Give your cleaner, co-host, accountant, business partner, or a property owner their own login to Smoobu instead of sharing your password. In Smoobu these logins are called team members, and you create them from the Permissions page by inviting an email address. This article covers creating the account and giving it a starting level of access. To fine-tune exactly what each person can see and do, see .
Before you start
You need these before you invite anyone:
- An email address for the person you're inviting that has never been used to sign up for Smoobu. An address that already has a Smoobu account (for example from a past free trial) cannot accept an invitation. See the first common problem below.
- A decision on what they need to do. A cleaner who only needs to see turnovers needs far less access than a co-host who answers guests. You can change this later.
What a team member costs
Smoobu prices team access by what the person can do, not by how many people you add:
- Read-only accounts are free, and you can add as many as you like. A read-only person can see what you allow but cannot change anything.
- Write-access accounts are a paid monthly add-on, one charge per account, billed alongside your subscription. See for the current price and any yearly or two-year discounts.
- The Teams Pro + plan includes 2 write-access accounts in the bundle, on top of your own owner login. So the owner plus 2 team members can have write access. See .
- Adding a write-access account charges you right away. Smoobu adds a prorated amount for the rest of the current billing period the moment you switch someone to write access.
So a five-person cleaning team where everyone just needs to see the schedule costs nothing: five read-only accounts. Switch one person to write access only when a real task needs it.
Steps
- Click your profile icon in the top right, then click Permissions.
- In the Email box, type the email address of the person you're inviting.
- Click Create. The person now appears in your team list with the status Not yet accepted.
- Give them a starting level of access on their row. For a cleaner, the lightest useful setup is: let them see bookings and arrival and departure times, and hide everything else. For anything more detailed, open .
- Tell the person to watch for two emails from Smoobu (an invitation to accept first, then a password email) and to accept on a computer, not a phone. Their side of the setup is covered in .
The invitee gets two emails, one after the other
After you click Create, Smoobu sends the person one email first: an invitation with a plain link to accept (not a button). When they click it, Smoobu opens a window asking your new assistant to accept the permission by requesting an e-mail to reset their password. They are supposed to click Send in that window. Smoobu then sends the second email, with the link to set their password. They must complete both, on a computer, before they can log in. Until they finish, their status stays Not yet accepted. You can change their access or delete the invitation at any time from the same Permissions page.
The accept link often does not open correctly on a phone, and the invitee can land on a "Start free trial" screen and create a separate trial account by mistake instead of accepting. Tell people to open the invitation on a computer.
A lighter option for cleaners: no login at all
If a cleaner only needs to see when guests arrive and leave, you don't have to create a team member at all. Open Configuration > Properties, edit the property, and copy its iCal export URL. The cleaner subscribes to that link in their own calendar app and sees the turnovers with no Smoobu login to manage.
Check it worked
- The person shows up in your Permissions list with the status Not yet accepted.
- Once they complete both emails on a computer, that status changes and they can log in and see exactly what you allowed.
Common problems
The invitation opens a "create properties" page instead of a "set your password" screen
The email address you invited most likely already has a Smoobu account, often from an old free trial. Smoobu will not ask that address to set a new password because it already has one, so the person lands on a dashboard or a "create properties" page and cannot get in. Clearing the cache or using a private window does not help. Invite an email address that has never been used with Smoobu instead. If that address has to be the one, contact Smoobu Support and they can sort out the existing account first.
My new team member says their account doesn't work and they can't log in
The most common cause is that they clicked Start free trial on the invite instead of accepting the permission. That creates a separate trial account on their email rather than access to yours. Have them cancel that trial, then re-send the invitation from your Permissions page. This time they open the link on a computer and click Send in the accept permission window. The full invitee walkthrough is in .
I can't change my own account email because Smoobu says it already exists
That email is usually still attached to an old team-member account you created with it earlier. Open your Permissions list, find the team member using that address, and remove it. Then change your main account email. If you can't remove it yourself, contact Smoobu Support and they can remove it for you.
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
7 comments
Hi, my staff account (read only) doesn't appear to be working as expected- when my staff member tries to log in to Smoobu it says that her trial period has ended and that she will need to upgrade her account. How do I problem solve this? Thank you.
Hi, I also haave the same problem , my staff account (read only) doesn't appear to be working as expected- when my staff member tries to log in to Smoobu it says that her trial period has ended and that she will need to upgrade her account. How do I problem solve this? Thank you.
Hi there,
Most likely, your assistants signed up for a free trial instead of only accepting the permission. Please open a ticket from your Smoobu session indicating what is your staff account's email address and we can switch them over to Assistants.
I would like to have a way for a maintenance staff member to receive requests from myself (administrator) and / or the owner and keep them in one place (assigned to a particular home) and then check off / upload photos / etc when they are finished. A day in the future would be good to for on-going or recurring maintenance items.
Hi Tracy!
Thank-you for your comment, I happened upon it by chance. In the future we recommend you to please open a ticket from your Smoobu session "Help" for quick assistance from the Smoobu team.
I can suggest you to check out our integrations with wonderful 3rd parties here: Housekeeping / Task / Cleaning Management Integrations.
I am sure you will find these very helpful!
Kind regards,
Erika from Smoobu
Very high costs for an extra account!!
Hello
You say "All staff / owner accounts have access to the "Cockpit" tab and "Bookings" tab"
If I give permision to see the reservation details of one listing, but in my account I have many listings, the staff will be able to see the "Cockpit" tab and "Bookings" tab" for all the listing anyway ?
Thanks
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