Every evening at 6 PM, tomorrow's bookings are pulled from the booking system and turned into a manifest for each tour. Guides and drivers get their PDF on WhatsApp, and a copy of every manifest is saved to the office's daily folder.
Typical results
6 PM
Every evening, each guide has tomorrow's manifest
15
Freelance guides served from one run
≈60%
Fewer pickup mix-ups on tour mornings
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Each afternoon someone in the office exports tomorrow's bookings, sorts them by tour and types up pickup lists for 15 freelance guides and their drivers. Late bookings and changes after the export are missed, dietary notes get dropped, and guides call the office in the evening to check numbers. On busy days the job takes over an hour.
Before and after
Office minutes per day on manifests
−92%Pickup mix-ups per month
−63%Evening calls from guides per week
−75%The automation
A Make scenario runs every evening at 6 PM and pulls tomorrow's bookings from the booking system. For each tour it builds a manifest with the participant count, pickup points and times, languages spoken, dietary notes and emergency phone numbers. The guide and driver assigned to the tour receive their manifest as a PDF on WhatsApp, and a copy of every manifest is saved to the office's daily folder in Google Drive.
How it works
- 01
Runs at 6 PM
Every evening at 6 PM, the automation pulls tomorrow's bookings from the booking system.
- 02
Manifest built per tour
Each tour's manifest lists the participant count, pickup points and times, languages, dietary notes and emergency phone numbers.
- 03
Sent to guide and driver
The guide and driver assigned to each tour get their manifest as a PDF on WhatsApp.
- 04
Copy filed for the office
A copy of every manifest is saved to the office's daily folder in Google Drive.
Starts from
- Tomorrow's tour bookings
- Daily run at 6 PM
Delivers
- PDF to guide and driver
- Copy in the daily folder
The impact
The office saves about an hour a day of manifest prep, and guides start each evening with the full list for the next morning. Pickup mix-ups fall from around 8 a month to 3, and evening calls from guides checking numbers drop from about 12 a week to 3.
Questions about this automation
Which booking systems can it pull from?
It works with tour booking platforms that offer an API or a scheduled export, and with Google Sheets for operators who keep bookings there. Guide and driver assignments come from the booking itself or from a simple roster sheet, so each manifest goes to the right two phones.
What about bookings made after 6 PM?
A booking or change made after the evening run sends an updated manifest for that tour only, with the change marked at the top. A cutoff time, such as 10 PM, can be set so guides and drivers don't get messages late at night, and anything later is handled by phone.
How do we know the manifests are right before we switch over?
For the first week the automation runs alongside the old process, and the office compares each PDF with its own list before guides rely on it. Setup needs access to the booking system, a roster of guides and drivers with WhatsApp numbers and the manifest fields you want. Simple automations like this are usually live within days.