@StuartJLans will probably want in on this post - I’ll tweet him so he knows about it!

Personally I just wrapped up with a client who wanted to parse Airbnb emails to then create a record in OpenCRM (with a Google Sheet step in the middle so the client could add some extra friends).

For anyone that tries the same - beware - although they look normal - we found Zapier Formatter was incorrectly interpreting the checkin/our dates, even with the ‘From Format’ explicitly set. Turns out they have some messed up non-ASCII in them, so another Formatter step was needed to tidy that up.

On that note - a shout out to Tom @ Zapier for persevering with me on that one!

Yes we use it extensively working with various OTA apis and also parsing emails to do a lot of workflows. We use Zapier to update rates, send guest messages, update our internal CRM, keep track of income, send amendments / alterations to owners, send confirmation messages to owners, handle reviews, create and link ical calendars, do all payments within slack, manage upsells and more really. I guess that's why we have 180+ zaps working on various things!

Our setup is a little unique which is why we built our own PMS (property management systems) into Slack compared to using one of the numerous PMS systems that are on the market but it helps us run a vacation rental business with inventory in the thousands with 3 staff.

I have also worked with a few clients who have wanted to automate parts of their smaller operation or more traditional hotel setups in this regard and it is great fun showing them exactly what is possible from sending messages to cleaners / guests at schedules prior / during their stays to delegating team members different checklist tasks on a rotating schedule so that work is shared evenly through all tasks and staff get variety in their work.

Thanks for sharing more about how you're using Zapier for this kind of thing @StuartJLans

First of all - 180+ Zaps? Wow. That's awesome!

It's so cool to hear how Zapier is helping you to do this alongside your own Property Management System in Slack :D

Have you built bots in Slack or do you use slash commands (or a bit of both?)

Do you have a top tip for anyone looking to do something similar?

Yeah it is a lot to manage and I have thought about how subfolders would help to organize all the zaps! (I think my suggestion was forwarded already).

I do like to build Slack bots, it is super easy to do so and use the interactive components with a Zapier webhook and then using a filter / paths to run the different buttons that you attach to the bot messages. I don't really use any of the slash command stuff but really got excited when push by zapier for slack came out not so long ago (being able to use custom fields with that would be 😮!). That really helped with some cool stuff like replying to guest messages and then self destructing those messages afterwards.

Slack is cool! So much more than a messaging app and something I like to think of as our command center for all things to do with the business.

Hmm, yeah I can see how it would be tricky to manage that many Zaps without subfolders - I use naming conventions to mimic what the folder structure would be eg:

• Avengers initiative - Cap
• Avengers initiative - Iron Man
• Avengers initiative - Romanov

But I understand that subfolders would be easier, so I'm glad that we've captured that feedback for you.

I've also made a note of your feature request for custom fields for the 'Push to Zapier' Slack action, which tracks interest in that as a feature and also means that we'll send you an email if it gets made :)

Working with Mews (Property Management System) and assisting number of hotels, hostels and apartments with setting up various zaps. As @StuartJLans mentioned parsing emails (mainly for travel agents who are not supported by any channel managers), creating customers, creating reservations, synchronising data with CRM's, automatic emailing, task management for properties operations (maintenance, housekeeping), reminders.

What I really love is ability to customise customer journey by customer recognition, acting differently based on number of stays (getting to know the customer) - for eg. offering a complimentary drink via txt msg sent on arrival date to celebrate the 10th stay. Or reminder for staff when dealing with customer who celebrates their b'day. Sending a b'day postcard to VIP's. This little touches make a massive difference in hospitality and as every provider wants to be unique Zapier is a game changer allowing automation of custom workflows.

Mews invested a lot of time to open the interfaces to Zapier and we can see a great benefit to forward thinking accommodation providers.

I have long wanted to parse the incoming emails and pre-fill in Streak as needed, but I just do a very simple automation.

I manually enter the customer info in Streak, and then Zapier pushes that to Google Sheets and on to my accounting. This is quite simple, so I doubt you need any more information, but I did do a writeup here

https://ideawrights.com/vacation-rental-management-streak-zapier/

It is a real 101 writeup for people who don’t know what Zapier or Streak are. 

I also use it to automate checkin reminder emails. We had a problem where some people want their checkin info immediately and other people need it basically day of arrival otherwise they lose it. So we did a simple automation with Google Forms > Zapier > GMail that lets them check off on our checklist and get their arrival info immediately and also schedule a resend for whatever date works best for them.

Again, super simple, but very helpful nevertheless.

This is great, @ergophobe ! Thank you for sharing!