The guest inbox

One inbox for every guest conversation, whichever site the booking came from. A message from a guest on Booking.com and one from a guest on Airbnb sit in the same list, each next to the stay and the unit it belongs to.

What you need

• A channel connected by sign-in. Threads come with the connection; a calendar link carries no messages. See Connecting Airbnb and Booking.com.

Step 1 — Find the conversation

Conversations are on the left, filtered by All, Unread, Open or Closed, and searchable by guest or by unit. Each row carries the channel it came from, the unit, and the stay.

An unread count sits on the navigation item, so you do not have to open the screen to know there is something in it.

Step 2 — Read it in context

Opening a conversation shows the thread with the unit and the stay beside it. A thread whose booking has not been matched to a unit says so rather than showing a blank.

Step 3 — Reply

Type and send. The reply goes back through the channel the guest is using — they read it where they wrote, and nothing asks them to install anything.

A reply that has not left yet is marked Sending; one that failed is marked Not sent rather than disappearing.

Step 4 — Mark read, or close

Mark read clears the unread state. Close thread takes a finished conversation out of the open list without deleting it.

What is not built yet

Named so you do not look for it: internal notes, assigning a thread to a colleague, canned replies, and the automatic guest messages appearing inside the thread. Email, SMS and WhatsApp as inbox channels come after those.

When it goes wrong