Tasks: Best practices

Guesty’s task management functionality is highly flexible and can be adapted to suit your specific operational needs. Our best practices below will help you improve efficiency by creating setups that cover various unique scenarios and use-cases, along with our recommended setup for task-related reports.

Note:

Are you just getting started with Guesty's task management features? Learn how to create tasks manually or set up Auto Tasks

Tip:

Easily differentiate between various types of tasks by using Emojis in their titles. For example, Check-in 🔑 or Weekly Cleaning 🏠 

 

Managing tasks for extended stay reservations

Complement your short-term rentals business by offering extended stays. Learn how to optimize your setup in Guesty to easily manage these listings.

You can use Guesty's Auto Tasks feature to schedule tasks for each reservation automatically.

To manage longer reservations, enhance your automated setup by creating one-off tasks manually in Guesty. You can generate additional revenue by offering services, such as mid-stay cleaning, extra bedding, laundry, and grocery restocking.

 

Allowing team members to accept their own tasks

You can allow staff members to accept their own tasks. See our example scenarios and their solutions below.

Scenario 1: You work with groups of freelance cleaners/check-in agents, who can assign themselves to any task in their location.

When creating a task template, add items to the "Checklist" section of the template with all the items that are needed in order to prepare the property. When creating the Auto Task itself, schedule it to be created "At start of rental period".

Scenario 2: You require work to take place at a property at the end of a rental period.

When creating a task template, add items to the "Checklist" section of the template with all the items that need to be handled at the property at the end of the rental period. When creating the Auto Task itself, schedule it to be created "At end of rental period".

 

Adding filters and columns to task custom reports

A wide selection of filters and columns can be added to your task-related custom reports. See below the most commonly used filters and columns.

Filters

  • Today's scheduled tasks.
    • "Start" filter and set it as "Is in the next 1 day".
  • Tomorrow's scheduled tasks. Add these two filters:
    • "Start" filter and set it as "Is in the next 2 days"
    • "End" filter and set it as "Is after the next 1 day".
  • Upcoming tasks scheduled in the next seven days.
    • "Start" filter and set it as "Is in the next 7 days"
  • Unassigned tasks.
    • "Assignee" filter, and set it as "Is Unassigned".
  • Tasks per supervisor, city, and listing tag.
    • "Supervisor", and select the supervisor(s) from the list.
    • "Listing's City", and select the relevant cities.
    • "Listing's Tag", and select the relevant tags.

Columns

  • Start Date.
    The exact time the assignee tapped "Start task" in the Guesty mobile app.
  • Completion Date.
    The exact time the assignee tapped "End task" in the Guesty mobile app.
  • Start.
    The planned start time according to an Auto Task's setup or the "Due Date" on a manually created task.
  • End.
    The planned end time according to the planned start time and duration.
  • Can Start From.
    The "Can Start From" field on a task's time frame.
  • Must Finish Before.
    The "Must Finish Before" field on a task's time frame.
  • Task Assignee.
    The person assigned to the task.
  • Status.
    See if a task is in progress, completed, and more.
  • Creation Date.
    The date that the task was created in Guesty. For Auto Tasks, this should match the reservation's confirmation date.
  • Next Reservation.
    A brief look at the next upcoming reservation.
  • Next Planned Arrival.
    A guest's planned arrival time. This column will only display data if the guest's ETA has been manually adjusted. The listing's default check-in time will not be displayed in this column.

 

Other use cases

In addition to managing the cleaning and maintenance of properties, tasks are also a great way of handling the following use cases.
  • Personal check-ins or greeting guests.
  • Inspections and quality control.
  • Reminder to get in touch with owners, such as once a month.
  • Reminder to check payment statuses on reservations and collect credit card details.
  • Escalate an urgent guest issue to a manager.
  • Inventory checks, such as hand soap and toiletries per listing.
  • Longer-term projects across the entire portfolio of listings:
    • Upgrading amenities at a property, such as installing entertainment services and providing better disability access.
    • Marketing each listing, such as uploading new photos and changing descriptions.

Tip:

For improved reporting and analysis capabilities, select the specific "Task Type" from the dropdown.

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