HGTS Add-Ons

Extend Functionality and Increase Value with HGTS Add-Ons

Additional technology components that help you boost productivity and revenue by enabling your staff to work smarter.

One of the key things that sets Hudson apart from our competitors is the ability to integrate and deliver cutting edge technologies to your business. Our offerings increase both your efficiency and bottom line, resulting in improved business function and revenue potential. Below is a sampling of some of the advanced reservation system technologies available from The Hudson Group. These systems add even greater flexibility and power to the already robust core reservation, dispatching, and accounting systems.

HGTS Flight

The first and most popular of the add-on features is HGTS Flight. Through a partnership with FlightView, HGTS can interface with the extremely powerful FlightView real-time flight tracking system. Through FlightView, reservations staff can lookup the details of scheduled commercial airline flights, thereby ensuring that accurate flight details are recorded in every reservation. Dispatchers rely on the FlightView integration to provide them with the current location and status of all arriving and departing flights that their clients are reserved on. Armed with this valuable tool and its information, you will know where your clients are at all times, and ensure you are on-time, every time. Follow this link to download more information, or visit either this or this KnowledgeBase article for additional details and screen shots.

HGTS InfoView

A web-based window into your back office database, HGTS InfoView allows people outside your business to view information that pertains to them. Drivers can see what work has been assigned to them, whether in the past or near future. Corporate accounts or travel agencies can view historic, current, and future reservation records for their executives and clients. A hotel concierge can even view all of the guests being delivered to or picked up from their property on a given day. These are but three examples of how you can create customized views, in a read-only display, that allows people outside your office to view up to the minute information that may be invaluable to them. Follow this link to The Hudson Group KnowledgeBase where additional information about HGTS InfoView may be found. You may also download a MS Word document that displays some sample InfoView screen captures if you follow this link.

HGTS Quick

A simple, lightweight but robust application that can run on a separate dedicated computer, HGTS Quick can be configured to allow drivers or employees to sign themselves in and out of their daily shifts, drivers can select the vehicles they will be in, and much more. HGTS Quick can be a dispatcher or fleet managers best friend, freeing them to focus on mission critical and scheduling issues rather than staff sign-in and sign-out activities.

HGTS Systems Monitor

When you are busy tending to the needs of your clients and staff, the last thing you want to have to do is check your computer and information systems to ensure everything is running smoothly. At the same time, you cannot afford to have an internet or server connection go down without you being aware. HGTS Systems Monitor resolves this dilemma for you. Like a night watchman making the rounds, HGTS Systems Monitor keeps your systems under constant surveillance and then alerts you instantly if any problem arises. You determine what machines, processes, files, connections, and servers should be monitored, as well as who is notified and how. When it absolutely, positively has to be up and running all the time, use HGTS Systems Monitor to know that all is well. Follow this link to read more about HGTS Systems Monitor.

Credit Card Processing

Whether using the HGTS Reservations Manager or HGTS Agent Application, you are able to accept and process credit cards quickly and easily with HGTS Credit Card processing. You may elect to authorize cards at the time of reservation recording, or you may actually charge the clients card at the time of the reservation - reducing or eliminating the time-consuming process of chasing down declined and invalid credit cards. Only valid credit cards with sufficient funds will make it into your reservation database! Include BOTH credit card processing and in-vehicle swiping with a client signature, and charge-backs become history, while you simultaneously reduce your card transaction fees. Follow this link to read more about credit card processing in the Hudson system.

eMail Services ~ HGTS Mail

If you are having trouble with your e-Mail provider, are constantly bombarded with unwanted mail, or have multiple email accounts with different providers that you wish you could manage more easily, then HGTS Mail is the solution for you. This comprehensive and inexpensive mail service will work from any web-enabled computer or mobile device. You can keep your existing software (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mac Mail, etc.) or use any web-enabled device to view and manage your mail from anywhere you happen to travel. Get up to 50 mailboxes, 3-5GB of data storage capacity per mailbox, email aliases, contact management, anti-spam, anti-virus, auto-respond, auto-forward, calendar, task list and notes functionality, 50 MB file attachment capability and so much more!

Use the system that Hudson uses for its own high-volume and high-demand email handling! All information is written to redundant servers so that if your primary email connection ever experiences a problem, your connection is immediately routed to a secondary server resulting in no downtime or data loss. Full backups of your data are made monthly, along with weekly incremental backups so data retrieve is quick and easy. Perhaps best of all, HGTS Mail is specifically configured to work with Hudson applications, so if you are using HGTS Mail, your confirmations, boarding passes and other templates are handled quickly and efficiently. Download and view the HGTS Mail flyer for additional information.

HGTS Kiosk

A kiosk is a self-service station that a passenger can use to create a new web reservation or check in. HGTS Kiosks can be configured to meet the specific needs of any client and may be positioned on a counter, tabletop, or as a taller freestanding unit. Connected to the internet, these devices can be stationed in an airport, train station, hotel, convention center or any other location your potential clients are likely to visit. HGTS Kiosks are typically configured with a touch screen monitor, and may also have a keyboard, trackball mouse, barcode scanner, credit card reader, or thermal printer.

The kiosks present your client with the opportunity to create a walk-up reservation via your company’s web reservation system for either that very moment or a future date and time. Once saved, your dispatcher is immediately notified of the new reservation and vehicles can be scheduled for future deployment or directed immediately to the pickup location.

For passengers arriving at an airport, train station, or cruise terminal, kiosks are often used to automatically check them in (in a manner similar to many airlines) by swiping a credit card, scanning a confirmation or bar coded document, or keying in a reservation number. Dispatchers are once again notified that the passenger is ready to travel and vehicles are sent to gather the now ready client.

HGTS VIA (Vehicle Information & Auto-location)

When you absolutely positively need to know where your fleet is, HGTS VIA (Vehicle Information and Auto-location) answers the call. As an add-on component to the HGTS Dispatcher application, vehicles are outfitted with GPS tracking devices which report back on the vehicle location on a continual basis. From within the dispatching system, you select any vehicle, group of vehicles, or the entire fleet and can see their location in real time on a local map- right on your monitor! Follow this link to download additional information about the features of HGTS VIA.

HGTS Web Services

If you already have an internet reservation interface or a corporate account that has their own reservation system, but wish to accept their reservations electronically and download them directly to your system database, then Web Services is the tool you will use. This XML language interface can be provided to your developers or your clients development team for a quick and seamless integration.