Introduction

Making the most of the services provided by IndependentOwners.com will make owning and managing your own property rental website a breeze. We have developed the IO Apps Guide so you can explore the options available to you. Apps is short for Applications and this Guide explores each of the Apps available to you as an IndependentOwners.com Member.

Logging in to your Central Management Area (CMA) should be a one click step, alerts to new Enquiries should be instantly visible from your Desktop and access to your Availability Calendar should be quick with the right IO App this is all easy to set up.

Contents

Other Help Guides provided by IndependentOwners.com

1. The IndependentOwners.com Toolbar

A special user-guide to help you access the benefits of your IndependentOwners.com Member Toolbar.

The new IndependentOwners.com 3.0 Toolbar makes viewing and updating your own website fast and simple to use. The Toolbar includes special short-cut buttons that make managing your website even easier with instant and secure access to your Central Management Area.

This guide has been developed for you so that you can quickly benefit from having your own personalised IndependentOwners.com Toolbar.

1a. What is a Toolbar?

A toolbar is a row or a block of on-screen buttons at the top of your computer screen that activate certain functions when clicked. The first toolbar appeared on the Xerox Alto computer in 1973.

Toolbars are provided so that navigation is easier to accomplish. For example, in Microsoft Word the toolbar provides familiar icons at the top of the page to help us format text with italics, indents, underlining, columns, bullet points etc and you can customise the toolbar with the functions you use the most. Two of the most popular internet toolbars are Google and Yahoo! with one or the other appearing as standard on most PCs giving you the functionality to search the internet without having to navigate to their respect homepages, to block pop-ups, provide spell checkers when filling out forms and a whole lot more. The IndependentOwners.com Toolbar provides quick links and customised links to enable you to navigate to and around your IndependentOwners.com website together with personalised links to your most popular websites.

If you have yet to install your IndependentOwners.com Toolbar please click here to access the download page and follow the advice in Step 1b below.

1b. Installing the IndependentOwners.com Toolbar

Please go to the IO Toolbar Download Page and follow the instructions below for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Internet Explorer download instructions

At the same time as your IO Toolbar is downloaded your IO Login Manager will install which will place an IO logo in the system tray of your PC and allow you access to your Central Management Area with just one click.

Mozilla Firefox download instructions

1c. Your IO Toolbar Icons Explained

Congratulations! You have now successfully installed your IndependentOwners.com Toolbar and are only one step away from using it to view your favourite websites and access your Central Management Area where you can add and edit text as well as upload photographs.

As well as offering instant access to your IndependentOwners.com website and availability calendar, your IndependentOwners.com Toolbar has more fantastic features included just for you!

The tool icon is the first icon on the left and it takes you to your Toolbar Management Area where you can edit and change the information shown on your IO Toolbar. Each of the icons and the customised links are explained below. Step 1d below explains how these icons and custom pages can be managed.

IndependentOwners.com logo – this links you directly to our home page from which you can keep up-to-date with offers and news from IndependentOwners.com

Search the Internet Facility – type in the keywords or phrase you are searching for. The results from this special IndependentOwners.com search box are supplied by some of the world`s leading Search Engines, so it`s the perfect tool to help you find flights, transfers, tourist info or the name of that actor you saw on TV last night

House icon: links directly to the home page of your IndependentOwners.com Website

Key icon: access to the login page for your Central Management Area (CMA) or direct to your CMA dependent on the settings you choose in your Toolbar Management Area

Calendar icon: quick view of your availability calendar to aid answering enquiries

Moneycorp icon: easy to use calculator for working between currencies supplied by our Foreign Exchange partner Moneycorp

GoogleMaps icon: get directions and find where you're going with this easy to use map service

VillasPeople.com icon: check your listing and destination pages on the world's fastest growing holiday home portal

Sun icon: links to your local weather information

Envelope icon: quick link to your internet based email eg hotmail, gmail etc

Newspaper icon: Goes to your most popular news story website

Blog icon: links to the IndependentOwners.com blog

Yellow triangle containing the letter ‘A’: Appears as a reminder when a task in your Rental Admin Area is due to be actioned remains grey whilst no actions to take place

Red triangle containing the letter ‘E’: Appears when a new enquiry is made through your website remains grey until a new enquiry comes through your website

Six figure counter display: Shows the total number of visitors to your website at any given time. This feature needs to be activated to become live

Customised links: These can include quick links to up to eight of your favourite and most used web addresses. For example a listing website, your bank, sports team, auction site, airline, book store etc

1d. Activating Your IO Toolbar

Now your IndependentOwners.com Toolbar is live and you are familiar with how the icons and links can make life easier the next step is to activate it so that it you can use all of its features.

To activate your IO Toolbar please follow the instructions below :

Your Toolbar is now activated so you can easily view your website and access your Central Management Area using the House and Key icons.

Step 1e below explains what each of the icons do and describes how to customise your Toolbar to show and hide links. You will also find out how to include your own web preferences to speed up your everyday browsing.

Note: It may be useful for you to know how to hide and unhide the toolbars that are installed on your computer. If you have too many toolbars activated at the same time then this can reduce the viewing area on your screen. Try not to use more than two or three at once. To hide a toolbar click ‘View’ at the top left of your screen, click ‘Toolbars’ from the dropdown list and you will see the toolbars already installed on your computer. The toolbars that are shown on your screen will have a tick next to them. To remove a toolbar from view uncheck it and it will disappear. Don’t worry, when you want it back again simply go back and tick the option again.

1e. Personalising your IO Toolbar

As you will have discovered from Step 3 above, your IO Toolbar can give you quick links to your favourite Weather website, Google Maps, a currency converter as well as providing a one click button straight in to your Central Management Area from where you can edit and manage your website. This section of the Help Guide explores how to personalise your IO Toolbar.

After activating your Toolbar (Step 4 above), click the Tool icon on the far left of your IO Toolbar to open the Toolbar Management Area.

Allocating websites to the buttons on your IO Toolbar

In the ‘My Pages’ area of your Toolbar Management Area you can choose what websites you want to be behind the buttons on your IO Toolbar.

You should have already added your domain to the first option of this section, ‘My domain name’ as explained in Step 4. This will activate your IO Toolbar meaning the ‘house’ icon on your IO Toolbar will take you straight to the ‘Home page’ of your IndependentOwners.com website.

The next five choices have a tick box next to them to show or hide the relevant icons. You can choose to have all, some or none of these icons activated by ticking or un-ticking the relevant box. You can also customise the destination of these icons (other than the first two) or use the recommended options we provide.

Adding Personalised Links to your IO Toolbar

In the true tradition of toolbars, IndependentOwners.com have provided the facility for you to customise your IO Toolbar to include links to up to ten of your favourite or most accessed websites.

Each of the ten ‘My Custom Pages’ links are set as invisible by default except for the first few which we have set-up as links through to Moneycorp, Intasure and Chez Nous as examples.

The ‘My Custom Pages’ section of the Toolbar Management Area allows you to add a link on your IO Toolbar to a listing site, your favourite forum, a football fan website, auction website, bank, local cinema listings…. anything you like! Up to ten of your most regularly used websites can now be accessed with just one click.

To edit and include links simply type the domain name of your chosen website into the URL field next to My Page #5. Then in the field marked ‘Label’ type in how you would like to see the link appear on your IO Toolbar – for example, if you are linking to a well known auction site it could say ‘eBay’ or if it is to an airline perhaps BA or AA would suffice. By keeping the name you give the website short you will ensure that they can all be viewed on your IO Toolbar at once.

Remember to tick the ‘Visible’ box to make each quick link appear on your IO Toolbar. You can choose to have all, some or none of your favourite website links included in your Toolbar for quick access! Always click ‘Save changes’ to ensure you confirm your choices

Note: Most widescreen desktops and laptops will be able to support ten customised links on the Toolbar - other screens may display less so make sure your most important ones are first.

2. The IO Login Manager

Brand new for IndependentOwners.com 3.0, the new IO Login Manager provides secure and direct access to the Central Management Area of your website from the system tray of your PC, avoiding the need to login each time, whilst also alerting you to enquiries that come through your website with a ‘bouncing’ icon to attract your attention. The IO Login Manager* negates the need for the IO Toolbar for those Members who may prefer not to use it.

Above: The IO Login Manager icon will appear in your System Tray which is part of the Task Bar at the bottom of your computer screen.

How to use your IO Login Manager

Once installed, the IO Login Manager will appear in your system tray in the bottom right of your computer. You can login to your Central Management Area with the click of one button.

Explore the IO Login Manager by right clicking on the icon. You will see the menu appear in a small grey box with your options listed. The first time you click you will need to login using the email address and password you provided at registration. After this first time your IO Login Manager will always be logged in so there’s no need to re-enter this information next time.

Once you have logged in you will see the other options become clickable :

If you own multiple properties and have chosen to subscribe to our Multi Property solution then when you click ‘CMA’ you will arrive at your multi website landing page.

*Mac users - the IO Login Manager is not yet compatible with Apple Macs – please upgrade/install your IO Toolbar here

3. The IO Desktop - Coming soon

Your IO Desktop will be a customisable homepage that contains easy links to your IO website and Central Management Area, showing alerts and rental enquiries. It will be a great addition to your IO Toolbar and IO Login Manager to help you to manage your rental property website more efficiently.