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NederlandsMews Automations is the native no-code automation engine built into Mews PMS. It lets you create workflows that run automatically in the background: real guest events or a schedule trigger them, and they use live Mews data without any coding or third-party tools.
Note: This feature is currently in beta and is not yet available for all properties.
In this article, you can learn about:
- Mews Automations FAQs
Mews Automations FAQs
General questions
What is Mews Automations?
Mews Automations is a no-code automation engine built natively into Mews PMS. It lets you create workflows that run automatically in the background: real guest events or a schedule trigger them, and they use live Mews data without any coding or third-party tools.
Do I need to write code to use Mews Automations?
No. Mews Automations is fully no-code. You build flows by dragging and connecting components in a visual designer. If you start from a template, it already includes much of the logic, and you just configure a few values.
How is Mews Automations different from Mews Marketplace integrations?
Marketplace integrations connect Mews to external tools. Mews Automations is native and runs directly inside your PMS. It has direct, real-time access to your guest profiles, reservations, room inventory, and loyalty data, with no need for an external connector or API setup.
Can Mews Automations use data from outside Mews?
Yes, but not through the Mews steps. The Mews components read and change Mews data only: guest profiles, reservations, loyalty tiers, room inventory and property configuration.
Alongside them, an automation can use steps for other systems: email and messaging providers, Slack and Microsoft Teams, Google Sheets and Excel, CRM and marketing tools, AI models, and a generic HTTP step for anything else. Each of those needs the customer to connect that account first, and each is subject to that provider's own limits.
If a step belonging to another system fails, that is a configuration problem in that connection rather than a Mews data problem. The Action Log names the failing step, which tells the two apart.
Templates and creating automations
What is a template?
Mews creates each template as a pre-built, locked workflow that covers a common hospitality use case, such as automatically upgrading loyal guests or gifting arriving members. You cannot edit a template directly. Instead, you create a copy of it that becomes your own active automation. Your copy is independent and does not affect the original template.
What can trigger an automation to run?
You can trigger an automation in two ways:
- Scheduled trigger: the automation runs on a time-based schedule, such as every day at a set time. Mews recommends this trigger type for most arrival-based workflows.
- Event-based trigger: the automation fires in response to an event in Mews. Four events are available:
- Reservation created: any channel creates a reservation
- Reservation checked in
- Reservation products added: someone adds products to a reservation
- Guest profile created
An event has to match the trigger exactly. Reservation created fires on creation, not on a later change to that reservation.
Event delivery is quick but not instant. A short delay between the event and the automation starting is normal. An automation also only sees events that happen after you switch it on: switching it on does not make it process reservations that already exist.
Can I run the same automation across multiple properties?
Each automation applies to just one property. If you manage multiple properties, each needs its own configured copy of the automation.
Can I duplicate an existing automation to create a variant?
Yes. Once you have configured an automation, you can clone it from the Automations main view and adjust the clone for a different use case, property, or guest segment.
Can I test an automation before it goes live?
Yes. You can test an automation by setting it up in a demo environment or by running it against a test reservation.
Examples
What are the available automation templates?
Mews Automations includes three ready-to-use templates.
- Room upgrade: runs daily at 12:00. It checks property occupancy, finds eligible arrivals, upgrades the assigned room category, adds a note to the reservation, and then sends each guest an SMS. It does not create a task, so only the reservation note and the guest's message record the change; no one else finds out.
- Amenity gift: runs daily at 09:00. It finds eligible arrivals, works out which products are compatible with each reservation, creates a task for the responsible department, and sends the guest an SMS. It does not add the product to the reservation; it asks a department to deliver it. If you want to post the product automatically, add the Add Product To Reservation step to your copy.
- Personalised upsell offers: runs every two hours. It reads the property's local date and time, picks which of three date windows to work on, fetches the reservations in that window, generates an AI upsell offer for each, and sends it with Send Message, which automatically chooses the channel. It is the only template that ships with a cooldown already set.
You configure the eligibility criteria, thresholds, products and schedule on your own copy of any template.
What other kinds of automation can I build?
Beyond the templates, you can combine triggers, filters, and actions to build custom workflows. Common examples include:
- creating arrival preparation tasks for housekeeping or the front desk, based on guest attributes such as loyalty tier or reservation tags
- adding a note to a guest profile or reservation when it meets specific conditions
- sending a message to a guest when a channel creates their reservation, using Send Message, which automatically chooses the channel
- checking loyalty programme membership at arrival and assigning a complimentary product or staff task based on the guest's tier
Note: Wherever messaging appears in an automation, connect the error output on that step. If you leave it unconnected, a delivery failure has nowhere to go and produces no visible result.
Managing automations
What is the difference between an activation and a run?
Activating an automation switches it on so it runs according to its trigger, either an event or a schedule. A run is one execution of the automation. A scheduled automation that fires every morning at 09:00 produces one run per day.
Can the same guest receive an upgrade or gift multiple times?
Only if you have not set a cooldown. Cooldown is a setting on each step, not an automatic protection. It defines how long to wait before you can action the same target again, and what counts as the same target, such as the guest or the reservation.
The designer collapses the cooldown fields by default. It pre-fills the unit as Days, but leaves the period empty, and the period is what switches cooldown on. The room upgrade and amenity gift templates ship this way, so a copy has no protection until you set a number. The personalised upsell offers template ships with a cooldown already set: one to two days, tracked per reservation.
Set a cooldown on every step a guest can see: a message, a gift, or an upgrade.
Note: When cooldown skips a step, the data leaves through the step's cooldown output instead of out. That is a normal outcome, not an error.
Can two automations act on the same guest at the same time?
Yes. Automations run independently and do not block each other. A guest can receive both a room upgrade and an amenity gift on the same day, each from its own automation, and each completing its own steps.
This is by design, but it is also the first thing to check when a property says a guest received too much. Cooldown works within a single step of a single automation. It does not coordinate between two separate automations.
What is the maximum number of active automations I can have?
There is no limit on the number of active automations.
There is also no daily cap on how many guests one automation can action. If you need to limit repeat actions on the same guest or reservation, use cooldown on the step concerned. Mews separately limits how fast an automation can call Mews: for a high-volume automation, Mews queues its requests for a moment rather than refusing them, but this is throughput protection you cannot configure, not a limit on how many guests it can action.
Monitoring and troubleshooting
What happens if an automation fails?
The Action Log records the run and shows when it ran, what each step attempted, and where it stopped.
Before treating a run as failed, check whether it simply took a different path. These are normal outcomes, not errors:
-
a condition or occupancy check sent the run down its other branch, because it did not meet the threshold you set
-
cooldown skipped a step, sending it through the step's cooldown output
-
a guest did not meet an eligibility rule you configured
A genuine failure is a step that could not complete: a step that changes Mews data erroring or timing out, or a step belonging to another connected system failing. The Action Log names that step.
Where can I get help if an automation is not behaving as expected?
Open the Action Log for the automation. It shows when each run started, what each step attempted, which step a run stopped at, and which output the data left by.
Note: One limitation to know. The eligibility step passes on only the guests who qualified. It does not list the guests it excluded, or why. If the automation did not action a guest you expected, compare that guest against your eligibility settings, arrival date, loyalty programme and tier, stay count, revenue, recency and rate, rather than looking for a rejection entry in the log.
If the log does not explain it, contact Mews support with the property, the automation, the time you expected it to run, the reservation or guest involved, and the step it stopped at.
What Mews Automations cannot do
Can Mews Automations emulate human interaction in the system?
No. Mews Automations executes logic against your data. It does not navigate screens, click buttons, or perform actions on behalf of a user. It cannot replicate the actions of a person using Mews Operations.
Can Mews Automations make judgment-based decisions?
No. You must express every decision an automation makes as a logical rule. Automations cannot interpret context, apply experience, or handle ambiguous situations the way a trained member of staff can.
Can Mews Automations act on past reservations or completed stays?
No. Automations only process current and future events. They cannot retroactively apply actions to completed stays or historical reservation data.
Can Mews Automations read free-text guest requests?
No. Automations act on structured data fields and configured rules only. If a guest writes a request in a free-text field such as a special request or a note, an automation has no awareness of it.
Do scheduled automations fire instantly when a condition becomes true?
No. Scheduled automations run at the time you configure, not the moment a condition becomes true. If a guest's loyalty status changes mid-day, for example, a scheduled automation does not respond until its next scheduled run.
Who can use and manage Mews Automations
Who can create and manage automations?
Admin-level users manage automations in Mews Operations. Role-based access is consistent with your existing Mews user permissions.
An automation acts with the property's own automation identity, not with the identity of the person who built it. This means an automation can carry out actions that its creator's account could not perform directly, and no one can trace an individual automated action back to a specific user.
Note: If you have an audit or compliance requirement that depends on attributing actions to a named user, raise it with Mews before you rely on automations for that process.