You set up the confirmation, the check-in instructions and the checkout reminder in Hostfully. Then a guest who booked on Airbnb gets nothing, a last-minute booking arrives at 5 p.m. with no door instructions, and a guest writes in asking about something no template mentions. Automated messages cover the questions you could predict. This article is about setting them up so they actually fire, and about what is left.
What Hostfully's automated messages are
Hostfully's help center (checked 2 October 2026) describes two layers:
- System templates: pre-built messages tied to stages of the booking, which the platform sends on its own and which you can toggle on or off and edit. You cannot attach a system template to a custom trigger. Most system templates fire only for direct bookings and inquiries.
- Custom templates plus triggers: your own email, SMS or WhatsApp templates, sent when an event or time condition you define is met. This is how guests who book through Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo get messages.
That distinction explains why a guest who booked through a channel might receive nothing even with system templates enabled.
How to set them up well
1. Build channel messages as custom templates. Per the templates and triggers article, create an email template and save it. In the trigger, add the "Channel is" condition and select Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo, then choose the "Send channel message" action, which sends to the channel the booking came from. Save often; the template editor has no auto-save.
2. Use variables and custom data to keep one template for many units. The same article says a single check-in instructions template can serve multiple properties, each with its own access, lock and parking details, which reduces template clutter and stale copies.
3. Pick the trigger type on purpose. Instant triggers fire on events such as booking confirmed, booking paid or booking updated. Time-based triggers use the "complex condition" event, for example hours before the stay starts or after it ends. Conditions can narrow by channel, property, guest count, stay length, agreement signed, paid in full or pre-arrival form submitted.
4. Know that conditions are checked when the message is due. Hostfully's note: for a time-based trigger with extra conditions, all conditions must be met at the scheduled time. If a trigger is set for three days before check-in and requires a signed agreement, an unsigned agreement means no message, and a later signature does not send it retroactively.
5. Configure same-day bookings explicitly. The same-day article says the hours value must cover the window between check-in and the latest time you accept same-day bookings. Its example: 3 p.m. check-in and a 10 p.m. cutoff need at least 7 hours; a value of 0 means a 5 p.m. same-day booking gets nothing.
6. Respect channel limits. Hostfully notes that on Airbnb, text and attachments cannot be sent together and only one image per template is supported; Booking.com and Vrbo inboxes do not support hyperlinks, so links go in as plain text, and links can only be sent after the booking is confirmed.
7. Preview before it reaches a guest. In the Inbox, "Select a template" on a real or mock booking shows the template with that reservation's variables, per the preview article.
8. Monitor what is scheduled and what was sent. Per the monitoring article, Scheduled Messages lists what is queued, and you can delete one but not edit it. The Message Log shows success or failure with a reason. One caution from the same page: retrying a trigger resends to all of its recipients, not only the one that failed.
9. Avoid duplicates when you switch tools. Hostfully advises disabling automated messages with the same content in the system you came from, or guests receive them twice.
What is left after the triggers are right
A template answers what you could write in advance, once, for every guest. What still lands in your inbox depends on the stay:
- Can we check in early? Depends on whether the unit is turned over.
- The lock code is not working. Depends on which unit, lock and reservation.
- Can we bring a second car or a dog? Depends on the property's rules and the reservation details.
A trigger fires on an event or a clock, within the conditions you set. Whether an exception makes sense is still a call for your team. If you also use Hostfully's AI suggestions for drafts, our companion article on what InboxAI reads covers that side.
Before you tune your triggers
- For each channel you use, confirm a custom template and trigger exists.
- For check-in messages that must also reach guests booking after check-in time, configure the late same-day window described in Hostfully's guide.
- Preview each template against a real booking.
- Open Scheduled Messages and Message Log once a week.
- Tally last month's guest messages that no template could have answered.
How InnSync answers the rest
InnSync runs the operation around the PMS. Carmen, InnSync's AI agent, writes replies from the booking, the unit's details and your house rules, and brings early-arrival requests to your team when they require confirmation that the unit is ready. You choose, per channel, whether she replies on her own or drafts for review. InnSync also supports cleaning confirmation, check-in requirements and follow-up routines around each reservation.
Your Hostfully triggers keep running as they are. The aim is to stop being the fallback for everything a trigger cannot know.
If you use Hostfully
Keep Hostfully. InnSync runs the operation around it — the connection is set up with you during onboarding.
Your templates and triggers stay in place. Next step: see InnSync for Hostfully.