your forecast data should be adjusted. There are three options:
- No Adjustment – Only shows current bookings (on-the-books).
- Historical YR/YR – Adjusts forecasts based on historical year-over-year trends.
- Pickup YR/YR – Adjusts forecasts based on pickup pacing (reservation growth over time).
- # of Weeks for Trending: This sets how many past weeks should be used to calculate trends. A higher number helps smooth out unusual spikes caused by one-off events (like concerts or festivals), giving you more stable data.
- Apply Equalizer: When enabled, the system compares patterns like “first Monday in March” or “third Sunday in December” rather than exact calendar dates. This helps normalize trends around recurring holidays or events that don’t fall on the same date each year (like Thanksgiving).
Competitor Rate Shop
This section controls how competitor rate data is pulled and used in the system.
- Subscription #: Enter your rate shopping subscription ID. Once it's entered, click Update Info to pull in your list of competitors. If you receive a “Subscription ID not found” error, the ID is incorrect or not yet activated by Lighthouse.
- OTA: Select the online travel agency (OTA) you want the system to use for rate shopping (e.g., Booking.com).
- BAR (Best Available Rate): Choose whether to compare against each competitor's Best Available Rate (BAR).
If set to Yes, the system will always compare your base rate to the lowest rate available for each competitor — providing an accurate apples-to-apples comparison.
If set to No, the comparison may be made against the first room rate pulled by the system from the OTA shop, which is not necessarily the lowest. This could result in skewed comparisons — especially if your competitors’ higher-tier room types are returned first.
For most properties, BAR should always be set to Yes to ensure you're comparing your lowest rate to your competitors’ lowest available rates.
Need help setting up competitor rate shopping?
The competitor data is powered by Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight), but you don’t need to create an account yourself. The service is included in your Visual Matrix setup. Once your account is activated, our team will enter your Subscription ID.
The competitor data is powered by Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight), but you don’t need to create an account yourself. The service is included in your Visual Matrix setup. Once your account is activated, our team will enter your Subscription ID.
How Competitor Rate Data Is Pulled
Once you've entered your Subscription ID and clicked Update Info, the system will connect with Lighthouse and pull in your competitor list — confirming that the subscription is active and working properly.
Only one shop per day is allowed. Even if you hit the Update Info button multiple times, the system will not retrieve updated rate data more than once in a 24-hour cycle. This is a restriction from Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight).
The exact timing of that rate “shop” depends on Lighthouse’s internal schedule, so the data pulled immediately after entering your subscription may reflect today’s or tomorrow’s shop, depending on the time of day.
Once your competitors appear in the system, you’ll see both their name and ID. Most of the time, you’ll compare your rate to a specific competitor, though you can choose to compare against all competitors — which may trigger additional configuration options.
For best results, wait until the next day after adding your subscription to ensure the latest competitor rate data is available.
Occupancy Levels
This section defines what the system considers low, medium, or high occupancy. These settings influence how dates are color-coded on the Manual Enhanced screen.
- Medium – The occupancy percentage at which a date shifts from low to medium.
- High – The percentage at which a date becomes “high occupancy.”
For example: If Medium = 66% and High = 80%, then:
- 0–65% = Low
- 66–79% = Medium
- 80% and above = High
These thresholds help you quickly identify which dates might need pricing attention.
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