With online check-in, your guests enter their details online before they arrive, instead of filling in paperwork at the door. Which details is up to you: the form is customizable, typically covering personal details, address, and ID information, plus anything else you require from your guests. You design the form once, Smoobu creates a unique check-in link for every booking, and the submitted data lands on the booking in Smoobu.
Before you start
You need this in place before the check-in link can reach your guests:
- At least one automated message template, because the check-in link is sent through your message templates; see .
One form for your whole account
The online check-in form is account-wide, not per property. The fields you enable apply to every property's check-in form. If your properties are in different countries, design the form for the strictest rules in your portfolio; guests at the other properties simply fill in a field or two more. There are no ready-made per-country field sets: you pick each field yourself.
Steps
- Go to Experience > Online Check-in.
- Switch the toggle at the top to Enabled.
- In the Main guest section, tick the checkbox next to each field the primary guest should fill in. Fields are grouped into Personal Information (name, gender, date and place of birth, nationality, occupation), Location (address), Document Information (ID type, number, dates), and Other (reason for visit, number of additional guests, tax code, company identification number, attachment for an ID copy, and signature).
- For each ticked field, set the toggle next to it to Required or Optional. Every field has these two separate controls: the checkbox decides whether the field appears at all, the toggle decides whether the guest can skip it. By default, First Name and Last Name are on and required.
- Repeat both steps in the Additional guests section for everyone beyond the main guest. The field set is slightly smaller (no signature or reason for visit). This section also has a Require all travellers switch: turn it on and the main guest cannot submit the form without entering every traveller.
- To ask for something Smoobu doesn't offer as a standard field, click Add custom field and give it a Label (what the guest sees), a Placeholder (example text in the box), and a Required or Optional setting. Typical custom fields: car license plate, estimated arrival time, allergies.
- Write a short Description at the bottom. It appears at the top of the guest's check-in page; use two or three sentences to say why you need the data, for example a legal registration requirement.
- Save.
Send the check-in link to your guests
The link goes out through your message templates. In Experience > Communication, open the template that should carry it (most hosts use the booking confirmation or an arrival message) and insert the [onlineCheckInLink] placeholder into the text. Smoobu replaces it with each booking's unique link when the message is sent. The generic [onlineCheckInLink] opens the form in the guest's browser language, where supported. The language-specific placeholders [onlineCheckInLinkEN], [onlineCheckInLinkDE], [onlineCheckInLinkIT], [onlineCheckInLinkNL], [onlineCheckInLinkES], [onlineCheckInLinkFR], and [onlineCheckInLinkPT] force the form to open in that language regardless of the guest's browser language. Use the generic placeholder in most cases, and a language-specific one only when you deliberately want to fix the form's language. Template setup is covered in .
Two things to know about the link: it expires 30 days after it is created, and it stops working once the guest has submitted the form. For bookings made far in advance, send the link closer to arrival, or resend a fresh one from the booking.
What your guest sees
The guest opens their unique link and sees your Description at the top, followed by the fields you enabled. The Description is shown exactly as you wrote it and is not translated: every guest sees the same text no matter which language the form opens in, so write it in the language(s) most of your guests understand. They fill in their details, add the other travellers if you enabled the Additional guests section, and submit. After submitting they see a confirmation that their details were sent to you. The form can be submitted once: the guest cannot reopen it afterwards to view or correct their entries. If something needs fixing later, you correct it on the booking; see .
What you get back
The submitted data lands on the booking's detail page. The guest's name, email, language, and address update on the booking, and an Online check-in details section appears in the Guest card showing the guest's name, with an Edit button and TXT and PDF exports for your files; the complete record opens behind Edit. Where each piece of data shows up, and what to do when you can't find it, is covered in .
You can also send yourself or the guest a message when a form comes in: the Online check-in completion trigger in Communication fires when the main guest submits the form.
Check it worked
Enter a test booking with yourself as the guest and let your template send the check-in link (or copy it from the booking). Open the link, submit the form, then open the booking in Smoobu: the Online check-in details section appears in the Guest card with the data you entered.
Common problems
The check-in link doesn't work for the guest
The link is single-use and expires after 30 days, so an old or already-submitted link stops working. For all causes and fixes, see The check-in form won't open or submit.
The completion email arrived, but not everyone has checked in
The completion trigger fires as soon as the main guest submits; it doesn't wait for additional guests. If you need every traveller registered, turn on the Require all travellers switch in the form's Additional guests section (step 5): the form then only goes through when every traveller is entered. It still pays to check the record on the booking before arrival.
You need guests' nationality in your booking exports
The check-in form can collect nationality (enable it under Personal Information), but the submitted record lives on each booking and exports as a TXT or PDF file, not as a column in your bookings list export. If you need nationality in a spreadsheet, also enter it yourself in the booking's Address field, which does export as a column; it is not copied there automatically.
Your jurisdiction requires automatic filing with the authorities
Smoobu's online check-in collects the data, but it does not send it to government or police platforms for you; that submission step is yours. If your market requires automated electronic filing (for example guest registration in Spain or Italy), a separate partner tool such as Chekin or Check-in Scan can handle the filing. These are paid partner products with their own setup, connected through Smoobu's Marketplace, and they are not the same thing as Smoobu's online check-in; see the partner's own help center for its setup guide.
Related articles
Still stuck?
If these steps didn't fix it, contact the Smoobu team: open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. To get the fastest answer, please include:
- Your Smoobu User ID (in the profile-icon menu, top right).
- The property name or ID, if it's about one property.
- The Booking ID, if it's about one booking (Bookings, then View more).
- The channel name, if it's about channel sync (Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, and so on).
- A short step-by-step: what you did, what you expected, and what happened.
- Screenshots or a short screen recording of the problem.
- Your browser and operating system, if something looks wrong on screen.
Comments
6 comments
So it sounds like Smoobu does not compile the data from the online check-in form into a list? I have to manually down the file per booking, then manually add each guest/reservation data into my mail chimp contact list so that I can market to my past customers. Is this accurate?
Yes, it is. For now the Online check-in files are individual .txt files.
If you would like to export the guests' list you can do so from our Contacts section.
Hope this helps! Best,
Marianne
The language of the fields and the description of the online check in do not change depending on the language of the (template) email, correct?
I would like to leave a simple suggestion here:
- The Dates fields should force a date format instead of a free text and
- The country and nationality fields should force the user to choose from a list of countries.
I compile the guest's data from the text files generated from check-in forms to send to immigration authorities and I have to manually correct these fields every time because each guest has a different way of writing dates and to name their own country or nationality. Such a simple improvement would make my work incredibly easier :)
Hi there
Thank-you for taking the time to reach out to us with this suggestion. We are always improving our software, so your feedback is appreciated.
I have passed your suggestion to our Feedback Board for our Product Team's consideration.
Kind regards
Caitriona from Smoobu
How many custom fields can be added? we have a series of questions and info we collect. I have added the lines and questions but they are not being saved.
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