HPM

Sabre's DIX entry for sends invoice/itineraries to the clipboard, useful for pasting into emails. There is no equivalent in Worldspan.

I like to send out custom invoices to my clients using the DUP*DH1/OP-XXXXXX (where XXXXXXX is your fastclip printer address). DH1 (or DH2, or DH3, etc) is the invoice number for the eticket or TASF in the *DH table of the PNR.

In my case, I am in a remote location and not networked to my 'home' office where the Worldspan printers are located. I've assigned a fastclip device address (DA) configured for my local computer.

This needs to be setup in Host Print Manager Configuration under Worldspan's Tools. If you are not networked to the computer physically attached to the printers, you need to configure a FCLIP/Print Itin/Invoice 'device' with a path to the HOSTPRT folder on your own computer. (If you are networked, then you can use the path to the HOSTPRT folder on the computer connected to the printers, because the computer where the printers are attached must have HPM installed to print.)

The Host Print Manager (HPM) needs to be downloaded and installed on your local computer / laptop. Get the latest from the WorldspnGO Tools page.

After installing HPM on your local computer, go to Tools menu in Wspan:

( I have configured Windows notepad to automatically open the ITN File type. The first time Windows tries to open an .itn file type it will give you an option to search for which program to use. Notepad should be one of the ones displayed. If not search for it, select it and check off the box to always use this application when opening this file type.)

Once the .itn file is opened with notepad, then copy and paste the invoice into your email. Worldspan itineraries/invoices are aligned in the correct column format if the document font type is New Courier 10 point type.

If you create an email template for this, you can use it for all invoices.

In Outlook open a new email. Make sure the format is changed to Rich Text if not already and select New Courier font, size 10.

At this point you can put in an address header such as:

Your Agency

street

city, state, zip

tel nbr (your name if you like)

Passenger:

(the rest is blank because you will be pasting your temp.itn from notepad into the body of this email)

Go to File, Save As, and choose Save As Outlook Template (*.oft) --- or whatever template file type your email program uses.

It is possible to create a shortcut to this saved template as an icon, so with one click it opens a new already formatted email.

Once in a while, Worldspan will lose connection to the HPM FASTCLIP device. Then the DUP* entry will generate no temp.itn invoice to the HOSTPRT folder. Usually a stop and restart of the device is all that is needed to get it running again. Use the entry YSTPXXXXXXX, and then YSTRXXXXXXX (where XXXXXXX is the address of your FASTCLIP device you setup in HPM, the same address used in DUP*DH1/OP-XXXXXXX) , then try driving the invoice again. If it still does not work, try the YSTR / YSTP entries a couple more times. Still no luck? Then stop and start the HPM application itself.

I elected to have HPM run as an application (rather than a service) when installing it. I removed HPM from my Startup folder, and also deleted the seemingly useless FilterAgent so it doesn't run everytime Windows boots up. If you install HPM as a service, but don't want I also used MSCONFIG to uncheck HPM and FilterAgent from running as a startup process. I don't want them running in the background or slowing down my computer when starting up.

You will find HPM executable file in the wspan folder on your C: drive in the "swgw" folder. You can create a shortcut of the "Hpm.exe" and drag it to your desktop, taskbar or start menu. Just click on it before you are ready to drive a ticket. I find it more convenient to just go to my Start menu and in the "Run" box type in "hpm". Windows miraculously finds the executable file "Hpm.exe" and starts the application immediately. Just right click and close it from the task bar when done. Dear Worldspan, please re-progam HPM so it shuts down when Windows shuts down instead of popping up an alert box asking if I'm SURE that I want to quit HPM. Can you imagine if every running application popped up an alert box upon shut down and you had to acknowledge each one?!

If stopping and starting HPM does not connect your FASTCLIP device, then exit Worldspan and log back into Worldspan and start HPM again.

Still no dice? Restart your computer and try again.

If after trying all the above a few times, then it is time to contact the HELP desk. They can do some stuff remotely to get you running again.

If you are using more than one Worldspan account, it is possible to have two (or more) fastclip printer devices assigned to one hostprt folder on a compter.

You have to switch the fastclip addresses in the DUP* entry, depending on which Wspan TA account is sined in.

The PNRS end up in the same fastclip folder, because the path setup is the same for both fastclip addresses. HPM usually needs to be restarted.

For convenience put a shortcut to the FASTCLIP and Hostprt folders on the desktop and/or place the folder shortcuts in the START menu and configure the START menu to expand contents of folders. This way you can roll the cursor over the folder and then just click to open the itinerary or temp.itn. When I want to just send a copy of an itinerary, or add a newly booked or revised hotel or car segment to the original invoice, I use the fastclip script in Worldspan. Then copy it into notepad, open the original invoice email that was sent, choose forward, then paste into original itinerary/invoice. I usually put the word "REVISED" before the original email subject line.

I also use FASTCLIP to send out invoices for Southwest itineraries I book on their website. Worldspan will no longer generate travel agency service fee MCO's with Southwest flights MK'd in the PNR. My workaround is to do the following:

1. MK the Southwest segments into a PNR and ET.

2. Retrieve PNR and Fastclip it.

3. Cancel the MK segments and ET.

4. Retrieve PNR and issue TASF MCO with an EZMLI#SFT35.00#@B0.00/X0.00/T0.00 entry.

5. Retrieve PNR and enter *DH, then use the DUP*DH1/OP-xxxxxx (fastclip printer address)

6. Copy and past temp.itn from Hostprt folder into email as per above.

7. Open the FASTCLIP generated file from step 2 with notepad and paste the Southwest segments into the email.

I usually copy over Southwest's record locator from their website or confirmation email to the email I'm creating for the client.

I'll often will have car and hotel segments on there as well.

If your client has a trip involving more than one airline, and you have already issued an ARC ticket for a Worldspan supported airline, then adding in the Southwest flights, the SW record locator and the Southwest airfare, along with your service fee, provides your client with one convenient expense document.

Create a path in "FastClip Setup" to your hostprt folder ( on my computer it is c:\wspan\hostprt )

Worldspan makes this SO confusing. Fastclip for some convoluted reason, needs to be told where your HOSTPRT folder is and also you need to create a separate fastclip folder, then tell the fastclip the path to that folder as well.

As mentioned, you need to create a folder for the Fastclip files to be sent to. On my computer I just created a folder called FASTCLIP2 on my C: drive (root folder), but you can name the folder anything and locate it anywhere. The first time you run the FastClip script, you need to tell FastClip the path to that output folder you created.

I created a shortcut to my FASTCLIP2 folder on my desktop, right next to my HOSTPRT folder.

So I go to my HOSTPRT folder for invoices driven with the DUP* entry, and to my FASTCLIP2 folder for itineraries generated using the FastClip script.

After issuing a ticket, I use the DUP* entry above, then open the HOSTPRT folder, click on the temp.itn file and notepad opens it.

Then using ctrl-A, select all, paste it into Outlook Express to email to my client.

I have a stationary set up in Outlook Express with the font Courier New size 10 bold, already set at the default font for itineraries so the itineraries appear as they would if printed out.

I'm working on a clip to clean up Worldspan itinerary/invoices, because whoever programmed these things decades ago, was obviously not a travel agent and never thought it through. Worldspan / Travelport could not give a damn about allocating any resources to updating it.

This is an example invoice, temp.itn file, generated to the HOSTPRT folder with the DUP*DH entry:

This needs to be cleaned up.

What in the world does "NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL-BEFORE 29APR/AFTER 29APR" mean? Can you fly on other flights that day? Of course you can travel before or after that date. By paying the change fee, the non-refundable fare is valid for re-use for another flight date.

"AC CONFO *MD8QNM" looks cryptic. There is an entire line of space to use to spell out "CONFIRMATION", or even more accurately, AIRLINE RESERVATION RECORD LOCATOR. Worldspan understands airline codes, such as AC, UA and even FL and B6. Some passengers haven't memorized them all, so why not put the computer to use and program this interface to decode with "AIR CANADA" instead of "AC".

Better yet, let's just remove multiple lines with the repetitive "CONFO" and move it elsewhere, like right above the ticket number.

If there is only one person on the PNR, I don't need the name written again under each seat reservation.

Delete spaces, blank lines, remove the header "duplicate itinerary" and the accounting line before the date, add in agency name/address on top so it looks like:

---

If you book a flight without ending transaction, then eventually the SS status will revert to NN and Worldspan will generate this "Unsolicited Message Received" alert box:

This is annoying because you may be working in another application such as emailing a client, and this box pops into the foreground and requires you to click it out of the way with "OK". kA less obtrusive alert, or better yet, no alert would be nice.