Building Custom Workflows

Workflows let you automate the parts of your business that happen the same way every time. A workflow listens for something to happen (a trigger), checks whether it should run (conditions), and then performs one or more actions. Think of it as your operations team running 24/7 in the background.

What you can build

A few things hosts commonly automate with workflows:

• Send a welcome message the moment a booking is confirmed
• Email the cleaner when a same-day turnover is added
• Create a maintenance task when a guest mentions a broken appliance
• Push a Slack alert when a payment fails
• Generate access codes the day before check-in and revoke them after checkout

If you find yourself doing the same thing more than twice a week, it probably belongs in a workflow.

The four building blocks

Triggers are the events that start a workflow. Examples: new reservation, message received, payment completed, task overdue, check-in tomorrow, review posted.

Actions are what the workflow does. Examples: send a message, create a task, assign a cleaner, update a reservation, post to Slack, send an email, generate an access code.

Conditions decide whether the workflow should actually run for a given event. Example: only run for reservations longer than 3 nights, or only for listings in a specific group, or only when the guest is a returning guest.

Suppressions are the opposite — they tell the workflow when not to run. Example: don't send a welcome message if the guest has already received one in the last 24 hours, or skip the cleaner alert if the unit is owner-blocked.

Building your first workflow

1. Open the Workflows page from the left sidebar and click New workflow.
2. Give it a clear name like "Welcome message — Beach properties".
3. Pick a trigger. Browse the trigger list and choose the event that should kick things off. Each trigger comes with a short description of when it fires.
4. Add conditions. Click Add condition to narrow down when the workflow runs. You can stack multiple conditions — they all have to be true.
5. Add actions. Click Add action and pick what should happen. You can add as many as you need; they run in order from top to bottom.
6. Add suppressions if there are cases where you specifically want the workflow to skip. This is useful for avoiding duplicate messages.
7. Test it. Use the Test run button to fire the workflow against a recent reservation without sending real messages. You'll see exactly what would have happened.
8. Activate. Toggle the workflow on. It will start running on the next matching event.

Starting from a template

You don't have to start from a blank canvas. The Templates tab has pre-built workflows for the most common scenarios — welcome messages, check-in instructions, review requests, payment retries, and more. Pick one, tweak it for your business, and activate.

Watching what your workflows do

Every time a workflow runs, it logs the result. Open the Logs tab to see which workflows fired, which actions succeeded, and which were skipped (and why). If something didn't behave the way you expected, the log will tell you exactly what happened.

Common questions

Can a workflow trigger another workflow? Yes — if one workflow creates a task and another workflow listens for new tasks, they'll chain naturally.

What happens if an action fails? The workflow keeps running the remaining actions and the failure is recorded in the log. You'll see a red marker so you can investigate.

Can I pause a workflow temporarily? Yes. Toggle it off from the workflow list. It will stop running until you turn it back on, and your settings are preserved.

How many workflows can I have? As many as you need. Most hosts run between 10 and 30 active workflows across their portfolio.