User manual

Configure automation

Automation brings recurring operational work into one place. Activate the modules your organization needs—such as automated SMS and email messages, power optimization and automatic temperature control—then configure their rules and monitor the resulting activity. Only activated modules appear for the selected tenant. When no modules are active, the page shows an automation illustration and a prompt to manage modules.

What to do

1. 1How to activate an automation moduleOpen Automation and select Manage modules. Switch on Automated Messages, Power Optimization, Temperature Control or another required module, then save/close the dialog. Wait until the page shows Synced; the enabled module appears as a card with its Configure action and as an available navigation item. Switching a module off hides its interface, so review active rules before disabling it.
2. 2How to create an automated messageOpen Automation → Automated Messages and add or edit a message. Under When and who, choose the trigger and Booking guest or Specific recipients. A specific recipient requires an address or phone number. Relevant triggers show a 24-hour hour/minute selector or Offset (minutes) beside the trigger. Under Message content, enable Email, SMS or both and edit each enabled channel in its tab. Email has a subject and body. Use the toolbar for templates, the guest-portal button or variable help. Delivery conditions is collapsed and appears only for booking guests. Room specific messages opens a separate draft editor with its configured count. Cancel discards dialog changes; Apply changes returns room edits to the main form. Save the main message to persist everything. Validation opens the affected channel and focuses the relevant field. Automated-message cards show email and SMS previews only for enabled delivery methods. The manual Send message dialog follows the selected template: email subject, address and preview appear only for email; phone and SMS preview appear only for SMS. Email content is rendered with line breaks and buttons directly in the dialog preview. Expand Edit — Email content to edit the HTML source; changes update the preview and are included when sending. SMS stays plain text. The dashboard event log renders Email message content as HTML, including line breaks, decoded characters and guest portal buttons. SMS messages and other event fields remain plain text.
3. 3What each trigger meansOn day of arrival sends once on the booking start date at or after the selected tenant-local time; past arrivals are skipped. When start time has passed becomes eligible at booking start plus the minute offset, until booking end or checkout; rule edits do not exclude earlier bookings or resend delivered channels. On day of departure sends on the booking end date at or after the chosen local time. On booking created applies to bookings created after the rule was activated, before their start, and not already checked in/out. On check in applies while checked in and not checked out; sending also updates the booking start time to the send time. On checkout applies after checkout for up to 48 hours after the booking end. Template only stores reusable text and never sends automatically. Sensor alarm, alarm cleared, offline and online are offered by the configuration API, but the current backend dispatcher does not process them; do not rely on those four triggers until backend support is added and verified.
4. 4What every message field meansTiming uses the tenant timezone. Offset (minutes) defaults to 0; -60 sends one hour before booking start and 60 one hour after. Delivery still follows recipient, payment, cleanliness and booking-validity requirements. Changing timing does not resend delivered channels. Use template replaces only the current channel body and leaves the trigger and other channel unchanged. Disabled channels keep their draft text. Room instructions support general and channel-specific text plus an optional language code; blank language means all languages. Use {roominstructions} in the main body to include the resolved room instructions. Available variables opens a separate help dialog; it is not displayed inline. Use these variables in the subject or message body when creating or editing a message. Both dates use the tenant’s timezone. {departureDate} uses the regional numeric format (Europe/Oslo: 18.09.2026; America/New_York: 09/18/2026). {departureDateText} gives 18 sep 2026, always with a lowercase English month abbreviation. Unsupported regions use yyyy-MM-dd for the numeric date. {arrivalDate} and {arrivalDateText} use the booking start date with the same numeric and text formats as the departure variables. Use {arrivalDateText} for arrival and {departureDateText} for departure. In Automation → Automated Messages, create or edit a message and enable email under Message content. Under Email message, place the cursor where the button should go and select Add guest portal button. A second dialog opens with the button label, background color, text color and Style preview. Choose Insert button to add it and return to the message, or Cancel to return without changing the email. Selected text is replaced; without a cursor position the button is appended. Defaults are action blue #1068F0 and off-white #F8F8F8. Colors accept #RGB or #RRGGBB; labels cannot contain double quotes or line breaks. The inserted {guestportalbutton} token stores your label and colors; edit it in the email body to change an existing button. The preview shows styling only and does not open a booking. Buttons require a booking and work only in email bodies; use {guestportal} in SMS and subjects. Save the message to retain the inserted button. Add guest portal button is beside Show templates. Room-specific messages are no longer edited in this message overlay. The guest-portal button dialog provides color pickers beside the background and text hex fields. Choosing a swatch updates the hex value and preview; the text fields still accept #RGB or #RRGGBB. The automated-message editor is one continuous view: trigger and delivery settings appear above the SMS and email fields, followed by templates, the guest-portal button and variable help. For booking-guest delivery, select Add rooms to the left of Add guest portal button and choose one or more rooms. A separate overlay opens with room checkboxes. Apply filter returns your selection to the message editor; Cancel or Escape discards the overlay changes. Save the main message to persist the selection. Selected rooms appear below the button row; remove a chip or deselect a room to change the list. Preview cards show room chips before SMS, Email and Booking guest. Save the message to apply the filter; Cancel discards edits. An empty list includes all rooms. Switching away from booking-guest delivery clears the room selection. Room filters are independent of room-specific message content. Expanding or clearing the filter can send to eligible unsent bookings. Warning 5, Room not included, means a due booking was excluded without another successful automated message; a successful delivery clears the warning. Use Select all to check every room, or Deselect all to clear the selection. With a partial selection, the button selects all rooms. Apply filter returns the changes to the editor; an empty selection means all rooms when saved. The room list uses natural alphabetical and numeric order in the portal language, ignoring letter case: Room 2 appears before Room 10.
5. 5How to edit an automated messageOpen the three-dot menu on the rule and select Edit. The overlay loads the saved trigger, recipient, time, channels and content. Change the required fields and select Update automated message. Editing changes the activation time used by On booking created. Review the card after saving.
6. 6How to delete an automated messageOpen the three-dot menu on the correct rule, select Remove, verify the trigger name in the confirmation and confirm. The rule disappears and no new automatic sends are created from it. Deleting does not recall messages already sent and does not remove their delivery logs. If you only need reusable copy without automatic delivery, edit the rule and choose Template only instead.
7. 7How to schedule lock automationActivate Lock Automation under Automation > Manage modules, then open Configure lock automation and select New task. Name the task, pick one trigger — Open keeps locks and lock controllers open and holds relays closed, Close locks and opens the relay circuit, Pulse open opens briefly — and select the locks, lock controllers and relays it applies to. Set the schedule as Once, Daily, Weekly or Monthly with a repeat interval, weekdays or days of month, a time of day and a start date, plus an optional end date and time zone. The schedule runs in local time, so a task keeps its clock time across daylight saving changes; an 08:00 opening and a 16:00 locking are two separate tasks. Confirm the safety acknowledgement before saving, because the task operates physical access with no operator present. These endpoints are restricted to superusers, tasks only run while the module stays enabled, the scheduler polls once a minute so a trigger fires within about a minute of its time, and a missed occurrence is skipped rather than run late. Use the card menu to edit, disable or delete a task, and verify every executed and failed operation per device in the event log.
8. 8How to activate and open the Energy AgentActivate Energy Agent under Automation > Manage modules. The module card then shows Open Energy Agent, and Energy Agent appears as its own entry in the left menu; while the module is off neither is shown. Solvotix Energy Agent runs as its own application on a separate subdomain, so the link opens in a new tab. You stay signed in: both applications share the same login, so no separate sign-in is required. Activation is stored per tenant, so switch tenant first if you want the module in another property.
9. 9Run a lock automation task nowOpen Automation → Lock Automation and choose Run now from a task card’s menu. The task and Lock Automation module must be enabled. Confirm the named task, trigger and every target device before running it. The configured command is queued immediately for each device without changing the schedule; the card’s Last run date updates to this manual attempt. The result shows which devices were queued; queuing does not prove a lock or relay acted. Check the event log and physical state of each device. After a timeout, inspect both before trying again, because a command may already have been queued.
10. 10Guest portal tenant nameThe guest portal displays the tenant name at the top, above the language selection and booking content. The name stays visible before and after the stay when available. If it cannot be loaded, the heading is hidden and the portal continues to work. On mobile screens, the guest portal shows large room and access-code cards side by side, and a full-width checkout card with the departure time. The information button explains when checkout becomes available. Hotel messages and the language selector appear below. Tenant visibility settings still apply; the desktop layout is unchanged. In a direction guide, Back returns to the main guest portal screen. On the day of departure, Report departure lets guests notify staff that they are leaving. Confirm departure submits the existing checkout action; the confirmation warns that room access will be deactivated after 5 minutes. This button does not confirm payment settlement. In Automation → Guest portal → Portal behavior, Show pre-stay instructions reveals a text field only while enabled. Enter instructions and save settings. Guests see the text on the closed portal before arrival only when Limit to booking valid time is also enabled and the booking has valid start and end dates and has not been checked out. Blank text stays hidden; instructions disappear during and after the stay. The same plain text is used for all rooms and languages, with line breaks preserved; HTML and template variables are not interpreted. These instructions do not enable early access to room codes or actions. Turning the toggle off hides the editor without erasing its text. Pre-stay instructions appear without a heading. Before the booking starts, the closed portal shows a live countdown in four framed panels for days, hours, minutes and seconds, with glowing digits and a subtle blue horizon. At zero, the portal automatically checks booking access with the server again before revealing booking content. The countdown appears above the stay details on desktop and mobile. If the opening time is unavailable or the stay has ended, the portal shows a status message instead. On mobile, the property name header is centered. Ask guests to confirm contact details is off by default. When enabled, an overlay opens once per page visit on both locked and unlocked portals until the booking’s contact details are confirmed, even if phone and email already exist. Existing values are loaded for review and correction. Select a country calling code for a new phone number; existing numbers can keep their stored format. Phone and email are both required. Continue displays both values for review; Confirm and save confirms them together. The portal reads the saved details back before reporting success. Confirmed details cannot be edited here and are not requested again. Conflicts reload the current details without overwriting confirmed values. Temporary failures allow retrying the same details. Maybe later dismisses the overlay; Confirm contact details reopens it. Confirmation does not verify ownership of the phone or email. Show pre-stay instructions is also off by default. Clicking outside the contact-details window or pressing Escape does not close it. Use Continue to proceed or Maybe later to dismiss it. A bright, translucent backdrop increases contrast around the contact-details window. On the closed portal, Confirm contact details appears inside the booking notice in place of Check again, only while confirmation is needed. The separate contact button remains on the active portal. On the unlocked portal on desktop, Confirm contact details appears at the top right beside the property heading. Mobile keeps the separate contact button. When Show pre-stay instructions is enabled, the closed portal before arrival also shows the stay details with the available check-in and check-out dates in the tenant’s timezone and regional format. This stay summary appears even if the instruction text is blank. Room and access-code cards respect their visibility settings but show only “Will be available when ready”; actual room names, numbers and codes remain hidden until access is allowed. The summary is hidden when the toggle is off, after the stay, or when the booking cannot be verified. The closed overview uses one aligned column: the countdown and its secondary actions appear first, followed by equally sized stay cards and the instructions. Dates appear before the room and code placeholders. Cards use four columns on desktop and a 2×2 grid on mobile, including narrow screens. Guest-portal offer images fill the full width of their card on desktop and mobile. Height adjusts to each image’s original proportions, displaying the complete image without cropping.