Automations
The Automations tab says what VillaSlot does with your bookings without anyone clicking. Open it from Rules & settings in the sidebar, then the Automations tab — or the Automations button of the Booking tab. Only owners and admins see it.
Each rule has a switch and a delay. Nothing changes until you press Save.
The tab needs the organization's booking rules to exist. If it says Set up booking first., follow Open the Booking tab, choose a currency and save.
The four rules
| Rule | Applies to | Delay | Plan | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expire unpaid holds | holds | Hours or Days after creation | every plan | on, 24 hours |
| Complete settled bookings | confirmed, fully paid bookings | 1 to 365 days after the end | Pro | off, 30 days |
| Flag unsettled bookings | confirmed bookings not fully paid | 1 to 30 days after the end | Pro | off, 1 day |
| Pre-shoot reminder | confirmed shoots and live holds | 1 to 14 days before the shoot | Pro | off, 2 days |
Expire unpaid holds
A hold with no payment by its deadline becomes Expired and frees the slot. The check runs every five minutes, so a hold can stay a few minutes past its deadline.
- The deadline is fixed when the hold is created. Changing the delay applies to new holds only.
- Switched off, no hold expires — not even those created before. The public booking page no longer announces a deadline.
- A hold created while the rule is off has no deadline, and keeps none if you switch the rule back on: confirm or cancel it yourself.
- Confirmed bookings never expire.
Complete settled bookings
Once a day, a Confirmed booking that is fully paid and ended at least that many days ago becomes Completed, with an entry in its history that no team member wrote.
- Never touched: holds, bookings partially paid or unpaid, refunded ones, and a booking paid more than its price — an overpayment needs a person.
- A booking your team changed in the meantime is left as it is.
- There is no lower bound: the first run after you turn it on completes every older booking that qualifies.
Flag unsettled bookings
Once a day, owners and admins get a notification about each Confirmed booking that ended that many days ago and is not settled: deposit only, nothing paid, or paid more than the price. It arrives in the app and by email, following each person's notification preferences, with the amount at stake and a link to the booking. Members are never notified.
Each booking is flagged only once, on the day it reaches the delay. Turning the rule on does not flag bookings that ended long ago: check those in Reports or the Bookings list.
Pre-shoot reminder
Once a day, VillaSlot looks at the hourly shoots — confirmed, or on hold and not yet expired — that start between tomorrow and the end of the chosen day, in your organization's timezone. 1 means the day before. Overnight stays, cancelled, expired and completed bookings are left out. The rule has two recipients, each with its own checkbox; at least one must stay checked.
- Send to the customer: one email per booking, with the villa, date, time and duration. If something is left to pay, it shows the amount the booking link will charge, with the link; otherwise it says everything is settled. A customer with no email address gets nothing.
- Send to owners and admins: one recap a day per organization, in the app and by email following each person's notification preferences, listing only the bookings that just entered the window — with the customer, villa, time, booking status and what is left to pay. Members are never notified, and nothing new means no recap.
Each booking is reminded once per recipient, ever: changing the delay or a second run never sends it again.
Pro plan
The completion, alert and reminder rules need the Pro plan. Without it, switching one on opens the upgrade offer instead. If your organization loses the plan, these rules stop running, and a rule still switched on shows Pro plan required. Switching a rule off is always possible, and the hold rule is available on every plan.
If saving fails, Nothing was saved and your previous rules stay in force.