Many teams run housekeeping in a WhatsApp group: who's in, which unit is free, which are clean. HostIQ does those jobs for you, so nothing gets lost in the chat.
Choose who cleans each unit
- Add your housekeepers. Give them a Housekeeper login in Team, or just add their name and phone number in Staff if they won't log in.
- Open Housekeeping and press Who cleans each unit.
- Pick a housekeeper for each unit. From then on, every turnover clean for that unit is theirs automatically.
The texts your housekeepers get
- When a guest checks out: "Apartment 3 is free to clean. The guest has checked out."
- When you give someone a job on Tasks or the Housekeeping board: the job, the unit and the day it's due.
- Housekeepers without a login get a link in the text. They tap it to mark the job done, add a note and a photo. Housekeepers with a login get a link to HostIQ instead.
- Need to send it again? Press Text again on the job. Each new text comes with a new link, and the old link stops working.
Arrived and done for today
- Housekeepers without a login: on Staff, press Send My day link next to their name. They get a text with their own page: I've arrived, Done for today, and their jobs for the day, which they start and finish there with a note and a photo.
- Each link belongs to one person. Sending a new one stops the old one working, and so does deactivating them. The link shows once after you send it, so you can copy it into WhatsApp if the text doesn't arrive.
- Housekeepers with a login see the same I've arrived and Done for today buttons at the top of Housekeeping.
- On the Housekeeping board, In today shows who came in, when, and when they finished.
Soft and deep cleans
- Every cleaning job is a soft clean (the turnover between stays) or a deep clean. Pick it when you create or edit the job; turnovers start as soft.
- To plan deep cleans automatically, open Settings, Housekeeping, and set Deep clean rule: every so many stays, every so many days, or both. When one is due, the unit's next turnover becomes a deep clean and the text says so.
- Deep cleans are marked Deep clean on Tasks and on the Housekeeping board.
See the finished work
- When a housekeeper finishes a clean, they can add a note and a photo of the room. Turn on Require a photo to finish a clean in Settings to make the photo a must.
- The Housekeeping board shows each unit's clean from today: soft or deep, who did it and when, their note and the photo. Tap the photo to see it full size.
- Finished jobs on Tasks show the note and photo too.
Your end-of-day report
- In Settings, Housekeeping, tick Text me a housekeeping report and pick the time. It's off until you turn it on.
- Every day at that time, each owner with a phone number on their profile gets a short text: who came in and when, the units cleaned (soft or deep), which units are ready or not ready for tomorrow's guests, what's still to clean, and a link to the photos. It also lands in your notifications.
- The link opens the Day report in HostIQ, with each clean's photo and note. Your managers and front desk can open it too, from Day report on the Housekeeping board, and look back at earlier days.
- Press Send me today's report now to see what it looks like. The scheduled report still goes as usual.
Each job shows what happened to its text: Texted with the time, Text failed with the reason, or Not texted (for example, no phone number). Texts to your team need the Professional or Enterprise plan, or the SMS add-on.
A link from a text works until 48 hours after the job is due, and always for at least 48 hours after it was sent.