How to Upload Reservations from CSV

What does the CSV importer do?

The CSV importer allows you to upload reservations in bulk and automatically send out your Memo invitations to those guests. This is useful if your booking system is able to generate a CSV report of reservations, as you can then simply import them into Touch Stay and the Memos will send out automatically.

If you would like to use this feature, then please contact support to have it activated in your account.

How does it work?

Touch Stay imports the CSV and extracts the data from it to create the invitations. Your CSV must contain all the mandatory data fields that are required and there must be a mapping between Touch Stay properties/guides and those in the reservation system used to generate the CSV.

The mandatory data fields are as follows:

• Reservation ID
• External Property ID (this is the ID field used in your booking system to identify each property uniquely)
• Guest Name
• Guest Email and/or Guest Phone
• Arrival Date
• Departure Date

Is there any set up to do before I can start importing my reservations?

Prior to importing a CSV, there are 2 pieces of set up to complete.

1. Add the External Property IDs to Touch Stay

You must add the ID field used by your booking system (External Property ID) to each Touch Stay guide. This is essential for the correct mapping of reservations between your properties and your CSV file. Even if you only have a single property/guide in your account this must still be added. Go to the Guide Details tab for each of your properties/guides, scroll down to the section “CSV Import ID” and use the “Edit” button. Enter the ID (the one in your CSV file for this property), into the box and click Save.

Note: If your booking system doesn’t have a separate property ID, or you are generating the CSV through another process, then you can use your property name as the External Property ID. However, you will still need to add your property name to the “CSV Import ID” in Touch Stay. Contact support if you have any questions about this.

If you have a large number of properties then Touch Stay support can import these External Property IDs to your account in bulk.

2. Set up your Memo message scheduling and message templates

Once the CSV has been imported, the invitations created will follow your Memo message templates. Before importing your first CSV you will need to add some message templates from the Memo page to create a notification journey for your guests. See this article for more details about creating a message workflow using Memo.

How do I import and process a CSV?

Step 1. Import CSV

Once the above set up has been completed, and you have generated a CSV from your booking system with live reservation data, head to the Guides list page and click on the “Uploads” button at the top right:

Next, select “Choose file”, browse to your CSV file and click Submit:

Note that your CSV can contain a maximum of 100 lines, if you have more reservations to import then you will need to upload them in batches.

Step 2. Field Mapping

On the next screen you must map the mandatory Touch Stay fields to the correct data fields from your CSV. Basically you’re telling Touch Stay where the required fields (on the left) are in your CSV (on the right).

Note that your selections will save and automatically populate the next time you upload a CSV with the same structure.

You must also select the date format used in your CSV. When ready, click Submit.

Step 3. Data Validation

You will then be presented with a table of your data fields ready for import. The next step is for Touch Stay to validate this data to ensure invitations can be created successfully. If you need to adjust your field mappings then click Back, if everything looks correct, click Validate.

Step 4. Correct Any Errors

Any data validation errors will be presented in a table and must be either corrected, or the reservation record deleted, before the CSV file can be imported and processed to generate invitations. If your file has no errors then you will move directly to the final import screen, see Step 5.

Click on the warning icons to see the detailed error message, you can either correct the data by updating the field directly in the table or click the line number to highlight a record for deletion. See the section below titled “Common Errors and How to Resolve Them” for further details on common error messages.

Once you are ready to re-validate and/or remove the records selected for deletion click Update. Once all errors have been corrected or deleted you will be taken to the final Import screen.

Step 5. Import

Once your CSV data passes all validation checks you will be presented with a final table of your data. Simply click “Import” and Touch Stay will then process the CSV and automatically send out your templated Memo messages.

You will be able to see the invitations created by this process in the Invitations table found on the Memo page or the “Invite & Share” tab for each Guide. The view counts can also be seen in this table. Use the 3 dots menu for each Invitation to check the status of individual messages.

Common Errors and How to Resolve Them:

External Property ID: Cannot find a Touch Stay property/guide with this ID . The unique identifier in your booking system cannot be matched to a Touch Stay property. This is most likely to occur on recently added properties which haven’t had their booking system ID entered into Touch Stay yet. Check that the CSV Import ID found at the bottom of the relevant “Guide Details” tab matches the ID in your CSV.

Reservation ID: An invitation with this ID already exists. This Reservation ID has already been imported into Touch Stay and used to generate an invitation. This will likely mean this record is a duplicate, and can be deleted from the current import. If this duplicate Reservation ID has updated data, such as a date change, you must manually update the invitation record from the “Invite & Share” tab for that guide.

How do I add the External Property ID for new properties/guides?

The external property ID can be updated from the CSV Import ID section of each “Guide Details” tab. The ID entered here must exactly match the ID used by your booking system to uniquely identify the property in that system.

Can I delete an invitation once it’s been created?

Yes, you can delete invitations from the invitations table on the “Invite & Share” tab. Deleting invitations will also delete the unique Touch Stay guide book link so even if a guest has accessed the link already it will no longer work and they will not have access to your guide book.

How do I update an invitation that has previously been created?

Invitations can be edited from the invitations table in the “Invite & Share” tab. Use the Edit option in the 3 dots menu for the invitation you want to change. Only future scheduled messages can be changed, those already sent out will be hidden. Note that you can’t change the email address on an invitation, if you need to send it to a different email you must create a new invitation.

Does the importer support multi-languages?

If you have used our full multi-language functionality (NOT Google Translate) then you can generate invitations in any of your active languages. Your CSV must include a field to determine the language each invitation should be sent in. You must use the 2-letter international ISO 639-1 code for the language in this field e.g. English = en, French = fr. This field must then be mapped to the language field when field mapping (Step 2 above). If you don’t include a language field, then English will be used as the default.

Please be sure to have message templates saved in all the languages you wish to send invitations in.