Aria is built into our newest generation of CraftedStays templates. If your active site is on one of those templates, Aria is already in your editor today. If it isn't, you have three options to get there — and in many cases we've already prepared one of them for you.
This article walks through how to check, and how to switch.
The fastest way to check
Open your site in the CraftedStays editor.
Look at the left panel.
If you see the Aria chat panel, you're on a current-generation template and you're good to go.
If you don't see it, your active site is on an earlier template — keep reading.
Where you switch templates
Everything that follows happens on the Manage Templates screen.
To get there: from the side menu, open Site, then Manage Templates.
You'll see three sections:
Your Active Template at the top, with the yellow "Your Active Template" badge. This is what's live on your domain right now.
Site versions visible only for you — drafts of your site you can preview privately. These are not live until you activate one.
Available templates for creating a new version — the templates you can start a fresh version from.
Option 1: We may have already prepared a migration for you
For many customers, we've already created a draft version of your site on a current-generation Aria-supported template. If we have, it will be sitting in your Site versions visible only for you list, waiting for you to look at it.
What to do:
On the Manage Templates screen, scan the Site versions visible only for you list.
If you see a version on a newer template (anything that isn't your current active template), click View to preview it in a new tab. This opens privately — your live site doesn't change.
If it looks good, click Activate on that version. The new template goes live immediately. Your domain, bookings, and URLs are untouched.
Open your editor for the now-active version — Aria will be in the left panel.
If you'd like us to do any cleanup on the prepared version before you activate (a few tweaks to the homepage, photo swaps, copy nudges), reach out and we'll handle it before you flip the switch.
Option 2: Migrate your current site to a new template yourself
If you don't see a prepared version, or you'd rather drive the migration, you can do this in a few clicks:
On your Your Active Template card, click the three-dots menu (
⋮) on the right.Choose Copy.
In the dialog, give the new version a name and pick a current-generation template from the convert to dropdown.
Submit. We'll create a new draft version on the chosen template, carrying over your content, brand colors, typography, and media.
The new version appears in Site versions visible only for you. Click Edit to refine it (Aria is there to help), View to preview privately, and Activate when you're ready to go live.
A couple of things this flow takes care of for you behind the scenes:
Brand colors and typography settings carry across to the new template.
Property pages, blog content, and media are preserved.
Where structural rules differ between templates, we apply transformations so nothing breaks.
Option 3: Start fresh from a template
If you want a clean start instead of carrying everything over:
Scroll to Available templates for creating a new version.
Click View Demo on any template to see a live demo in a new tab.
When you find one you like, click Add. We'll create a new draft version on that template.
The new version appears in Site versions visible only for you. Click Edit to start customizing — Aria is there to help.
When the new version is in good shape, come back to Manage Templates and click Activate.
This option is best if you want to redesign the site rather than port the existing one.
What stays the same when you switch
Whichever option you pick, the following do not change:
Your domain (no DNS changes)
Your booking engine and PMS sync
Your property data
Your analytics tracking
Your existing URLs (with redirects where structures differ)
The cutover is immediate when you click Activate, and the previous version stays in your Site versions visible only for you list — you can switch back at any time.
A note on the "Activate" button
Activate goes live the moment you click it. There's no staging step. We recommend previewing your new version (View button on the draft) and walking through your homepage and a couple of property pages before activating. If anything needs fixing, Edit the draft first, then activate when you're happy.
If anything looks off
If you don't see a prepared version, you're unsure which template to migrate to, or something during a Copy doesn't carry over the way you expected — message us in Intercom or reply to your CraftedStays onboarding thread. We'll walk through it with you and can step in to do parts of the migration on your behalf if that's faster.