An Airbnb workflow

Question: I am running an Airbnb business, since I need a team work software, I tried Asana.
But it will be more helpful if it can automatically generate cleaning tasks from Airbnb calendar. Since we need to inform cleaners to do cleaning every time when the guests check out.
Do you know any other software can do this? If not I want to hire developers to create a program work with Asana especially for Airbnb hosts.

 

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Answer: Great question! The first thing you’d be looking at is how to get bookings out of Airbnb and into your business calendar/scheduler so that you can assign the tasklist for cleaning at the end of the job.

Option #1 – sync your Airbnb calendar with your business calendar, following these Airbnb connection instructions

Option #2 – have your booking confirmation email sent to an email that has the ability to auto-forward emails from a specific address with a specific email subject title. Set up a workflow in your email to have this emailed-in to the Airbnb project management software or task management software program you’re using.

If you’re running with Option #1, your next step would be to use an API-based app to trigger an activity in your project management software on the end date of the Airbnb visit. This trigger would create a new project or tasklist. You could even have it set up, for multi-location Airbnb scheduling, to allocate the tasklist to a specific cleaner or cleaning company. If you’re using Asana, I’d recommend setting up a task template for each cleaner/cleaning company so that when they’re triggered, they can also have the right person allocated (rather than being unallocated to a person). If you’re using different Airbnb cleaning companies, you might want to create different teams so each business doesn’t see the work of the other.

If you’re running with Option #2, you would have the booking confirmation email forwarded into your tool of choice and this would trigger the new Airbnb workflow being run. This would be different based on the tool you use and, in some cases, you’d be able to trigger the cleaning checklist flow within the app and, in other cases, you’d need the help of a simple API tool to automate the process.

Final thoughts – you’ve got three main options for your Airbnb cleaning checklist:

• using project management software where a new project is created for each cleaning company and the cleaning tasks are run within that project
• using a task management software where a tasklist is run for each new Airbnb booking
• using a BPM software program to run the tasklist, complete forms and email you upon completion

In all the above options, I’d also be looking at the best ways to send the Airbnb owner emails for repairs, take photos to verify cleanliness, make requests for new supplies and enable cleaners to request time-off (and be able to have back-up cleaners scheduled for tasks). To create a holistic process, I’d recommend investing in hiring a systems adviser to ensure a streamlined workflow.