Infor1: Integrating Infor Hotel Management System
- Wolfgang Granzer
- Ronald Blüthl (Unlicensed)
Basic architecture
The NETx Server provides the opportunity to integrate hotel room status information from an Infor Hotel Management System (HMS).The interface is certified by Infor. The official certificate can be downloaded here.
The following figure shows how the integration has to be done.
The Infor HMS provides a standardized interface based on the SOAP protocol to establish a two-way communication between the NETx Server and the Infor HMS to synchronize the status of hotel rooms and receive updates such as check in, check out, and room move.
On server startup, the current status of all configured rooms is synchronized to the NETx Server. Once the Infor plugin has been started, the Infor HMS notifies our system when one of the following actions occur:
- Room Check In
- Room Check Out
- Room Move
The NETx Server keeps track of the room status within the item tree.
Installation
The driver is implemented as a plugin for the NETx Server. Therefore, it has to be installed via the Extension Manager. To do so, stop the server and open the Extension Manager via the studio using the menu "Extensions". Select the "Infor" interface and press install as shown in the following screenshot:
After having installed the interface, restart the studio.
Integration steps
Determine local IP address to connect to the NETx Infor Endpoint
To determine the local IP address of the NETx Infor Endpoint, open a command prompt in Windows and enter "ipconfig".
To do so, press the Windows key and enter "cmd". Click the suggested Command Prompt app.
Once the command prompt has been opened, type "ipconfig" and hit enter.
Depending on your network connection (Wi-Fi or wired), you should see an IP address of your network adapter.
Use this IP address as part of the NETx Infor Endpoint.
The NETx Infor endpoint can basically run on any port and path, but the recommended way is: http://<ip>/infor
In our case: http://192.168.0.5/infor
Configuration
Once the Infor plugin has been successfully installed, you should see a menu entry "Infor" within the menu "Modules".
To configure how to connect to the Infor HMS and vice versa, click the "Configuration ..." entry within "Modules" => "Infor".
Parameters (the yellow highlighted parameters are MANDATORY for the Infor Plugin to work properly)
| Parameter | Description | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| NETx Infor endpoint | The NETx Server endpoint to listen for incoming requests from the Infor HMS | http://192.168.0.5/infor | Please see the "Determine local IP address" section below to see how you can determine the endpoint |
| Infor HMS endpoint | The Infor HMS endpoint to send outgoing requests from the NETx Server. | http://192.168.0.6/netx | Please request this parameter from the Infor HMS operator and enter it accordingly |
| Infor HMS Hotel Code | The identifier of the controlled hotel | HMS01 | Please request this parameter from the Infor HMS operator and enter it accordingly |
| Request timeout | The request timeout in seconds | 60 | Optional |
Rooms
In order to know which rooms need be tracked, you have to provide some information regarding the room definitions.
You should be able to export this information from the Infor HMS and import it to the studio so that you don't have to enter it manually.
Please talk to the Infor HMS operator to learn how to get the required room information.
To configure the room definitions, click the "Room definitions" menu entry within the "Modules" => "Infor" entry.
Each definition line corresponds to one hotel room within the Infor HMS. The first column "ID" represents the unique room ID (for example 101), the second column "Path" represents the path that is used to define the structure within the item tree (usually grouped at floor level).
The remaining fields "Persistent", "Historical" (for NETx BMS server 2.0 only) and "Synchronize" have the same functionality as for all other interfaces.
The following figure shows an example of a set of configured rooms which should be tracked.
After having defined all rooms, the server has to be restarted. Afterwards, the configured rooms are shown within the item tree under the sub tree "NETx\XIO\Infor".
The retrieved information for each room from the Infor HMS is stored as a server item "RoomChecked" within the configured path.
Connecting to the NETx Infor endpoint from an external network
Please keep in mind that the NETx Infor endpoint only listens to the specified IP address in the LOCAL network and is NOT publicly exposed to the internet.
If the Infor HMS is running in a separate network, you will need to set up some kind of port forwarding in the network where the NETx Server is running, so that the endpoint can be reached from other networks.
Essentially, it works like this:
Infor HMS <=> Public NETx endpoint <=> Local NETx endpoint
The Public NETx endpoint needs to be properly configured within the network where the NETx Server is running.
The public endpoint will then redirect the traffic to the local IP address of the NETx Server.
Sample configuration:
Article applies to the following products:
- NETx BMS Platform
- NETx Multi Protocol Server
- NETx BMS Server 2.0