Guest messages: templates and rules

Message rules decide what the guest receives, when and through which channel: a confirmation after booking, a reminder before arrival, an email after check-out. Messages go out by themselves on booking events, in hotel time and not at night.

Who: the hotel owner or an administrator with permission to edit the PMS (saving rules and test sends). Front desk staff can view the rules and the log. The location's business type must be "Hotel".

Where to set it up and how to turn it on#

1. Open Rooms → the Hotel settings window → the Stay rules section.
2. Find the Guest emails about the booking section and, under it, the Guest messages: templates and rules panel. The same panel opens from the gear on the room board.
3. Turn on Use my rules. While the switch is off, guests get the two standard emails as before.

Once it is on, the rule list and the Add rule and Sent messages buttons appear.

Built-in emails#

The list always contains two standard platform emails:

• “Arrival tomorrow” email — sent when arrival is tomorrow;
• “Thank you for staying” email — sent the day after check-out.

You can turn them off or select Write my own text; Back to the standard text restores the platform text. The schedule of built-in emails cannot be changed: they go out once a day, after 03:00 hotel time.

Create a rule#

1. Select Add rule. The New message rule window opens.
2. Name (for the team) — the guest does not see it.
3. Type:
   • Service — about the guest's own stay, always sent;
   • Marketing — offers and invitations, only to guests subscribed to your mailings, with an unsubscribe link.
4. When — the event (see the table below) and Hours: for “Before arrival” and “Before departure” — how many hours before, for the rest — how many hours after (0 — right away). From 0 to 720 hours.
5. Only for — conditions: Booking source (Front desk, Phone, Website, OTA, Guest app), Guest language, Room types, Rates. Nothing selected — every booking.
6. How to send — Email and/or SMS.
7. Language, Subject, Text, and for SMS — SMS text (empty — the main text is sent).
8. Check Preview with sample data and save. The Rule is on box must be checked.

Seven events#

Each event fires only for a booking in the matching status. If the booking has no time set, arrival is taken as 14:00 and departure as 12:00.

Sending time and quiet hours#

• Messages go out in hotel time. The check runs every hour (every 15 minutes on cenaly.ru), so a message may arrive slightly after the calculated time.
• Quiet hours 21:00–08:00: a message that falls at night goes out at 08:00.
• A message more than 48 hours late is not sent at all.
• Each rule step (rule × channel) is sent to a guest at most once per booking.

Language and placeholders#

Languages. Use Add language to add a translation of the text (up to 12 languages per rule). The guest gets their language (the booking language, otherwise the hotel language) if it is written; otherwise the rule's default language.

Placeholders are inserted with the Insert buttons:

The text is plain: an empty line starts a paragraph, links become clickable. An empty placeholder becomes an empty string. An unknown placeholder typed by hand cannot be saved — use the Insert buttons.

Email and SMS#

• Email is sent from the platform's sender address; the email ends with the hotel name. There is no own sender address for a hotel.
• SMS is paid per message. The guest's phone must be in the booking. cenaly.ru has no SMS channel — only emails are sent.
• A marketing email reaches only a subscriber of this hotel's mailings who has not unsubscribed; the system adds the unsubscribe link itself. A marketing SMS goes only to a guest who agreed to SMS, and only from 9 to 21.
• If the guest has no matching contact or consent, the step is skipped without a log entry.

Test send#

In the rule window, select Send a test to me. The email arrives at your account's email address with sample data and “[TEST]” in the subject — “Test sent to {address}”. Test sends are email only, no more often than once every 20 seconds.

Sent messages log#

• Sent messages in the panel — the last 200 messages of the hotel sent by the rules.
• Messages to the guest in the booking card — what was sent to this guest. “No messages by the rules yet” — while it is empty.

Email addresses and phones in the log are masked. The log shows that a message was queued for sending, not the delivery result.

Tell the guest their room is ready#

The guest arrived early and the room is still being cleaned? Open their booking on the room calendar: the card of a booking for today with an assigned room has a “🔔 Room-ready message” block.

1. Click “Notify the guest when the room is ready”. Tick “Only after inspection” if the room must pass an inspection.
2. The block shows “Waiting for the room” and the room's current state: not cleaned yet, still occupied, out of order.
3. When the room is cleaned (or inspected, if ticked), vacant and in service, the guest gets one email: “Your room is ready, please come to the front desk”. The room number is not written in the email.
4. The block then shows “Email queued” with a masked address, and later “accepted by the mail service” — this means the email went out, not that the guest read it.

The front desk still checks the guest in — the email does not.

• Opt-in only: no guest gets this email unless you click the button.
• A room change, cancellation or check-in stops the wait — no email goes out for the old room.
• “Stop waiting” — if the guest no longer waits or you told them yourself.
• “Retry” — if the email was not sent because the queue failed. A retry does not create a second email.
• If the room is already ready, the block suggests checking in right away instead of waiting.
• The booking needs a guest email; demo accounts don't send guest emails.

Not available yet#

• Custom text for the “room ready” email and a room-ready SMS: the email uses built-in text in the booking's language, email only.
• A placeholder with a link to the guest's bill (folio).
• Delivery status and a resend button in the log.
• Test sends of SMS.
• SMS on cenaly.ru.
• Sending to messengers or the guest chat, and staff tasks from rules — for conversations, see Messaging a guest.

Related articles#

• Stay rating and public review
• Pre-arrival form and front desk check
• Upsells: services and room upgrades — offers in emails
• Stay pass and guest device access
• Messaging a guest about their stay
• Hotel: Rooms, PMS and Guest Service

FAQ#

Why didn't the guest receive a message?#

Check that the rule is on, the booking matches “Only for”, the guest has an email or phone, and — for marketing — a mailing subscription. A rule enabled after the moment does not write to old bookings. A message that falls between 21:00 and 08:00 waits until morning.

Can I send an email three days before arrival?#

Yes: the “Before arrival” event, 72 hours.

Will a guest get the same message twice?#

No. Each rule sends at most one message per booking in each channel.

Can I tell the guest their room is ready for check-in?#

Yes, from the booking card — see Tell the guest their room is ready. It is a subscription of one booking, not an “event → action” rule.

Why aren't SMS sent on cenaly.ru?#

The Russian contour has no SMS channel — rules send email only.