Smoobu cleaning schedule: coordinate cleaners via iCal
If your bookings live in Smoobu, your Smoobu cleaning schedule already exists in a sense: every checkout in the calendar is a cleaning someone has to do. What Smoobu doesn't do is plan who does it, tell her in her language and confirm the flat is ready. This guide shows how to connect Smoobu to Readyby for that part, and what you should know before you do.
One thing up front. Readyby has no direct integration with Smoobu today and no partnership with Smoobu. The connection is the iCal link Smoobu exports for each property. A direct Smoobu connection is on our roadmap, but everything below works with what Smoobu offers now.
What Smoobu already gives you for cleaning
Be fair to the tool you already pay for. Smoobu lets you create free accounts for your cleaning team. A cleaner logs in on her phone, sees the calendar for the properties you allow and no financial data. Smoobu can also send automatic emails when a booking is confirmed.
For one apartment and one reliable cleaner who checks the calendar every evening, that may be enough. For anything more, Smoobu points you to partner tools in its marketplace for job assignment, checklists and completion tracking. Smoobu's own calendar shows bookings and blocked dates, not cleaning tasks.
When a separate cleaning tool helps
The gaps show up as soon as you have several apartments or several cleaners:
- Nobody is assigned. The calendar says a guest leaves on Friday. It doesn't say who cleans, at what time, and whether she agreed.
- Cleaners don't read calendars. Many cleaners live in WhatsApp and don't want another login. Many also don't speak the local language well.
- Owners want proof. If you manage flats for owners, they want to see that the place was ready, not take your word for it.
Readyby turns each checkout into a cleaning with a time window, suggests a cleaner and has an AI coordinator message her on WhatsApp in her own language. She opens a web checklist with photos from a link, with no app to install. You see the day on one screen, and owners get a photo report.
How to find your Smoobu iCal export link
Smoobu gives each property its own iCal link. In current versions you find it in the property settings: open the property you want, choose edit, and look for the iCal export link (Smoobu calls it the calendar link or check-in/check-out calendar in some versions). Copy it. Repeat for every property.
Treat this link as private. Anyone who has it can see the booked dates of that property. If a link ever leaks, Smoobu lets you regenerate it on the same property screen, and the old one stops working. Remember to paste the new one into Readyby afterwards.
Setting up the Smoobu cleaning schedule in Readyby
- Paste one link per apartment. In Readyby, add the Smoobu iCal link for each property. Readyby checks it every few minutes.
- Use only the Smoobu link. Smoobu already collects bookings from Airbnb, Booking.com and your other channels, so its export covers them all. You don't need to add the Airbnb or Booking.com links as well. If you do, Readyby recognises the same stay in two calendars and won't create two cleanings, but one source is simpler to reason about.
- Set check-out and check-in times. iCal feeds often carry only dates. If the feed has times, Readyby uses them; if not, it uses the default times you set per apartment. Add how long a cleaning takes, and Readyby flags tight turnovers where the window is shorter than the cleaning.
- Add your cleaners. Name, WhatsApp number and language. Each one gets an invitation and confirms it in WhatsApp.
- Check the first week. Readyby builds cleanings from the checkouts it finds. Look at the first few days and fix anything that looks off before you let it send plans.
When a guest in Smoobu extends a stay or cancels, the iCal feed changes, Readyby moves or cancels the cleaning, and the cleaner hears about it if she was already assigned.
What iCal can't carry
iCal is a simple format, and that has limits. It usually carries dates and sometimes times, rarely the number of guests, and nothing about bed setups or special requests. If a guest count matters for linen, set your apartment's default or adjust the cleaning by hand. Readyby stores only check-in and check-out dates, guest count and booking source, never guest names or contact details, so a richer feed wouldn't change that.
There is also a delay. A change in Smoobu reaches Readyby when Smoobu's feed updates and Readyby's next check runs. For same-day changes, a quick message from you still beats any calendar.
Languages and channels today
The AI coordinator writes on WhatsApp. Cleaners can use it in Ukrainian, Polish, Russian or English now, with more languages coming. Viber and SMS are not available yet. You write in your language; Readyby translates in both directions. If your team needs another language, check the FAQ for the current list.
Smoobu plus Readyby, in short
Keep Smoobu for bookings, channels, prices and guest messages. Let Readyby take the checkouts from Smoobu's iCal link and turn them into a confirmed cleaning plan, a checklist with photos and a report for owners. More on how calendars connect is on the integrations page, and the basics of iCal links are in Airbnb iCal and your cleaning schedule.
If you want to see it before pasting a single link, try the interactive demo. When you're ready, two apartments are free on the free plan.