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Help centreForwarding booking emails from other sites

Forwarding booking emails from other sites

Forward Groupon, Wowcher, Treatwell and ClassPass booking emails to your own address, and approve each booking or let it happen automatically.

How it works

When someone books you on Groupon, Wowcher, Treatwell or ClassPass, the site emails you. Forward those emails to your own private Venakis address and we read each one. A new booking, a move or a cancellation then waits in HQ for you to approve, or happens automatically if you choose.

This comes with Standard integrations. In HQ, go to Diary › From other sites and find the Forwarded emails card. The owner sets it up.

Your forwarding address

  • Choose “Make my forwarding address”. It’s your business’s name followed by random letters, at in.venakis.com. Copy it from the box.
  • Keep it private: anyone who knows it can send you a booking to approve.
  • “Turn off” stops us storing anything sent to it. “Make a new address” replaces it, and the old one stops working at once, so change your forwarding too.

Gmail (and Google Workspace)

  1. In Gmail on a computer, select the Settings cog, then See all settings.
  2. Open Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select Add a forwarding address. Paste your forwarding address, then Next and Proceed.
  3. Gmail sends a confirmation code to that address. It appears at the top of the Forwarded emails card within a minute, and we email it to you too. Enter it in Gmail and select Verify.
  4. Leave Disable forwarding selected, so not all your mail is forwarded, and select Save changes.
  5. Now forward only booking emails. In the search bar, select Show search options and paste the list of booking sites shown in HQ into From.
  6. Select Create filter, tick Forward it to, choose your forwarding address and select Create filter.

On a Google Workspace account, your administrator may need to allow forwarding.

Outlook (Outlook.com and Microsoft 365)

  1. In Outlook on the web, select Settings, then Mail and Rules.
  2. Select Add new rule and name it, for example “Bookings to Venakis”.
  3. Under Add a condition, choose From (or Sender address includes) and add each booking site’s address shown in HQ.
  4. Under Add an action, choose Redirect to and paste your forwarding address. Redirect is better than Forward to: it keeps the original sender.
  5. Select Save. Outlook doesn’t send a confirmation, so forward one booking email to the address by hand and check it arrives.

Microsoft 365 business accounts often block forwarding outside the organisation. If emails don’t arrive, ask your administrator to allow it for this address.

Any other email

Most email services can forward emails from chosen senders: look for Rules or Filters in the settings. You can also forward any booking email by hand. We read the original email inside it.

Approving a booking

Each booking email appears in the “to check” card at the top of Diary › From other sites: New booking, Booking moved or Booking cancelled, with the site’s name, the customer, when, the site’s reference and any voucher code.

  • Anything we’re not sure of is in a yellow box, for example “The email didn’t say who it’s with, so we chose Hannah.” Choose “Change details” to correct the service, who it’s with or the time before you approve.
  • If it overlaps another booking, HQ says so. Tick “Add it anyway” only if that’s right.
  • Choose “Add to diary” (or “Move it in the diary”, “Cancel it in the diary”). Ignore leaves your diary as it is.
  • A voucher code in the email is linked to the booking and counts as checked. You still redeem it on the site, after the visit.
  • We send the customer nothing: the other site has already confirmed their booking.
  • A card nobody deals with expires after 14 days.

Ask first or Automatic

For new, moved and cancelled bookings separately, choose Ask first (each email waits for you) or Automatic (we make the change straight away). Only the owner can change these.

Even on Automatic, we ask first when we aren’t sure: an email we read with AI, one from an address we haven’t seen forward to you before, one that clashes with another booking, or one that doesn’t say who it’s with.

Undo

Every booking added, moved or cancelled from an email, by you or automatically, is listed under “Recently dealt with” with Undo for 30 days. Undo puts the diary back as it was. Nothing is sent to the customer.

Emails we couldn’t read, and AI

  • Emails received lists everything that arrived: Recent, Ignored (not from a booking site we know, or not a booking) and Couldn’t read. Show email opens it; Read again tries once more.
  • If a booking site changes its layout and we don’t recognise it, we can read the email with AI instead. It’s off until you tick “Read emails we don’t recognise with AI”. A booking read with AI is never added automatically.
  • To read it, the email’s text, including the customer’s name and contact details, is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic. HQ shows how many of your 100 AI reads a month are used.

How long we keep emails

Forwarded emails are deleted from Venakis 30 days after they arrive, together with the customer’s details on their cards. The booking itself stays in your diary, like any other booking.

Tip: Your own privacy notice should tell clients that you receive their booking details from the sites they book on.