How to get started

Two ways in

Which way you take depends on your property system.

What you need

• A login for your property system. For Cloudbeds, a login that can install apps from the Marketplace. For ThinkReservations, your ThinkReservations sign-in. For Mews, nothing to click: we connect it.
• A work email and a password of at least 8 characters. The person who creates the account and pays becomes the property's Hotel Admin, with full control, including inviting the rest of the team.
• A card. Stripe holds it and MAYA never sees it. US bank debit (ACH) is not accepted, and there is no paying by invoice.
• Some booking history, if you want MAYA to build your first rules. Starter rules need about 60 days of past stays. With less, standard rules (rules with no booking speed or pickup count condition) still work from day one, and you write them yourself.
• Maybe a code. The payment screen tells you whether your system needs one. Cloudbeds Marketplace arrivals never do. Read Codes and the free trial.
• A plan for your old revenue tool, if you use one. Nothing is imported from it, except the rules and price limits of Cloudbeds PIE, from a screenshot (Import your rules from PIE). It can keep running while MAYA simulates, but switch it off before you go live, or the two work against each other on your base rate. Read switching from another revenue tool.

Nothing is installed anywhere: MAYA is a website. With Cloudbeds and ThinkReservations the connection is an approval or a sign-in on their site. With Mews we use keys from your Mews dashboard.

Way 1: from the Cloudbeds Marketplace

1. 1

   Connect from the Marketplace

   In Cloudbeds, open the Marketplace, find MAYA and click Connect App. Cloudbeds shows you what MAYA will be able to see and do, and you approve. Cloudbeds then hands you to MAYA. At this point MAYA has read your property's name, time zone and currency, and nothing else. If your Cloudbeds login covers several properties, all of them are connected in one go. A property in a currency MAYA doesn't price in yet (anything but dollar, euro and pound style currencies) is not connected, and you are told so. Which currencies MAYA works in has the list.

2. 2

   Create your account, or sign in

   You land on a sign-up page whose subtitle reads "Your Cloudbeds property is connected. Create your account to finish setting it up." Type your email, choose a password, confirm it, tick the box that reads I agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge the Privacy Policy, and click Create Account. The screen then says "Check your email" and "Your Cloudbeds property is saved and will be waiting." Open the link in that email, in the same browser, and you are signed in with the property attached. No email? If the email has not arrived has what to do.

   Already have a MAYA account? Switch to Sign in instead. The property attaches to whichever account signs in, and that account becomes its Hotel Admin.

3. 3

   Set up payment

   The next screen is headed with your property's name and the words "is connected". The line under the heading says how many days the free trial lasts (7). Type your room count in How many rooms?, any whole number from 1 to 500. Pick Monthly or Yearly and click Set up payment. Stripe's own page takes the card.

   With the trial, the price panel reads "Nothing today" and names the date of your first charge. You can cancel any time before then. No code is needed this way. The box labelled Your code (optional) can be left blank, or you can type a code if we gave you one.

   While you do this, MAYA has already started reading your booking history in the background.

4. 4

   Choose a path

   Two buttons: Hold My Hand, marked (Recommended), and Let Me Drive. Hold My Hand asks five short optional questions, then walks you through what MAYA found in your history. Let Me Drive goes straight to your dashboard and skips both. Your history is read and your starter rules are built either way. A blue banner on the dashboard links to the review only while it has cards for you to answer. The review is always at maya-rms.com/onboarding/review. Hold My Hand or Let Me Drive compares them.

5. 5

   Answer five optional questions

   The header reads A few quick questions · 1 of 5 · all optional. They ask you to confirm your property's name, to give a rough cost of turning over a room, the lowest rate you would take on a slow night, the most you would ever charge, and how you feel about your current pricing. Skip any one with Skip this question, or all of them with Skip the rest →. Your lowest answer becomes every room type's floor, and your highest becomes the ceiling of every room type that has not sold above it. The import's progress bar sits under the questions. The five questions explains each one.

6. 6

   Wait for the import, then review

   The progress page shows how many room nights (one room for one night) have been read, how many years they cover, and the oldest stay. It says you can close the page, and you can: the import runs on our side. When there is something to look at, the page moves on to the review by itself.

   The review has two passes. First, First: does this match reality?: MAYA shows what it found that needs a yes or no from you, such as a stretch when you seem to have been closed, or a room type that may not be a room. Then Recommendations from your data: a strip showing which room types count as rooms, a floor box and a ceiling box for every room, and the starter rules when you have about 60 days of history. Untick what is not a room, check your floors and ceilings, then keep your starter rules (Keep them) or remove them (Remove them and start with a clean slate), or click Finish when there are none. Each takes you to your dashboard. Nothing is sent to your system from here. Checking what MAYA found walks through the cards.

   Where your answers left a floor or ceiling open, the import fills it from your own rates, if that room type has enough history: at least 30 nights for a floor and 200 for a ceiling. It skips a room type that may not be a room, and it writes none once your property is live. The review lists every room with its floor and ceiling in boxes you can change. A limit still at $1.00 or $99,999.99 shows as "none" there, stops nothing in the currencies MAYA works in, and shows in the Guardrails column of the Rate Simulator tab. To set one, type it in its box on the review, answer the floor and ceiling questions again, or use Get suggestions from my data on the Rules tab, before or after going live. Floors and ceilings has the detail.

7. 7

   Go live when you are ready

   Until you go live, a slim amber strip across the top of the dashboard reads "Simulation · MAYA works out prices but sends nothing to Cloudbeds". Its Go live button, shown to a General Manager or Hotel Admin, opens a dialog headed with your property's name, such as Send The Harbour Inn's prices to Cloudbeds?. When going live would change prices, it offers Start from your current Cloudbeds rates (your rules then act only on what newly becomes true) or Send MAYA's prices now (what the calendar shows goes out); a single Go live button shows when nothing would change. Either way MAYA then sends the prices for tonight and the next 395 nights. Read Start from your current rates, or send MAYA's prices. Only a General Manager or Hotel Admin can go live. The review screen has the same strip with no Go live: you finish the review first, and go live from the dashboard when you are ready. The review stays at maya-rms.com/onboarding/review, so you can come back to it. Going live covers what happens next.

Way 2: create an account at maya-rms.com, usually with a code

1. 1

   Create your account

   get-maya.com is the website about MAYA. The app you sign in to lives at maya-rms.com. Go to maya-rms.com and click Create your account (the Continue to payment button under the price calculator on get-maya.com takes you to the same page). Type your email, choose a password of at least 8 characters, confirm it, tick the Terms box, and click Create Account. Then open the link in the confirmation email: it confirms your address and signs you in.

2. 2

   Set up payment

   The screen is headed Let's get you set up. Four short choices:

   1. Rooms. Type your room count in How many rooms?. The price panel shows your price before you commit to anything.
   2. Monthly or yearly. Pick Monthly or Yearly.
   3. Your system. Under Which property management system do you use? pick Cloudbeds, Mews, Think Reservations or Something else.
   4. Your code. The field reads Your code when your system needs one, and Your code (optional) when it does not. Something else always needs one.

   Then click Continue to payment and Stripe takes the card. There is no trial this way unless your code grants one. Setting up payment covers the trial, codes and every message on this screen.

3. 3

   Connect your property system

   The next screen is headed Connect your property system. It shows a card for each system you can connect yourself, reading Sign in with your Cloudbeds account or Sign in with your Think Reservations account, with Connect → beside it. Click it, sign in on their site, and you are brought straight back. Mews sits under Coming soon with Not yet available: we connect it for you.

   Once you are back, MAYA reads your property's name, time zone and currency, renames the property after it, makes you its Hotel Admin, and starts the history import. If your system uses a currency MAYA doesn't price in yet, it stops before any of that and says so, and nothing is set up. It stops the same way if the property is already in MAYA under someone else: "This Cloudbeds property is already in MAYA, so nothing new was added. Ask its General Manager to invite you, or email us." One property is only ever one MAYA property.

4. 4

   Choose a path, review, go live

   From here the two ways are the same: choose Hold My Hand or Let Me Drive, answer the five optional questions, let the import finish, review what MAYA found, and go live when you are ready. For ThinkReservations the go-live dialog is headed Send The Harbour Inn's prices to Think Reservations? (with your property's name). A Mews property has no history import, so there is no review to wait for and no starter rules. There is no go-live button for a Mews property today, because MAYA sends no prices to Mews. Going live would not change anything in Mews anyway.

Your first day

With Cloudbeds and ThinkReservations, your own part is a few screens: create the account, pay, connect, the five optional questions and the review. The import runs on its own while you do them, and takes as long as your system's history needs (how long it takes). You can close the page. Your current bookings come in first, so the calendar fills with real occupancy before the older years are read. About every five minutes MAYA runs your rules and writes the result in the Change Log tab, sending nothing. Once the import has read your last three years (or all your history, if you have less), a blue banner links to the review if there is anything to check. If there is nothing, open the review at maya-rms.com/onboarding/review. The history import has the whole first day, step by step, including what each property system reports about your room counts.

Simulation first, in one line

Every property starts in simulation: MAYA runs every rule and writes every change in the log, but sends nothing to your system until a General Manager or Hotel Admin clicks Go live on the amber strip at the top of the dashboard, or asks us to switch the property live. The strip is there on every screen until then, so you always know. There is no rush. Watch for a day or a month. Simulation mode says what changes when you go live.

Where each step is documented