SMS5 FAQ
GET ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS
On this FAQ page you can find answers to all relevant questions about SMS5.
Use the categorization within the FAQ or simply use the search function and type one or more keywords to find the relevant topic.
- 01
SMS5 is based on HTML technology, and does not require that you install anything on your PC or MacBook. It means that you can access the system from any computer as long as you have the correct URL and your login and password.
- 02
WorldTicket recommends using Google Chrome for running SMS5. Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge are all supported as well. Please notice that Internet Explorer is not included in the recommended browser list since Microsoft Edge is replacing it.
- 03
For the most efficient usage of SMS5, it is suggested that your browser allows you to open new windows in the browser when you have SMS5 open and click on the links. We suggest that you choose the option “Pop-up’s always allowed“. This configuration may vary slightly in different browsers.
- 04
The SMS5 navigation is similar to the SMS4 navigation. When you login to SMS5 it is located on the left side of the screen.
Clicking on each of the items gives you a list of clickable subsections opening up a module in the main window to the right of the navigation.
- 05
If you need to switch to another SMS5 menu section, you just need to open the section, choose the page and click on it. The section (Fare Basis in this screenshot) will be open in the main window.
- 06
Choose a section you want to navigate to, but instead of clicking on its name, you click on the little green arrow indicator on its left as reflected in the example below. The section will then be opened in a new tab in your browser. Please notice that your browser should allow pop-up from the SMS5 URL.
- 07
You can open as many different SMS5 screens in different tabs as you need.
- 08
In such cases we recommend you to use another browser or incognito mode for the second user.
- 09
Hyperlinks can be recognized easily as they are colored green in all data tables (see the example below).
Typically, when you click on the hyperlink, you will open a new tab, which will let you revise or adjust the corresponding configuration in another menu. For example, clicking on Flexible in the column Fare Rule above would result in opening the fare rule Flexible in the Fare Rule section
- 10
If some dates are grayed out, this means that search on these dates is not possible. It may be due to the fact that flights do not operate on some days, or search does not make sense, as shown below (for example, you cannot search for a previously made reservation in the future, or you cannot make a new reservation in the past).
- 11
When you open some sections, you may see that some search criteria are already prefilled with the most frequently used time intervals (typically, it refers to the period of “today” or “this month”). Users are, of course, able to change them to other dates / values.
- 12
In SMS5 a user has a choice between picking the date in the calendar or inserting it via the keyboard.
To use the keyboard entry, select “Use custom range option” in the calendar, and then click on the date box on the top.
When using a keyboard, the system is able to understand most of the formats a user may decide to use.
The user inserts the text in quotation followed by “Enter”. It would then result in the following dates inserted (the year is taken current if not defined):
“0804” -> 04 AUG 2020
“02.04“ -> 02 MAR 2020
“02mar“ -> O2 MAR 2020
“120622“ -> 12 JUN 2022
“09.11.23“ -> 09 NOV 2023
“09-11-23“ -> 09 NOV 2023
“dd“ -> today’s date
“+1“ -> tomorrow’s date
“-1“ -> yesterday’s date
- 13
Each menu item displayed is based on the permissions assigned to your user in security section. Typically, each menu item, is only being displayed if the appropriate permission is assigned to your role(s). Administrators are able to see all menus in SMS5. If there are some menu items you require access to, you need to contact the airline administrator and ask for necessary permissions to be added to your role.
- 14
Please notice that article is based on the assumption that user has administrator right. In practice, you may have less options in the menu, as you some sections may not be granted to you or not enabled for your airline in the backend, as they are optional. The SMS5 menu is located on the left-hand side and consists of eight major sections:
Under Sales menu, three booking flows are provided (Bulk reservation and Group reservations are newly introduced flows), you can search for a ticket or a reservation by using Retrieve document or Retrieve reservation subsections. Most of the users of SMS5 will have access to this section if they are involved in the reservation process.
In the queue menu, you have access to all six queues currently available in SMS5 (including the new Refund queue, used for refund processing, if the airline wants to have a higher control on the process), and the Involuntary rerouting section (which is logically related to Violation queue). Part of the queues available in this section might be provided to the travel agents.
Under Prices section, you may find sections related to airline pricing department daily activities, related to taxes, surcharges, fares, rules and distribution channels. This section is typically restricted to airline users only.
Under section Flights, airline users have access to functionality related to inventory management. “Retrieve flight” section additionally allows to manage adhoc schedule changes, work with PNL, coupon status updates, seat map (if available) and ancillary revenue on a specific flight.
Schedules section allows to handle scheduling related processes.
Security section is used by the airline administrators to create structure of users and roles as well as assign the roles to users.
Agency administration section contains the functionalities related to travel agents management and corporate customers. The airline may administrate bulks, debit credit accounts, commission and corporate programs.
Configuration is a place holder for all the other airline systems administration and set-up related processes, not included elsewhere. This part is for the airlines’ internal use only.
For most of the customers, Reports section only includes Report console, however, for customers who are using interlines, this section may also contain a separate Interline invoicing position.
The Airline community is a section available for all airline users. Here the learning material is available, and WorldTicket news are shared with the community of the airline users. Travel agents also have access to the limited scope of the learning material via the gateway called Agents Community.
- 15
If you want to fix the left side navigation you just need to click on the little green pin as shown below.
- 16
When you have a table with the number of records exceeding the number set in the Records per page value, as shown below, you may navigate to the next page or to the last page of the table by clicking on “>” or ”>I” buttons. Analogically, with the help of “<” and “I<” you can accordingly move to the previous and first pages of the table.
- 17
If you hide some columns, for example, in the Inventory and log out, then your preference is stored by the system and next time you login, these columns would be displayed (or not), based on your previous choice. You may configure the display for each table in each SMS5 section where the configuration below exists with few clicks.
Under each table you may find the “Hide columns” button.
When you click on it, you see the list of the columns in the table and may choose which of them should be hidden for future.
As you deselect them, the columns get immediately hidden in the table.
- 18
Click on the “hide columns” button under the table and activate the columns you wish to display again.
- 19
Under most of the tables, there is a “Download as CSV” button available.
When you click on it, the content of the table will be downloaded to your computer as a CSV file. Please note that only the records, actually displayed in the screen, will be downloaded to CSV. In the example above, it means that only 10 records, and not all 95 will be stored. If you need to store more records, you must first increase the number of records displayed, clicking on the corresponding dropdown under the table.
The CSV file can be opened in Excel, it is automatically converted to columns. You may work with the CSV file the same way as if you would have with Excel, and you can also save it to Excel format afterwards.
- 20
In SMS5, the quick search is located in the upper right corner of the screen and is available in any section of SMS5.
When you click in the element displayed below, the choice of three options is displayed.
You may choose between record locator, ticket number, and EMD number. After you insert the record locator as in the example below, you need to click “Enter” and you will get the reservation open in the Retrieve Reservation section.
- 21
Filtering is available if next to the heading of the table columns you see the triangle filter symbols as below.
By clicking on it, you can type a combination of letters, and the table content will automatically be filtered right away.
- 22
Sorting is possible by clicking on the empty space between a heading of a table column and the triangle filter symbol as below.
When you click for the first time, the table is immediately sorted in alphabetical order (ascending order).
When you click for the second time, the table is immediately sorted in descending order.
- 23
Smart Search is available as a search option in most of the sections of SMS5 and is designed to save time spent on criteria selection when searching. Smart search can be recognized by the empty row on the top of the section, where you are suggested to start typing.
As you click on it, you will get the list of up to the five latest searches you made in this module.
Clicking on any of them will have the search criteria from the history prefilled into the new search fields.
The fields can then be further edited (click on any), the new criteria can be added.
Under Recent section in search, list of Keywords or search criteria is provided. You may choose them from the drop down list:
Or you can start typing in the search row to get the suggestions.
Finally, you may type the value you want to search for such as PNR number or flight number, and the system will give you suggestions as you type:
- 24
In most cases, you can set multiple search criteria to narrow down your search results.
- 25
Creating new objects / records / etc. is always started by clicking on “+” button, which in all sections can be found on the right-hand side on the top of the page.
In order to start most of other actions, such as “Edit” or “Delete”, etc., look for the 3 vertical dots which are always placed next to each editable object on its right-hand side. When you click on it, you get a choice of available actions.
Please notice that in some cases actions opened in the menu are greyed out which means that those are not allowed for the user, or not available due to other reasons.
In certain cases, there could be more than one 3 dot button. This is a practice when there are many available actions, and it makes sense to arrange them according to the reservation system logic. For example, in the Retrieve PNR view there are three of them, offering different action types.