How do I send bulk communications to my Customers?

Learn how to send bulk communications to Customers using statuses and notifications, including creating a status, creating a notification, and sending a notification.

Which plans include this feature?

Legacy: Soho, Pro, Plus, Enterprise, Flex
New: Starter, Growth, Managed | Learn more about our new plans or how to change your plan.

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

Manage Statuses: Manage > Layout > Statuses
Manage Notifications: Manage > Notifications
Send Notifications: Reports > Booking Index

What more do I need to use this feature?

Admin permissions to manage Statuses and Notifications.

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic, new or both?

The Booking Status, Notifications, and Booking Index features are available to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

New to Checkfront - Products ✨

With our newest version of Checkfront, we have added Products (Inventory > Products) as the successor to items (Inventory > Items).

Are you interested in migrating to our newest version? Please reach out to our Technical Support team for more information.

Overview

Please follow these three steps. Details are provided below.

Create a Custom Status
Create a Notification
Send the Booking Notification

1. Create a Custom Status

Statuses

First, you need to create a new status. This facilitates sending out notifications to a segment of Customers based on the status of the associated booking.

Select Layout from the Manage menu and then select the Statuses tab.
Find the quick +Add button at the bottom-left of your list of statuses. Clicking +Add opens the new Status modal.
Give the status a name that conveys its purpose, such as Health Policy Update.
The Status ID field automatically populates with an abbreviated version of the name, for example, HEAL. You can edit the Status ID or leave the suggested value in place.

Once you have saved the new status, it is added to the list of booking statuses.

The lock setting next to the status label can remain selected. This ensures that inventory is locked and the associated bookings consume booking availability.

Feel free to change the colour of the status if you need to.

Learn more about configuring booking statuses here:

Introduction to booking statuses

2. Create a Notification

Add Notification

Next, you need to format the notification.

Go to Manage and then Notifications within the top menu.
Choose to +Add Notification.
From the New Notification page, enter the Subject of the communication, such as Important Health Policy Update! Please Read.
Ensure that the Notification Type is set to Booking Status.
Then, choose the Booking Status that triggers the notifications, e.g. Health Policy Update.
Determine whether the notification is sent Immediately or Scheduled. Scheduled notifications require that you specify the Schedule.
Change the From and Reply to email addresses as needed.
Choose the Recipient of your email. In this case, you need to select the Customer.
Determine if the Message Format should be HTML and/or Text.
Choose which products/items the message should Apply to. Only bookings with the selected categories or products/items are notified.
Add your message to the Email field provided.
Click Create to save your notification.

Learn more about configuring Notifications here:

Notifications (Booking Status): Introduction

3. Send Notification

Bulk Update Deliver Notification

Finally, you can create a segment of Customers and send your Notification to those Customers.

Go to the Booking Index (Reports > Booking Index).
Filter the Booking Index for the segment of Customers you need to notify. For example, you can filter for all bookings that have a Start Date within the Next 30 days.
If your bookings have various statuses, for example, PAID vs DEPOSIT, you must send out batches of communications by status. To accomplish this, you need to filter by Status to isolate bookings, for example, those with a status of DEPOSIT.
Next, select the bookings that you need to bulk update. Select the checkbox at the top-right of the bookings table to select all the bookings in focus.
Click Bulk Update to open the Bulk Update modal.
Note the number of bookings that are going to be sent notifications.
Select the status to trigger the notification, e.g. Health Policy Update.
Select the Deliver notifications checkbox.
Add a Booking Note as needed.
Click Apply to update the booking statuses and send the notification(s).
Next, you need to revert the status of the bookings to the original status, e.g. PAID or DEPOSIT. Repeat steps four through seven in preparation.
Please ensure that the Deliver notifications checkbox is NOT selected from the Bulk Update modal.
Select the previous status, for example, DEPOSIT.
Click Confirm to revert the status for all selected bookings.
Finally, repeat this process for each batch of bookings with a different status, e.g. PAID.

View the Booking Invoice (Reports > Booking Index > Booking > Booking Invoice) for any of the bookings to see that the email has been sent and noted in the Log.