Expose Issue Alerts as triggers in Notification Rules + add %issue_alert_message% template variable (and optional task creation)

Summary

Hospitable already detects Issue Alerts by scanning guest messages and tagging conversations with a clear label in the Inbox/conversation view. (Hospitable Help)
This proposal makes those detected Issue Alerts usable as first-class automation events:

“Issue Alert detected” becomes a trigger option in Operations → Notification rules (Email/SMS). (Hospitable Help)
The flagged guest message content (full text + metadata) becomes available as template variables/shortcodes in the outgoing notification. (Hospitable Help)
Optionally, the same trigger can create/assign a task (e.g., “Remediation” or “Check”) to a teammate via Task rules, using the issue + message as task context. (Hospitable Help)

Why this matters

Issue Alerts currently help you see problems faster in the Inbox (and Hospitable can send a push notification to certain users), but operational teams often need SMS/email with the actual guest complaint so they can act immediately—especially if they don’t live in the Inbox all day. (Hospitable Help)

Examples of Issue Alert labels include things like No WiFi, Leaking sink, Noise complaint, Broken lock, etc. (Hospitable)

Proposed capabilities

1) New Notification Rule event trigger: “Issue Alert detected”

Add a new “Notify for an event” trigger option in Operations → Notification rules:

Event: Issue Alert detected (from Inbox message scanning) (Hospitable Help)
Recommended filters (to prevent noise):
- Property scope (already standard for notification rules) (Hospitable Help)
- Issue label/type (e.g., “No WiFi”, “Noise complaint”) (Hospitable)
- Reservation status window (e.g., current stay vs. future/past)
- Optional severity/urgency grouping (if internally available)
- Optional “cooldown” (e.g., don’t trigger more than once per reservation per label per X minutes)

This aligns with the existing notification rule concept of sending emails/SMS based on “events.” (Hospitable Help)

2) Add Issue Alert + Message variables to notification templates

Notification rules already support shortcodes for reservation/task details. (Hospitable Help)
Extend that with Issue Alert–specific variables, especially the flagged guest message.

Suggested new shortcodes/variables (names are illustrative):

%issue_alert_label% → “No WiFi” / “Noise complaint” / etc. (Hospitable)
%issue_alert_message_full% → the full guest message body that triggered the alert (plain text)
%issue_alert_message_snippet% → safe short version (good for SMS)
%issue_alert_detected_at% → timestamp
%issue_alert_channel% → Airbnb/Vrbo/Booking/etc (if available)
%issue_alert_conversation_url% → deep link to the conversation/reservation
%issue_alert_reservation_id% or %confirmation_code% (whichever matches your existing conventions)

Important UX/safety detail:
Because SMS has practical length limits and guest messages can be long, provide automatic handling:

For SMS: default to snippet + link, with an option to include full text (truncated with “…”)
For Email: include full text by default, optionally quoted/indented for readability

3) Optional Task Rules integration: auto-create a “Remediation/Check” task

Task rules today are built around reservation-based operational tasks (Cleaning / Check-in / Check-out / Maintenance). (Hospitable Help)
This feature would let an Issue Alert create an actionable task automatically.

Two implementation-friendly approaches:

Option A (minimal change): Create a Maintenance task triggered by Issue Alert

Task title: Issue: %issue_alert_label% — %guest_name%
Task description: include %issue_alert_message_full% + conversation link
Task timing: “Start immediately” (or configurable: immediate / within 1 hour / next business day)
Assignment: choose teammate/team as with existing task rules (Hospitable Help)

Option B (clean UX): Add two new task subtypes (or types)

Remediation (fix something)
Check (verify/inspect)
These would behave like existing task types (duration, timing, scope, assignment), but are purpose-built for “guest reported issue” workflows. (Hospitable Help)

Either way, it complements the existing direction where Issue Alerts already influence ops workflows (e.g., checklist suggestions for cleaning). (Hospitable)

Example notification templates

SMS to on-call maintenance

Issue Alert: %issue_alert_label%
Property: %listing_name%
Guest: %guest_first_name%
Message: “%issue_alert_message_snippet%”
Open: %issue_alert_conversation_url%

Email to property manager + owner

Subject: Issue Alert (%issue_alert_label%) — %listing_name% — %check_in_date%
Body:

Reservation: %guest_full_name% (%check_in_date% → %check_out_date%)
Detected issue: %issue_alert_label%
Guest message:
“%issue_alert_message_full%”
Link: %issue_alert_conversation_url%

Acceptance criteria (what “done” looks like)

A detected Issue Alert (from a guest Inbox message) can trigger an Operations notification rule. (Hospitable Help)
Notification rule templates can include the Issue Alert label and the triggering message body as variables. (Hospitable Help)
Users can scope/filter Issue Alert notification rules by property and (ideally) issue label. (Hospitable Help)
(Optional but powerful) The same trigger can create/assign a task automatically (likely Maintenance in MVP). (Hospitable Help)
Spam control exists (basic dedupe/cooldown) so one intense conversation doesn’t flood the team.

Notes / edge cases worth calling out

Issue Alerts can be removed/dismissed in the UI; you may want a future event like “Issue Alert dismissed/resolved” for follow-up automations. (Hospitable Help)
Hospitable currently sends a push notification for issues detected from guest messages to certain scoped users; this feature is about operational routing via email/SMS to the right teammates/teams. (Hospitable Help)
Booking.com “missing payment” is treated differently in current Issue Alert behavior; you could model it as a separate event type or a filterable subtype. (Hospitable Help)

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