If you have our Inbox feature then you will want to ensure you incorporate variables in to your Templates. This will mean that creating proposals from Inbox requests is even faster and less manual.
What is a variable?
It is essentially placeholder text that can automatically be filled with real text later. For example, if I want to automatically take the arrival date from a request and apply it in a template, I can add {start_date} to the template and when I create a proposal, we take the entered start date and swap it in to the placeholder of {start_date}.
Like this:
You can also use Variables to draw information from the request into your Proposales inbox, even if you will not use them directly in the proposal. For example, getting a personal message from the guest to help you understand extra details they want to provide.
How to add Variables to my templates:
Create your templates as normal. Where you want the variable text to go, simply type the variable with curly brackets either side. You can see the options below and even just copy and paste them in to the template.
Once you have finished typing, a small pop up will appear. Click this and the variable is set. Now just save your template and the next time you get a request, you can select the template and the guests entered details will automatically fill in the proposal.
The variables that you can use based on our 'out-of-the-box' Inbox solution:
{email}
{phone_number}
{first_name}
{last_name}
{company_name}
{start_date}
{end_date}
{start_time}
{end_time}
{period}
{double_rooms}
{single_rooms}
{number_of_people}
{language}
{message}
Using Variables for marketing reporting:
When you get your inbox link, to use on social media or elsewhere, you can even append variables to the URL that will feed back in to the proposal request in Proposales.
For example, you can add ?booking_from= to the end of the inbox link, followed by any word/s to track the campaign. When a request is submitted via that link, you will get the detail on the source of the request. Here is an example:
https://inbox.proposales.com/30f9ddae?booking_from=facebook
You can even append Google tracking parameters such as:
https://inbox.proposales.com/30f9ddae?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=hotel_for_trees