Prerequisites for Stationery Editor

OPERA Cloud stationery is customized using Microsoft Word; supporting all standard and familiar formatting capabilities of an RTF document; including images, tables, font style, size, color and alignment. You can also include links to websites, either as text links or as part of a clickable image. Most stationery is generated in PDF format, for printing or email delivery. HTML output is also supported for email confirmation delivery. See Configuring Delivery Management for more information.

Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher Desktop is a special add-in for Microsoft Word which is used to assist with the customization of stationery templates, by supporting the import of an XML data model containing a list of all data elements available and allowing you to drag and drop these data elements onto the RTF layout as needed. At runtime these data elements are replaced with actual values from OPERA Cloud. The add-in also allows you to define conditional blocks of text and graphics within the template. Prior to customizing any stationery templates ensure your workstation has Microsoft Word and the Oracle BI Publisher add-in installed. See Installing Oracle BI Publisher Desktop on a Workstation for more information.

For more information on Oracle BI Publisher and RTF templates refer to Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Predefined (internal) report groups exist for each type of stationery that can be generated. For more information, see Stationery Reports Groups.

For PDF output, images can be embedded in the RTF template or you can use placeholder graphics and reference internal images by URL, this method is used for the property logo.

For HTML output (ie confirmation letter email delivery), you must use placeholder graphics and reference external images by URL; these images are downloaded by the email client when the email if opened. 

When the Multi Language OPERA Control is active a report template must be configured in each stationery report group for every language code configured. Each language-specific report typically references a unique template setup with the translated text in the body of the RTF. You may choose, however, to reference the English template in report setup for any language you do not wish to offer translation. At runtime, OPERA Cloud will generate the specified RTF template for the profile language and also fetch the translated descriptions for your configuration setup in Manage Translations. For example, Room Types, Rate Codes, Package Codes, Transaction Codes, Menu Items. If language-specific translation for configuration is not defined, the primary description is output.

Custom message text configuration is also available for stationery templates; allowing you to configure translatable text strings in OPERA Cloud that are included in the generated stationery. Special data elements in each of the XML data models are available for these custom message texts, suffixed with the property code, so you can setup a custom message per property. For example, for the confirmation letter template there are SAMPLE_GUEST_CONFIRMATION_TEXT1 and SAMPLE_GUEST_CONFIRMATION_TEXT2 data elements. This feature is useful when you have a special promotional message you'd like to include in the generated stationery short-term and eliminates the need to download and update the RTF template directly. You can grant other users the Report Text Configuration user task and not the Manage Report user tasks; limiting who can modify RTF templates, but still enable configuration of custom messages for stationery.

When the Custom Numbers OPERA Control is active, one or more custom reference numbers can be configured to output on the folio or receipts. For more information, see Configuring Custom Numbers.

When the Additional Folio Text OPERA Control is active, you can setup folio templates with <FOLIO_TEXT1_FTR/> <FOLIO_TEXT2_FTR/> elements to output reservation-specific folio text entered when generating a folio. For more information, see Generating a Folio for a Billing Window.

When the Multi-Language OPERA Control is active a report template must be configured for every language in every stationery report group, see Stationery Reports Groups. Each language-specific report entry typically references a unique RTF template setup with the translated text in the body of the RTF. At runtime, OPERA Cloud generates the RTF template for the linked profile Language and fetches the translated code descriptions setup in Manage Translations. If language-specific translation is not defined, the primary code description is used.  You may also choose to reference the English RTF template in report setup for any Language you do not wish to offer localized stationery.

• Using Stationery Template Editor
  
• Updating Customized Stationery with Current Data Model
  
• Configuring Stationery Templates
  
• Installing Oracle BI Publisher Desktop on a Workstation