Best way to reminder myself to update custom booking fields?

If my automated emails are expecting a custom field to be supplied for the booking (eg: Lock Codes) is there any way that I can detect the absence of the field being filled out for a given booking?

Perhaps this would be a new feature to trigger on an empty custom field with an email back to myself.

I don't see a custom field report, but that would be another way. Meaning a booking report that lists the contents of custom fields.

Without some kind of check like this I run the risk of assuming I added key codes to a particular booking when in fact I didn't.

Another idea would be to have OR implement a check when automated emails go out containing a custom field with a null value. I think it would be best to halt the sending of the email but alert the account owner about the failure to send due to missing information. But this would be a safety net and I'd prefer some method prior to the arrival date where I'd be reminded to supply missing custom booking field info.

There isn't a detection or trigger for that right now. You can run off a Date Range type Stay Report -- that'll includes the custom fields alongside the booking so you can see which ones are populated or not.

Right now we don't error on missing fields because there are a lot of cases where you might want an empty field value -- maybe it's a property trash instructions field that is applicable to one property but not another etc.

Chris - It happened this morning, an email got sent with empty content for a custom field (key codes).

Seems like it would be a simple matter of programming (smop ;-)) to:

a) add a checkbox to custom fields ([ ] required for ALL bookings; [] required for future bookings)
b) have some code run across all bookings and display a number in red (same as inquiries)
eg: code loops across all booking start dates and does +1 if empty and based on the checkbox picked

This would be an obvious way for anyone on the website to quickly realize a custom field is missing and doesn't involve anything with sending/pausing/blocking emails

Good idea, Rich. Not sure we would do it exactly that way, but we could be watching for empty booking field codes that are marked as required and at least allowing you to filter for that (like not-signed renter agreements or balances not paid in full)

Paul - I think a passive way to detect missing/empty required booking fields would be more successful than active. Should require little/no effort to detect this error condition.

Could a red warning count be placed on the booking tab above the selected calendar? Of the 3 calendar choices ...

ribbon - lots of room above, and should probably have the legend like the month view does anyway
month - there's space to the right of the legend
year - pushing the year view down shouldn't be a problem

My 'go to' tab in OR is the Booking tab anyway, so this would be a logical place to see error conditions of all sorts eventually, so as overdue tasks.