Opera V5 - What has changed after implementation

Overview

Moving Oracle OPERA v5 to Juno through the Oracle Payment Interface (OPI) changes how card data is stored and processed, so some standard operating procedures (SOPs) need reviewing before go-live. The main changes: OPERA no longer stores full card numbers, chargebacks need a new process, card types without pre-authorisation need Pay Only payment types, and pre-authorisation holds depend on the guest's bank to release. This article summarises each change and what to review.

Applies to

What you'll achieve

You'll know which Standard Operating Procedures to review before activating OPI, and why.

Full card numbers are no longer stored in OPERA

What changes: before OPI, OPERA stored the full card number in encrypted form, and users with the right privileges could see it. With OPI, the OPERA Credit Card Vault replaces each card with a token ID and stores only the token. No user can see a guest's card number in OPERA.

What to review: list every process in your business that relied on card numbers, so you can understand the impact and agree a new approach before go-live.

Chargebacks

What changes: hotels often needed the full card number to respond to chargeback requests. That number is no longer available in OPERA.

What to review: agree how chargebacks will be managed with your payment provider. 

Pay Only payment types

What changes: some card types and payment methods don't support pre-authorisations and can only process a sale — for example debit cards, virtual credit cards, Alipay and WeChat Pay. In OPERA these use Pay Only payment types.

What to review: decide which Pay Only payment types you need, so they can be set up during installation.

Pre-authorisation holds

What changes: OPERA and OPI support the electronic pre-authorisation release, but it's up to the cardholder's bank to release the hold, and many banks don't support the electronic release message. Guests may therefore still see a hold on their card after it has been released in OPERA.

What to review:

• Keep your existing processes for releasing pre-authorisations that are still held.
• Review your pre-authorisation rules carefully before go-live to avoid holding unnecessary funds on guest cards.
• Where possible, take a payment rather than a pre-authorisation.

Manual authorisation codes

What changes: with the legacy payment interface, staff could phone the bank for an authorisation code and enter it manually — for example when payment terminals were offline or a card had been declined. Codes obtained by phone aren't generated through OPI, so OPI can't recognise them.

What to review: update any offline or decline procedures that relied on phone authorisations.

Need more help?

Please contacr your integration partner or 934 support (support@weare934.com).