Room Status Automation (formerly Room Ready Notification): Configuration & Functionality

Owned by Kenya Puig
Last updated: Mar 04, 2024
3 min read

The objective of this article is to provide a guide on how to configure a new type of Message Automation to notify guests based on their room status. Use cases include Room Ready Notifications, Opt-Out Notifications, and DND Notifications, which help optimize housekeeping operations.

Room Status Automation works by using ALICE’s existing Message Automation interface, by using a new trigger method that looks at a reservation status and the assigned room status.

Please note that ALICE Guest Messaging and ALICE Housekeeping must be configured at the hotel in order to use this functionality.

 Instructions

Configuration for Admin:

  1. Access ALICE Admin

  2. Navigate to Messaging menu > Message Automation

  3. Click on Add Automation

  4. Fill details accordingly - below is an example:

a. Send When: Reservation - PMS Status + Room Status → this is required for the Room Ready Automation to work.

b. Selections for Reservation - PMS Status and Housekeeping Status:
The options within each drop down are pulled from the property’s Housekeeping configuration. Although the field is Select Multi, we recommend just selecting one status for each field. Which statuses to choose will depend on the hotel’s operation. In the example above, the automation will trigger whenever the reservation is marked as Due In and the assigned room to the reservation is marked as Inspected.

You can reach out to our support team (support@actabl.com) to understand how your PMS Statuses and Housekeeping statuses are mapped:

c. Ensure the checkbox for Room Ready Notification Automation is enabled (for the Room Ready Notification use case only).

d. Fill the other details as needed (Message Template and checkbox settings).

  1. Click Save and ensure the automation is Enabled.

🛎️ Functionality for Front End User:

Now that the automation exists, users still need to manually mark reservations that have requested a Room Ready Notification.

To mark a reservation as eligible to send an automation room ready notification:

  1. Navigate to the guest reservation in the Guest tab or in Chat tab (if conversation with guest already exists).

  2. Locate the Room Ready Notif. checkbox and enable it:

  1. That’s it! The automated SMS will send once the conditions of the automation are met (e.g. Reservation Status = DUE IN AND Housekeeping Status = INSPECTED)

  2. After the automated message is sent, users will be able to see the confirmation on the Room Ready Notif. checkbox, in both the Chat tab and Guest tab:

 

The Room Ready checkbox can be marked as unchecked in the event that the automated notification is no longer needed.

 

🎁 Alternative Use Cases for new trigger method
Reservation - PMS Status + Room Status

This new trigger can be used for DND Automations to automatically message an in house guest whose room has been marked as DND.

Configuration should be as follows:

  1. Notice how the Housekeeping Status is set to DND. This may have a different name or not exist at all, depending on the hotel’s housekeeping configuration.

  2. For DND and all non-room ready notification, please make sure the Room Ready Notification Automation checkbox is not enabled.

  3. Make sure that you save the automation and that’s it! Nothing else is needed for this automation to trigger once the conditions are met.

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