Messaging & Pre-Check Forms

Pre-Check Forms

Pre-Check Forms are digital questionnaires sent to pet owners before a scheduled stay. They collect important drop-off logistics and emergency information.

What the Form Collects

• Emergency Contact — Name and phone number (in case the owner is unreachable)
• Desired Drop-Off Time — Early morning, Morning, Late morning, etc.
• Desired Pick-Up Time
• Belongings Being Sent — Checkboxes for Bed, Blanket, Toy, Leash, Food, Treats, Bowls, Crate, Medication, etc.
• Additional Notes — Anything else the owner wants staff to know
• Required Documents — Upload any facility-required documents

Service-Type-Aware Forms

The Pre-Check form tailors itself to the reservation's service type rather than showing one boarding form to everyone. The email subject and the "what you'll provide" checklist are tailored to the service type as well, so owners only see questions that are relevant to their visit.

In short: boarding gets the full form; daycare drops the belongings checklist and uses a single feeding entry; grooming focuses on grooming-specific needs (Coat & Cut Preferences and Handling Sensitivities) instead of scheduling, feeding, medications, belongings, and socialization.

Auto-Send Settings

Pre-Check auto-send is controlled by a master on/off switch plus three per-service-type toggles — Boarding, Daycare, and Grooming — found in Settings → Notifications → Customer Notifications, in the Email Automations panel (the master switch reads Send PreCheck forms automatically). This lets you, for example, auto-send Pre-Checks for boarding stays but not for grooming appointments. (By default, all toggles are on.)

Confirmed bookings only: automatic Pre-Checks — the auto-send and the follow-up reminder — go out only for confirmed reservations. A pending request from the portal or online booking gets nothing automatic until your team confirms it; once confirmed, its form goes out on the next morning's run if the stay is still inside the send window.

The manual Send PreCheck button always works regardless of these toggles, so you can send a Pre-Check to any owner on demand even when auto-send is turned off for that service type.

Don't confuse this with the welcome packet's Send automatically switch (in Settings → Onboarding Form): the welcome packet onboards a new customer once; Pre-Checks go out per stay.

Sending a Pre-Check Form

1. Open a reservation's detail page.
2. Click Send PreCheck (or Resend PreCheck if one was already sent).
3. The owner receives an email with a secure, unique link to their pre-check form.

The form link is public — it does not require the owner to log in — making it easy for anyone to complete.

Pre-fill from previous stay: When a Pre-Check is created for a returning client, Goodstay automatically pre-fills stable fields (emergency contact, vet info, feeding instructions, medications, pickup authorizations, behavioral preferences) from their most recent submitted Pre-Check. Pre-filled fields can still be edited — they are never overwritten if the owner has already entered new information.

Profile-first prefill & write-back: Pre-Check forms prefill from the owner's profile first, falling back to their previous Pre-Check. When the owner submits, their answers also update the owner profile (emergency contact, vet info, and similar details) — so the profile stays current without any extra data entry.

Filling In the Form (for Staff)

If an owner calls in instead of filling out the form online, staff can open the PreCheck (View PreCheck on the reservation) and click Fill for Owner to complete it on their behalf.

Pre-Check Statuses

Submitted pre-check information appears on the reservation detail page and can be referenced at drop-off.

Facility Documents

Facilities can upload document templates (e.g., vet authorization forms, health requirements) that get included in the Pre-Check form:

1. Go to Facility Settings → Documents.
2. Upload a document.
3. Set which species and which service type it applies to (or leave both as any), and whether it's required.

Messaging & Conversations

Goodstay includes a two-way messaging system between staff and pet owners.

Starting a Conversation

1. Go to Messages in the navigation.
2. Click New Conversation. The page is two panes: your client roster on the left, the compose form on the right.
3. Pick the pet parent from the roster — the search box ("Search pet parents…") narrows it as you type.
4. Give the thread a Subject (optionally link it to a stay with the "About a stay" chips — No particular stay is the default).
5. Write your opening message and click Start conversation. The pet parent gets an email and sees the thread in their portal.

Replying to a Message

Open a conversation to see the full message thread. Type your reply in the message box at the bottom and press Send.

Owner-Initiated Messages

Pet owners can contact you directly through the Customer Portal. When they send a message, it appears in your Messages inbox with a notification.

Message Notification Emails

When a new message arrives, the other party gets a notification email. The subject line includes the conversation title (e.g., "💬 New message from Jane: Buddy's July stay") so different conversations are easy to tell apart in an inbox. A message that carries photos gets a "📷 N photos attached — view online" line in its email — the photos themselves are viewed by clicking through to the conversation, not in the email.

Archiving & Reopening Conversations

• Click Archive to move a resolved conversation out of your active inbox.
• Click Reopen on an archived conversation to bring it back to active.

How Replies Arrive

New messages appear when you open or refresh a conversation, and the other party is alerted by the notification email — so neither side needs to sit watching the inbox.