Opening it
- Alt+A (⌥A), or the sparkle button at the top of the screen. The panel opens on the right and the screen moves over to make room, so the calendar stays usable beside it. On a phone it takes the whole screen.
- From search: type a question — more than four words, or start with ? — and press Tab, or Enter when nothing was found. The question goes to the assistant.
What you can ask
- Arrivals and departures for a day or a period, including only those with no room yet, those who still owe money, or those who paid in full.
- Who to collect from today: overdue stays, departures, arrivals and deposits, with the amount and whether a payment link was sent.
- One booking: dates, guests, room, rate plan, status and the staff’s internal notes; with the right to see money, also the price, what was paid and what is still owed.
- Search for a booking, a guest, a room or a property, by a name, a booking number or a room. A booking found shows what is still owed on it (with the right to see money). When several guests share the name you asked for, the assistant lists them with how many bookings each has and asks which one you mean.
- Free rooms per room type for some dates.
- Prices for a stay — every room type and rate plan for the dates and the party, as the new-booking wizard prices them. Needs the right to create bookings.
- Nightly prices over a period (the cheapest room each night, tax included).
- Stay rules: whether a stay breaks the property’s rules (minimum or maximum stay, closed to arrival or departure, stop-sell) and the nearest dates that do not.
- Rooms to clean that a guest arrives in today.
- The house today in numbers: arrivals, departures, in house, rooms to turn, tonight’s occupancy.
- The channel mix for a period: bookings, nights and revenue per channel. Needs the analytics right. The commission is an estimate from your configured or default rates, and the assistant says so.
How to read an answer
- Every booking or guest the answer names is a chip: a booking opens the reservation panel where you are, a guest opens their profile. A booking’s chip shows its number and the guest’s name, so a list of bookings is one line each — the chip, then the room, the dates and what is still owed.
- Until the answer starts, the panel says what the assistant is doing — Looking…, Looking at Arrivals and departures…, then Writing the answer… — so a question that takes a few seconds never looks stuck.
- Above the answer, Looked at lists what the assistant read — with the dates, the properties and how many records. It is built from the lookups themselves, not from the assistant’s wording. When a search found more than it shows, it says so — 16 found, showing 8 — with See all in search, which opens search on the same words.
- The properties selected in the sidebar are the ones it looks at, unless you name another property you have access to or ask it to look in every property; then Looked at says every property. It never looks beyond the properties your role has access to. When a booking is open in the reservation panel, the chip About this booking above the question box tells the assistant which booking “this” is; remove it with ✕.
- Amounts are hidden from a role that does not see money: the answer says Amounts hidden for your role.
- An answer is checked before you see it. If it names a record no lookup found, comes out empty or is cut off, the assistant tries once more; if that fails too, it says I couldn’t answer that reliably rather than guess — rephrase the question or narrow it down.
- A question that got no answer — the connection dropped, or the assistant was unavailable — is marked No answer came back. with Ask again. It is not passed on with your next questions, so a later answer never replies to it by accident.
Marking a no-show and checking out
Ask, for example, “mark Rossi as a no-show” or “check out room 104”. The assistant does not do it: it shows a card — Mark BKJ7KWS5A3 Rossi as a no-show? — with Confirm and Cancel. Only Confirm does it, as you, exactly as the button on the booking does: the same rights, the same rules, and the activity log names you.- No-show: only a confirmed booking whose arrival day is over, and only for a role that may cancel bookings.
- Check-out: only a guest who is checked in and owes nothing. When the guest still owes, the assistant says so: take the payment first, or check them out from the booking, where the amount is shown.
- When the action is refused at Confirm — the guest came to owe something in the meantime, say — the card says why and stays open: confirm again once the reason is gone.
- Cancel changes nothing. A card is decided once, and shows what became of it when you open the conversation again.
What it does not do
- Change anything other than those two, and those only after you confirm: no booking, room move, payment, refund, cancellation, rate or message. It points you to the screen where you can do it.
- Read guests’ messages or special requests.
- See payment cards, identity documents, door codes, Wi-Fi passwords or other staff members’ accounts. A guest’s e-mail and phone appear masked (m•••@gmail.com).
Who can use it
The Assistant right in Roles & Permissions: Owner, Admin, Accountant, Member, Reception and Housekeeping manager have it; Housekeeper, Maintenance and Driver do not, and a custom role has it only if the owner ticks it. Whatever you ask, the answer stays within your role’s rights: a role that does not see bookings is not shown them by the assistant either. The assistant is part of the Professional and Business plans, with a number of questions a month (see Plans). The bottom of the panel shows how many are used; when they are, the panel says when they start again. When the assistant is switched off for your organization, or not included in your plan, the panel says so.Your conversations
- They are private: only you see them — not the owner, not an administrator.
- A new conversation starts after 8 hours without a question, or with + at the top of the panel.
- A conversation is kept for 30 days after its last question, then deleted.
- When a guest asks to be erased, every answer that names them is deleted with their data.