Bookings and the calendar

Messaging a guest

Templates render the message; a person sends it. Nothing goes out on its own.

Message guest on a booking card, and the Messages tab on the Operations screen.

Message the guest: the template, the preview, and the two ways to send.

Do this

Message — pick the template: booking confirmed, arrival reminder, payment link, and whatever your hotel has added.
The preview — the hotel's own words with this booking's dates, room and balance filled in. If the words are wrong, an administrator changes them under Operations → Messages.
Open WhatsApp — the phone's or the desktop's WhatsApp opens with the text ready. A person presses send.
Queue only — puts it in the outbox for somebody to send later, from the Messages tab.

How it works today, stated plainly: the system renders the message from a template and queues it. It does not send it. There is no WhatsApp Business account connected and no mail sender, so a person clicks Open WhatsApp and sends it, or copies the text.

Templates are per hotel group and hold the wording for confirmations, hold links, pre-arrival notes and thank-yous.
Queue only puts the message in the outbox without opening anything, for somebody to work through in a batch.
Sent and Failed show what has gone and what has not.
Phone numbers are normalised before use, so a number typed with spaces, a +91 or a leading 0 all end up the same.

When a sender is connected, everything above stays as it is — the queue is already the right shape — and the messages start leaving by themselves.

More in Bookings and the calendar

Reading the calendarRooms down the side, dates across the top, and four things worth knowing about the colours. Blocking a room from the chartRight-click a room, say why, from which night to which, and who is blocking it. The channel is told; the chart draws it; a booking into it is refused. Making a bookingNew booking, or click an empty square on the chart. What each field is for. A booking the desk may hold and a manager confirmsAn OTA booking, or one billed to a company or an agent, is held by the desk for 30 minutes — or confirmed there and then with a manager's own login. Bookings that have no room yetEvery live booking with no room number, from any source, is drawn on the chart and listed beside it — and dragged onto a room. Taking a group at your own deskA party needing rooms of more than one kind — a wedding, an offsite, a tour — is taken from the calendar as ONE group: a line per room type, one contact, one code over all of it. Who is paying for a bookingOn a booking typed by hand, the payer — guest, company, travel agent or OTA — can be corrected. The bill moves with it. Where the price comes fromThe rate plan sets the price. Who may change it is a separate question with a deliberate answer. Changing the rate on a bookingAnybody at the desk may name the rate until the guest checks out; after that only an administrator, and it is a tax note. An OTA rate is never changed here. Changing a bookingDates, room, guest and rate can all be amended. Some changes are refused, and some can be overridden. Cancelling, and no-showsBoth need a reason from the list, and both leave the record standing. Holding a room, and the guest pay linkA time-boxed hold with a link the guest can pay on. It releases itself if they do not. Putting a stay in another guest's nameOnly an administrator. Any status, before or after check-out. The booking and its bills carry the new guest; the invoice number, the charges and the tax do not move. A room with more people than it sleepsMoving a party of four into a room that sleeps three is allowed: the picker warns, asks once, does it, and records who said yes. Day use: a room sold for the day, not the nightA guest who arrives in the morning and leaves in the evening and never sleeps in the room. It reserves nothing, holds no room until the desk hands over a key, and the same room can serve two day guests and still take its overnight guest. Booking the same stay againBook again copies a stay for a returning guest, and tells you what the price would be now. Group bookingsMany rooms under one name, created together and cancellable together. Moving a guest to another roomDrag the bar on the chart, or use Move room. It asks for a reason and refuses for good ones. UpgradesMove a guest up a grade, priced or complimentary, with the reason recorded.