The four-week Sabee onboarding programme.

Why four weeks, not four hours

Plenty of software can be "switched on" in an afternoon. Running a hotel, hostel or aparthotel on it properly is a different problem. Rate plans have to be rebuilt, not just imported as a flat CSV. Room types need to map cleanly onto your OTA extranets so availability never drifts. Reception, housekeeping and revenue each need enough hands-on time to trust the new system under real pressure, not just watch a walkthrough. Four weeks gives us room to do each of those properly, in sequence, with your team rather than around them.

The programme is the same one we ran for Casa del Callejón in Madrid, The Prague Bunkhouse, and Milano Corti in Milan — three very different operations (a 42-room boutique hotel, a 180-bed hostel, and a 42-unit aparthotel group) that all went through the same four stages with different emphasis in each week. You can read what each of those migrations looked like in practice on our customer stories page.

Week 1 — kick-off and property setup

Week one is about getting your property correctly represented inside Sabee before anything touches a live channel. Your onboarding consultant runs a kick-off call with your owner or GM in the first 48 hours, then works through room types, rate plans and cancellation policies with whoever manages revenue day to day.

• Kick-off call scheduled and held with owner/GM and onboarding consultant
• Property profile created: legal entity, tax details, currency, timezone
• Room types and unit inventory entered and checked against your floor plan
• Rate plans and cancellation policies rebuilt inside Sabee's rate engine
• Existing reservations (up to 90 days forward) imported and spot-checked
• User accounts created for owner, GM, reception and revenue roles

Roles involved: owner or GM (decisions on policy and sign-off), revenue manager or whoever sets rates (rate-plan rebuild), your onboarding consultant (configuration and QA).

Done looks like: every room type and rate plan matches your current pricing exactly, spot-checked reservations show correct rates and cancellation terms, and the owner has signed off on the property profile.

Week 2 — channel connections and booking engine

With the property correctly modelled, week two connects it to the outside world. This is the week that removes the manual double-entry between your PMS and your OTA extranets, and turns on your own direct-booking channel.

• OTA channel credentials collected and connections authorised (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Hostelworld or others as relevant)
• Two-way availability and rate sync tested against a controlled test booking on each channel
• PSP (payment service provider) account connected for direct-booking payments
• Booking engine themed and published on a preview subdomain
• Channel mapping reviewed line by line with revenue manager
• Overbooking and rate-parity rules configured

Roles involved: revenue manager (channel mapping, parity rules), owner or finance lead (PSP account access), onboarding consultant (technical connection and testing).

What you need to prepare: login credentials or API access for each OTA extranet, your PSP account details (Stripe, Adyen or equivalent), and your preferred subdomain or booking-engine branding.

Done looks like: a test booking made on each connected channel appears correctly in Sabee within two minutes, a test direct booking completes payment successfully on the preview booking engine, and rates match across every channel with zero parity conflicts flagged.

Week 3 — staff training

Software only pays off if the people using it every shift are comfortable with it. Week three is dedicated to training, split by role so each team only sits through what is relevant to their job.

• Reception session: check-in/check-out flow, tape chart, folio and payments, walk-ins
• Housekeeping session: room status board, task assignment, mobile housekeeping app
• Revenue session: rate changes, channel manager dashboard, analytics and forecast reports
• Owner/GM session: reporting dashboard, user permissions, accounting exports
• Recorded sessions and quick-reference guides shared with the whole team
• A shadow shift where reception runs live check-ins with the consultant present

Roles involved: reception staff, housekeeping staff, revenue manager, owner/GM — each gets a session sized to their role, typically 60 to 90 minutes, run by the same onboarding consultant throughout so there is one consistent voice.

Done looks like: reception can complete a check-in, a walk-in booking and a folio adjustment unassisted; housekeeping can update room status from the mobile app without help; revenue can pull the daily pickup report independently.

Week 4 — soft launch and first bookings

The final week is a soft launch: the old system stays available as a fallback, but Sabee runs the property for real. This is deliberately the lowest-drama week of the four, because the previous three should have removed the surprises.

• Go-live date confirmed and communicated to the whole team
• Old PMS put into read-only/reference mode, not deleted
• First live check-ins and check-outs run entirely on Sabee
• First direct booking through the live booking engine tracked end to end
• Daily check-in call with onboarding consultant for the first five business days
• Final sign-off call with owner/GM and revenue manager

Roles involved: the whole team, with the onboarding consultant available on chat and phone throughout the week, and a daily 15-minute call to catch anything before it becomes a pattern.

Done looks like (KPI targets): zero double-bookings across all channels in the launch week, check-in time at or below your pre-Sabee baseline, at least one successful direct booking processed end to end, and formal sign-off from owner/GM confirming the property is fully live.

What you need to prepare before we start

The single biggest driver of a fast, clean onboarding is how ready this list is on day one of week one:

• A full list of your current rate plans, including seasonal rates and any negotiated corporate rates
• Room-type or unit inventory: names, capacities, bed configurations, and how many of each you have
• Login credentials or API access for every OTA channel you plan to connect
• Your PSP (payment service provider) account details for direct bookings
• A list of any existing integrations you rely on (smart locks, accounting software, guest messaging)
• A single point of contact on your side who can make policy decisions during the four weeks

Who owns what, across the four weeks

Onboarding works best when each role knows their part from day one rather than being pulled in ad hoc. The owner or GM sets policy and gives final sign-off at the end of each week. The revenue manager (or whoever sets prices today) owns the rate-plan rebuild and channel mapping, since nobody else can validate that a rate is correct. Reception owns the training in week three and the live run in week four, because they are the ones under the most pressure on a busy check-in day. Housekeeping needs the least training time but real hands-on practice with the mobile app before go-live. Your onboarding consultant is the constant across all four weeks — the same person, not a rotating support queue.

After the four weeks

By the end of week four you are running on Sabee day to day with the old system kept only as an archive. Some properties choose to run our pilot pack first if they want to see the platform working on their own data before committing to the full four-week programme — the pilot uses the same onboarding team and folds directly into week one if you decide to continue.