We are new to THS and are trying desperately to get the Welcome Guide ready before our first sitter arrives. It is actually quite a bit of work, which - I’m sure - will be well worth it in the long run, however, we’ve come across several challenges in the process:
we would love to see the guide like the sitters will see it, so we can adjust accordingly; this seems particularly desirable, since
we added a lot of information, e.g. about the neighbourhood, stores, restaurants, but none of that shows up in the summary. When we click on Edit it is there…
which is not always the case in other areas. Some paragraphs seem to dissolve into thin air …
Would love to hear from others how they handle it. Even better, would love to have access to someone else’s Welcome Guide.
So many homeowners don’t complete the Welcome Guide no doubt because it is difficult so, as a sitter, I thank you for persevering and caring about getting it right because it is extremely useful. Hopefully this will be passed on to the THS team as feedback for them to add to their list of things to do which probably won’t get done….
I filled the WG for our first sit. As you said, not easy. I ended up doing our own version as a PDF, and organize the information in a way that makes more sense to our home and situation.
As we were preparing for the second sit, I gave up the THS WG alltogether, because updating it is even more frustrating, so slow and difficult.
Now I only use our own PDF. Sitters get it after confirming the sit, and we also have a hard copy available for them.
Welcome @Euuusi. I am a sitter but I understand the THS Welcome Guide is not very intuitive or user friendly.
Many homeowners write their own guide and can send it to a sitter prior to confirming to ensure everyone is happy with what is expected. Obviously at that stage you wouldn’t send any sensitive information such as alarm codes/emergency contact details etc.
I suggest you do your own guide in 3 sections -
The house
The pet(s)
The area
I really appreciate having a printed version available on arrival for ease of reference.
I like to be able to update my docs regularly and also share information incrementally so I use Google docs and have separate files for dog stuff vs house stuff. That way I can share the dog stuff asap without giving away the particulars of our home such as passcodes, etc. Until much closer to the time of the sit and after it’s very fully confirmed. I also like being able to share the dog stuff even before HS are confirmed so that if there are any red flags for them, they can stop the process asap.
This is what works for us but everyone has their preference.
Yes the WG takes a bit of work when first filled out, yes it’s clunky but once we got all our information in, it’s really easy to edit and keep updated. It has the benefit of being available electronically so you don’t have to print it out, saving some trees!
I find the editing rather annoying, as to find the part I’m looking for I have to go through several pages to find the right section and then click through several headlines (which can not be edited) to be able to read what they contain.
Then there’s a tiny box to do the writing. So tiny, that I can not see the full text I’m editing, just four rows of text at a time.
I also can’t highlight any parts of the text.
With a word document, I have full control over the text, can easily arrange it as I like, search for words and highlight the most important bits.
And it still doesn’t have to be printed out, PDFs work just as well electronically.
Lots of great advice here. As a Sitter, I prefer a Word document/PDF. It is really nice to have a hard copy too.
If the dates of the Sit are extended for some reason, for example, Owners’ flights are delayed, and the Sitter has to stay an additional night, the Welcome Guide disappears after the official last day of the Sit, which is not ideal.
The THS format is absolutely terrible - from the sitters’ points of view. All the various sections to open and close, printing requires picking pages to not repeat the 1.5 pages of boilerplate garbage at the end of each section.
I’d be happy to have the HO complete a single document with all of the information and save it as a pdf file and send it to the email address that I provide.
I know many sitters have complained repeatedly to TH but they haven’t fixed it yet. I’ve been complaining since I started sitting in summer 2019!
The THS Welcome Guide is indeed clunky so I have devised my own guide for sitters. I use a three-ring binder with sections:
THS listing
Contact info
Cat care & vet info
House
Area with local activities
Shopping
Medical / dental / pharmacy sources
Electronics (there seems to be a remote for everything!)
An updated guide with passcodes, security info is available upon arrival. Yeah, it’s long, about eight pages, but we live in a rural area with very limited resources so I want our sitters to have a handy reference when needed.
Thank you all for your ideas and suggestions. I have now followed suit and created my own guide (using some of the THS headings, as they were good reminders). However, I did it on “Pages” (iPad) and every format I tried to save it in was too big to send. I am also new to the Apple formats…so hopefully I’ll figure that one out too, and soon lol. Again, thank you!
If we don’t receive a welcome guide beforehand or it is very ‘thin’ in its details…we aren’t extremely pleased by that. Yes, we love a paper copy upon arrival with everything all nice and neat so we don’t have to keep looking at the app. But, we really appreciate HOs that take the time to fill out the welcome guide and have the information there. (We don’t ever really look at all the ‘neighborhood’ or restaurants sections while on the app though - best served on paper copies in our opinion).
Our only two ‘negative’ sits were where we arrived when the welcome guide was lacking in a lot of areas and arrived to a whole LOT of information of what we needed to do. It is almost like feeling ambushed and not being able to do anything about it upon arrival. Better to prepare your sitters beforehand and get all expectations and responsibilities taken care of before we get there!
Like many are saying, many HO’s use a word doc, then send as a PDF. I’ve also seen some in Google docs. Both are much easier to complete and then update. Plus, they can be sent prior to confirmation and the THS Welcome Guide cannot. Since many sitters expect to see that guide prior to confirmation, a PDF or Google doc is a win for both parties.
We always print out our guide, especially the codes, emergency numbers, vet info, etc in case there’s a power outage or internet issues. Its saved the day on 2 occassions.
