Auto Property Groups
Written By Chad McGuire (Sparrow Intel)
Auto property groups are property groups that build and maintain themselves from your listings in your PMS. Instead of hand-picking properties, you choose something to group by — the property's city or state/region, or a custom field or tag — and Sparrow Intel creates the groups and keeps their members up to date as your listings change.
Note: Grouping by city and state/region works with any connected PMS. Grouping by custom fields and tags is available for Guesty and Track accounts, the two PMSs that supply them today. Track accounts can group by more than custom fields — see "What you can group by on Track" below.
Auto groups work everywhere regular property groups do — filters, rules, reports, Autopilot scoping, knowledge snippets and review widgets. If you want to build a group by hand instead, see Create a Property Group.
Create an auto group
In the Sparrow Intel interface, navigate to and select "Property Groups."
Click the "New Auto Group" button, next to "Create New."
In the "Property" field, pick any property. The property is only used to show you what you can group by and what its own values are — the groups you create will include every matching property on your account, not just this one. To group by a single specific city, pick a property in that city.
Under "Select what to group by," choose the field. "Property fields" are listed first — City, State/Region, and City + State/Region — followed by the custom fields and tags your PMS supplies, each with the selected property's current value beside it.
Unless you selected a tag, choose how many groups to create under "Groups to Create":
This value only — creates a single group of the properties matching the value shown (for example, every property in Austin).
One group per value — creates a group for every distinct value. New groups appear automatically as new values show up in your PMS.
Tags always create a single group of the properties carrying that tag, so there is no choice to make.
Name the group. For "This value only" and tag groups, a name is suggested in the "Property Group Name" field and you can change it before saving. With "One group per value," each group is named after the field and its value automatically — "City - Austin," for example — and you can rename any of them later.
Review the "Preview" section. It shows every group the rule will create, with the number of properties in each — expand a group to see exactly which properties it will contain. A group marked "Already exists" was created earlier by the same rule and will be updated rather than duplicated.
Click "SAVE." The groups are created right away and appear under the Property Groups tab.
Group by city or state/region
Three property fields are available, and they behave the same as custom fields — one group per value, or a single pinned value:
City — a group per city, the usual way to build groups by market.
State/Region — a group per state, province or region, useful for a portfolio spread across several. It uses whatever your PMS stores in that part of the address, so it works the same for "TX," "BC" or "Scotland."
City + State/Region — a group per city, labelled with its state or region ("Springfield, IL"). Choose this when the same city name appears in more than one of them, so those properties don't end up sharing a group. A property missing either part is left out of these groups.
Three things worth knowing before you commit:
Cities are grouped exactly as they are spelled in your PMS. If one city is entered two ways — "St. Petersburg" and "Saint Petersburg" — you get two groups. Capitalisation and extra spaces don't matter, but spelling does. Correct it in your PMS to merge them.
The same applies to state/region, which some PMSs fill in at different levels for the same country — one listing might carry "Scotland" and another "Highland." Those are two groups.
A property whose address is removed in your PMS stays in its group. Membership moves only when a new address is supplied.
Use the Preview to spot these before saving.
What you can group by on Track
On Track accounts, Sparrow Intel turns several parts of your Track setup into groupable fields, all listed in the same picker:
Custom fields — your Track unit custom fields (a "Brand" field, for example), listed by name with each property's value beside it.
Your node hierarchy — each level of the node tree a unit sits under becomes its own field, named after your node type where Track has one ("Destination" or "Location," for example). Pick a level and choose "One group per value" to get a group per destination, maintained automatically as units move or new nodes appear.
Unit roles — each unit role with someone assigned (such as "Default Property Manager") becomes a field whose value is the assigned person's name. Group by it to get one group per manager, kept up to date as assignments change in Track.
Amenities — your unit amenities appear as tags. Selecting one creates a single group of the units carrying that amenity, which is handy for collection or program membership you track as an amenity flag.
Everything else on this page applies to these fields as written: previews, naming, the daily refresh, and rule management all work the same way.
How auto groups stay up to date
Group members refresh automatically during the daily sync with your PMS:
Properties that gain the city, field value or tag join the group; properties that lose it leave.
With "One group per value," a brand-new value creates a brand-new group automatically.
If no properties carry a value anymore, the group is kept — empty — so any filters, reports or widgets built on it keep working. Groups are only removed when you delete their rule.
Because updates ride along with the daily sync, a change made in your PMS (a new tag, an edited field value, a corrected address) is reflected in Sparrow Intel after the next sync rather than immediately.
Manage your auto group rules
Once you have at least one rule, an "Auto Group Rules" card appears on the Property Groups page. Each row shows the property field, custom field or tag the rule is built on and how many groups it maintains. Expand a row to see the groups themselves, each with its property count — click a group's name to open it.
In the property groups list, groups maintained by a rule carry an "Auto Group" chip beside their name. You can open and rename an auto group at any time, but its members are managed automatically — to change who's in it, change the property's address, field or tag in your PMS.
Delete a rule
Click the delete icon on a rule in the "Auto Group Rules" card. Deleting a rule stops automatic maintenance of its groups, and the dialog lets you choose what happens to them:
Check "Keep groups as manual groups" to keep the groups with their current members. They become ordinary property groups you can edit by hand.
Leave it unchecked to delete the groups along with the rule.
Good to know
City and state/region come from the address on your listing, so those options are available as soon as your properties sync. Custom fields and tags are loaded from your PMS during the daily sync — if you select a property and see "This property has no address, custom fields, or tags to group by," they will appear after the next sync. A tag newly added in Guesty — or an amenity newly added in Track — likewise shows up in the picker after the next sync.
A rule can maintain up to 50 distinct values. If a field has too many distinct values to group automatically — more than 50 cities, for example — you'll see an error in the preview. Use "This value only" instead, or group by state/region.
Field values longer than 100 characters are not grouped, so free-text fields (like notes or descriptions) are not suitable for grouping.
Auto groups cannot be deleted directly from the property groups list — delete the rule instead, or keep the groups as manual groups and delete them individually afterwards.
Renaming an auto group is always safe: the rule keeps updating its members under the new name.