Activate and connect Chekin: collecting guest information and automatically submitting it to SEF 🪪🇵🇹

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Greetings hoteliers! 👋

Prepare to streamline your guest management and ensure effortless legal compliance with the integration of Chekin through your Amenitiz account. This guide is tailored specifically for properties in Portugal 🇵🇹, demonstrating how to automatically collect and submit guest information to SEF (Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras), thus enhancing check-in processes and ensuring compliance with local laws. 🚔

Key features of the Chekin integration: 

🔄 Data synchronisation:  Automatically sync booking and guest contact details from Amenitiz to Chekin, ensuring your records are always up-to-date and consistent.

🧑‍⚖️Legal compliance: Easily manage legal information by setting up your SIBA/SEF profile details in Chekin. Customise how often you collect data with automated pre-arrival email communications to guests. 

📲Guest self-service: Allow guests to conveniently provide their ID information using their smartphones, by photo or manual entry, enhancing the check-in experience.

📤 Automated SEF submissions: Chekin automatically sends guest information to SEF nightly at 11 PM, facilitating timely and manual-free compliance.

🔔 While Chekin seamlessly integrates with Amenitiz, it operates as an independent platform. All management and daily operations should be conducted through Chekin's interface (www.chekin.com), equipped with specialised tools tailored to your property's needs. 

Part 1. Activating Chekin in Amenitiz

Watch our tutorial 👇▶️

Step-by-step 👩‍💻

1️⃣ Start by accessing your admin area on Amenitiz and selecting the 'Marketplace' section. Type 'Chekin' in the search bar and get ready to activate this crucial service.

2️⃣ Click on ‘Activate’. It’s essential to create your Chekin account via Amenitiz to ensure flawless synchronisation. ❗ Avoid direct account creation on Chekin’s website to prevent integration issues.

3️⃣ Fill in your personal account details (email and password). 

4️⃣ Choose between ‘Hotel’ and ‘Vacation Rental’ based on your operation type (if you have more than one account in SIBA, then you must choose ‘Holiday Rental’). 

This decision influences the initial setup and the nature of the information Chekin will manage for you. Once the account is created, you cannot change it. If you wish to switch property types, you will need to delete the existing account and create a new one via the Amenitiz Marketplace again. ⚠️ 

Part 2. Initial setup on Chekin post-login

Step 1 - Set up properties

Watch our tutorial 👇▶️

Step-by-step 👩‍💻

Access your newly created account at www.chekin.com. 

1️⃣ Go to the 'Properties' tab and click on your property’s name.

2️⃣ In the first section, ‘Property Info’, verify that your property’s information is accurate and all fields are filled. ❗ Always click on ‘Save Changes’. 

3️⃣ In the second section, ‘Online check-in’, click the toggle button to activate the ‘Send online check-in to guests automatically’ option and select when you want to send the form (be it ‘When the reservation is created’, or ‘24h before the check-in’, for example). Always click on ‘Save Changes’. 

4️⃣ In the third section, ‘Legal' connect to the SIBA (SEF portal) and enter the necessary details for legal integration. First, click the toggle button to ‘Activate the automatic sending of guest data to your police account’ and proceed to insert your credentials, given to you at the time of registration in SIBA (in Username you must enter your 'Unidade hoteleira' number; in Password you must enter your 'Chave de autenticação'; establishment number is usually 0). Always click on ‘Save Changes’. 

How do I know it's correctly set up? 🤔

Step 2 - Confirm bookings 

Booking management:

Go to the ‘Bookings’ tab in order to monitor the completion and transmission of guest data. Each guest will show a status: 

☑️ Completed: all guest data was gathered and then sent to SEF.

👮 Incompleted/On hold: the guest’s information was partially or not filled, preventing transmission to SEF.

If guests haven’t filled out the form, you can resend it manually via email or copy the link and paste it into a personalised message. 👇

If the data isn’t sent automatically at the scheduled 11 PM (local) time to SEF, you can also do it manually. Enter the reservation with an incomplete status and in the ‘Police (Check-in)’ section click ‘send manually’.  👇

Ensure your SIBA profile's ‘Método de Envio’ is set to ‘Página no Portal’ for accurate interfacing. ‘Web Services’ might cause data not to be sent to SEF. 

💡 Tip: Use the Chekin App to manage operations from anywhere. Download it here:
iOS
Android

After a guest has filled in the online form sent by Chekin, it is possible to import this information to Amenitiz 🙌 (to learn how to do it, check this article).
Follow these steps to fully connect Chekin with Amenitiz and transform your property's management, allowing more time to deliver an exceptional guest experience. 🌟