How can I use test data to validate the High-Demand Dates feature?

We want to help you test if the High-Demand Dates feature is working for you and if your workflow is optimised for it. High-Demand Dates are read-only, provider-type opportunities. This makes it difficult for us to support end-to-end testing, as these can only be implemented on your platform. 

However, you can request simulated opportunities to help validate your implementation. You can then use this testing data to reliably develop this feature for your platform and ensure your properties are ready to act on these opportunities whenever they’re eligible.

How to start accessing test data

High-demand date opportunities are only generated in situations when a room that would normally have been bookable on a specific high-demand date is not available. 

You can request high-demand date opportunities for test properties if you meet the following criteria:

1. You have successfully implemented the Opportunities API (with at least 10 live properties)
2. You have enabled the high_demand_dates_inventory feature from the provider portal
3. You have at least one test hotel properly set up in our system with rooms, rate plans and inventory properly mapped
4. Availability for a bookable room in this test hotel should be 0 for the specified dates (‘dummy’ high demand dates)
5. For every test request, three such dates are determined – the next Saturday and Sunday and +21 days (from the time of each request)

Note: Outside of the testing environment, there are no predetermined high-demand dates, and eligibility is highly dynamic. We recommend checking for these opportunities for your properties once every three hours or more. Please do not use live data for testing purposes.

What can you do with this data?

You can use this data to validate the following use cases of the High-Demand Dates feature.

Use case 1: Retrieve list of all eligible high_demand_date_inventory (HDDi) opportunities for a specific property. Use this to validate your implementation of the core user journey..

Here’s how to do it:

1. Fetch all opportunities for test hotel(s) that meet requirements 3 and 4 by using /opportunity-api/properties/{property_id}/opportunities (pass test hotel_id as {property_id})
2. Parse the response for opportunity_id = high_demand_dates_inventory
3. Parse the implementation data within these for all stay_ids
4. Split stay_ids to retrieve room_ids and stay_dates
5. Test the implementation flow of any eligible opportunities

(Optional) If needed, reset availability to zero for the same stay dates to make these opportunities available again for further testing.
(Ideal) Test for the following scenarios: implementing for a single room on a single date; implementing for multiple rooms on a single date; handling zero eligible opportunities; and implementing for multiple rooms on multiple dates.

Use case 2: Fetch list of all properties currently eligible for HDDi opportunities.
You can use this output to get an overall view of currently eligible properties (we recommend refreshing this once every three hours or more for time-sensitive opportunities like HDD).

Here’s how to do it:

1. Query for all eligible properties via /opportunity-api/opportunities?opportunity_id=high_demand_dates_inventory
2. Depending on your intended usage, you may want to specify pagination.
3. Parse the response to get a list of property_ids. If your test properties satisfy criteria C and D listed above, their respective hotel_ids should be here as well.

You could also combine both use cases for developing your own automation/bulk workflows.

What next?

That’s it! Once you’ve successfully validated your implementation with the testing data, you’re ready to roll this out to your live properties.