Questions about Email Templates & Triggers

I am mostly interested in using Email Templates & Triggers to handle bookings from OTAs, and from my hosted website. Not planning to do quotes (as of this time). Questions:

1) I am in Settings > Triggers and it is empty. Are there no suggested defaults or is there an article somewhere on a good set of representative triggers that should be considered for the major OTAs? Is this supposed to be empty?

2) A little baffled by the Custom Email Templates. For example, the first is "Send Confirmation To Guest" and the Billing Details is represented by the variable/field code? {BBINFO} which defaults to

"The total charge for this booking is $1,234.00 of which $123.00 has been paid. A separate email is sent for each payment that is made, listing the details. Any payments made by credit card will appear on your bank statement as Acme Vacation Rentals."

How do I change these Billing Details? Say to add my own text or modify what appears? Update the variable {BBINFO} ? Where do I update it?

3) When a booking comes in - say from AirBnB, how exactly is the email template/trigger know which property was booked so the field codes/custom field codes are populated?

4) How do we edit existing field codes - not custom field codes - such as Check In or Check Out time?

And how can I see ALL the existing field codes - again, not custom field codes.

JTVR - this forum annoys me that it's impossible to attach screenshots or files. If you like, email me at ownerr@rsiegmund.fastmail.com and I'll send some screenshots of my triggers.

1) I agree, it would help if the help documents had better examples. I have 5 time-based and 2 booking-based triggers.

2) I have NOT had to use any of the premade/Custom templates myself, I created my own for everything I wanted. Those Billing Details would be changed dynamically depending upon the particular booking involved. Meaning this .... if an email is sent about Booking #1 that code will have details for Booking #1. But when an email is sent about a different Booking #27 that code will be different, and have the content from Booking #27.

3) You don't edit field codes for checkin/out times. Click on a booking, then Dates, then Change Dates and you can change them there.
If you want to see all of the field codes, just create a new template email and insert whichever ones you like and then click on preview. There are hundreds of codes, some about the booking, some about the property, etc. It's all super flexible, especially the custom codes, but they are a tiny bit awkward to setup the first time because first you create the code (where you have to pick the correct type of code) and then you have to update the code (in different places depending on the type). Again, if you (or anyone else) emails me I don't mind sending a couple quick screenshots or getting on the phone to talk.

Rich, it annoys me too! 😉 We're working on it though. We plan to move our entire ticket system to the forum and make some large upgrades (including attaching files, dropping in screenshots and answering from email). Thanks for your patience!

Help docs is another area that is sorely lacking - you're not alone in your frustration. Growing pains.

@JTVRs

Some additional answers:

2) Some of that (like the BBINFO field code) is an artifact to preserve an old system template and make it say what it said before. The information that BBINFO churns out is highly dynamic. ie. It depends on a lot of if/else logic. Because of that, we decided to make a magic BBINFO field code and cram it all in there. We don't support if/else logic field codes yet, though we plan to later this year. Long story short you cannot change the BBINFO field code. It dumps out what it dumps out. If you don't like it, don't use that field code.

3) The email template/trigger know what property to use because every booking is associated to one and only one property. So the email engine loads the template, then looks at the booking and determines what the field codes should be based on that particular booking (and the property it is associated with).

4) All existing field codes are based off of values or rules in the system. Check-in/out times for instance are on the booking or (if set to "standard" there) then on the property.

Check out this article on field codes:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/field-codes

That is all of them in the system and where they come from.

So you don't do any predefined triggers as I said in 1) above?

There are predefined emails that go out on events like the booking confirmation email, payment receipt etc: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-templates

For the custom triggers on things like pre-arrival welcome letters or post-departure review requests, there are no predefined triggers -- that's up to you to define. They are simple to add something like "7 days before arrival, send this template only if the booking is paid in full": https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/pre-arrival-email-templates-triggers-custom-fields

For channels in particular, you really only need one trigger, a "thanks for booking/please sign our renter agreement", something like this: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/airbnb-request-for-contact-info-real-email-address-and-signed-renter-agreement