Getting started & administration
What Riverdesk is
Riverdesk is the reservations system for a Nile cruise company. It keeps one exact count of every cabin on every departure, and everything that sells or uses those cabins works from that count. The office takes phone bookings, travel agencies hold allotments, online platforms book through an API, and the vessel prints its manifests. Because there is only one count, a cabin can never be sold twice.
Who uses what
| Part | Who | What for |
|---|---|---|
| The back office | Owners, reservations staff, finance | The website your office works in every day: bookings, requests, availability, payments, documents |
| The Channel API | Online platforms such as nilecrz, and larger agencies | Their own systems check availability and book directly, under their contract with you |
| The worker | Nobody directly | A background program that expires holds on time, returns unused allotments, sends updates to channels, prepares PDFs and checks the system every night |
You only ever see the back office. The other two parts work behind it.
What a normal day looks like
- Open Today. It lists what needs doing, most urgent first: requests waiting for an answer, holds about to expire, deposits due, guest names missing, cabins to assign.
- Take phone and WhatsApp bookings on New booking: about a minute each.
- Answer agency Requests before their deadline.
- Record money on Payments as it arrives.
- Before each departure, check Guests & manifests, then print the manifest and the rooming list.
Languages
Every screen and every document exists in Arabic and English. Arabic is the default. Each person can switch language from the top of the screen, and documents can be printed in either language whatever the screen language is.
Where to go next
- Signing in for the first time
- People and roles
- The staff guide, one page per screen