WooCommerce Bookings is compatible with Product Add-Ons (sold separately). Used together, you can create more powerful booking forms with additional options.

Setting up add-ons for bookable products is the same as other types of product with the exception of Add-ons options. Both WooCommerce Bookings and Product Add-Ons must be installed and activated.

1. Follow directions for Creating a Bookable Product.
2. Go to the Add-ons tab in Product Data.
3. Select Add Field. A window displays with Add-on fields (next step).
   
4. Select Checkboxes from the Type dropdown.
   
5. Select whether to multiply the add-on cost by the number of persons booking or the number of blocks being booked.
6. Add Option.

The release of Bookings 1.5 included Google Calendar integration with Product Add-On information.

The post Product Add-Ons Integration first appeared on CODIBU.

To connect WooCommerce Bookings to your Google Calendar, you need:

• WooCommerce Bookings
• Google account – new or existing

Setup and Configuration

WooCommerce Bookings provides two different methods that you can use to connect to your Google Calendar:

1) Connection method provided by WooCommerce.com. This requires the least amount of setup of the two steps.

2) Custom connection using your own Google app credentials. This method requires a few more steps to setup but offers more control.

1) Method 1: Connect your calendar

To connect your Google Calendar to Bookings using the provided connection method:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Bookings > Settings.
2. Select the Calendar Connection tab.
3. Click on Connect with Google under the Calendar Connection section. This takes you to a different screen to choose a Google account.
   
4. Select an account or sign in to a different account to use.
5. Confirm the Gmail/Google account, review permissions, and Allow. WooCommerce needs access to your Google Calendar to sync existing events and to add bookings as new events.
   
6. Select Allow to give access to your calendar
   
7. Verify that the URL is correct, and Continue.
   
   A message displays that a connection is made, and authentication was successful.
8. Now that the connection is set up, you will see a new section with the calendar settings. Select a Calendar from the dropdown to sync Bookings to.
9. Set Sync Preference. See the section Sync Preference below to learn the difference.
10. Save changes.
    

The Google Calendar integration with Bookings is now set up.

2) Method 2: Connect your calendar using a custom connection

Please follow the steps on this guide to connect your calendar.

Disconnect your calendar

If you previously connected a Google calendar and wish to disconnect it:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Bookings > Settings.
2. Select Disconnect.
3. Save changes.

Connect a different calendar

If you previously connected a calendar and wish to connect Bookings to a different calendar on the same Google account:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Bookings > Settings.
2. Select a Calendar from the dropdown.
3. Save changes.

Should you wish to connect Bookings to a different Gmail/Google account, disconnect (in the above section) and go through the setup again to connect and authenticate.

Sync Preference

Calendar synchronization can be set up to sync one way or to sync both ways between the store and Google Calendar.

Sync one way:

• Bookings created in the store will be pushed to the connected Google calendar where they can be viewed.

Sync both ways:

• Bookings created in the store will be pushed to the connected Google calendar where they can be viewed (just as they are with Sync one way selected).
• Events created in the connected Google calendar will be pulled into the store’s Store Availability rules, where they will block the availability for all bookable products for the duration of the events. This is useful for when a store owner is not available (e.g., a dentist appointment) and wishes to create an event on the connected Google calendar so no bookings can be made during that period.
• Events created in the connected Google Calendar will show up within the visual calendar found at Bookings->Calendar.

By default, Bookings are synced to the connected Google Calendar when they have the status: Complete, Confirmed, and Paid.

Send Unpaid Bookings to your Google Calendar

You can use the following snippet to add the ‘unpaid’ order status to the ‘paid’ order status list that Bookings uses to sync to Google Calendar:

add_filter('woocommerce_booking_is_paid_statuses', 'woocommerce_booking_add_unpaid_to_is_paid_statuses');
function woocommerce_booking_add_unpaid_to_is_paid_statuses( $statuses ) {
$statuses[]= 'unpaid';
return $statuses;
}

This will sync Bookings which have the unpaid status to your Google Calendar. This may be useful, for instance, if you collect payment physically from the customer or after the booking is completed.

View Bookings in your Google Calendar

Now that you’ve finished setup, you should see Bookings in your Google calendar.

The individual booking displays the duration and order ID.

FAQ

What information about a booking is sent to the Google Calendar?

When a new booking has been made on your site, the billing details first and last name, the title of the bookable product, and the booking ID and are listed as the event title on your Google Calendar.

Information about the booking (e.g., number of people and resource) is sent and saved in the description.

Are appointments added to the Google Calendar automatically synced to the calendar on my site?

Yes! With Sync Preference set to Sync both ways, any appointments created in the connected Google calendar will be pulled into the store’s Store Availability rules, so no bookings can be created for the duration of the appointment. The store will periodically check the connected Google calendar for updates: Any newly created appointments should appear in the store after a few minutes.

How can I modify appointments that have been synced from my Google Calendar?

Since the appointments were created in Google Calendar, any necessary changes must be made from Google Calendar. After changes are made, the updates will be reflected in the store’s Store Availability within a few minutes.

Can I use Google Calendar to edit synced bookings?

Since bookings originate from the store, they cannot be edited from the Google Calendar.

Bookings are pushed to the Google calendar for viewing purposes only. Any changes made to the associated events in the Google Calendar will not be synched back to the store. Bookings must be added, modified or deleted from the store’s admin interface so billing and availability can be managed correctly. This functionality is the same no matter if the store is set to sync one or both ways.

When are bookings synced to the Google Calendar?

Bookings are synced to the connected Google Calendar when they move to a status that is considered paid, which includes Complete, Confirmed, and Paid.

The post WooCommerce Bookings Google Calendar Integration first appeared on CODIBU.

We recommend reading the Getting Started with Bookings guide, if you haven’t already.

Why can’t I check out with other products using Requires Confirmation option?

Because a bookable product requiring confirmation also requires a special payment option for checkout, it is not possible to add other products to the cart.

You can, however, have multiple products requiring confirmation in the same order. Once a booking has been confirmed, the customer needs to pay for the order in their My Account page.

Where do I place my Bookings template files?

Templates files for Bookings can be found in the directory: /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce-bookings/templates/.

To edit these files so they are upgrade safe, place them in the directory: /wp-content/themes/your_theme_folder/woocommerce-bookings/.

For example: If you want to edit the my-bookings.php file in the myaccount directory, you would place the file in:  /wp-content/themes/your_theme_folder/woocommerce-bookings/myaccount/my-bookings.php.

How do I translate Bookings?

The language files for Bookings can be found within /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce-bookings/languages/. The default English language file is named woocommerce-bookings.pot.

With a program like PoEdit, you can use the .pot file to create language translation files. For example, if you want a translation of the Bookings extension in Dutch from the Netherlands, you would translate the strings and create translation files: woocommerce-bookings-nl_NL.mo and woocommerce-bookings-nl_NL.po.

Those two language files would then need to be moved into the directory: /wp-content/languages/plugins/

• How to create localized bookable products with WPML and Bookings
• Translate WordPress.org/WooCommerce, if looking for a language file

What timezone is used for Bookings?

This can be set in Bookings Settings. More at: Timezones.

Does Bookings support [insert payment gateway name]?

Bookings works with all supported WooCommerce extensions and does not interfere with the type of payment gateway being used. You can use any payment gateway.

Can Bookings do [insert feature]?

There are many ideas on how to use a Bookings to create a unique business model. It is great to see such variety in the eCommerce world, but Bookings is an off-the-shelf product and cannot support every imaginable case.

If you do not see a feature discussed in this FAQ or in our docs, then Bookings most likely excludes that feature.

Suggest a feature

Bookings is constantly being developed. If you want something not already listed, post the idea in the WooCommerce Ideas Forum. Once a feature gets enough votes, it is added to Bookings. Features with higher votes are also given priority.

Add the feature

If the feature you want has limited appeal, the good news is Bookings makes it possible for a WordPress or WooCommerce developer to add nearly any feature. If you need a developer to add a feature to Bookings, visit our Customizations page.

Why are orders set to Processing and not Completed?

Once an order has been paid, WooCommerce only sets the status of the order to Completed if all products purchased in the order are both virtual and downloadable. If all the products in an order are physical and/or virtual without being downloadable, the order is marked Processing. This helps you manage the shipping of physical items.

Contrary to normal virtual products, Bookable products that are marked a virtual will override the default behavior. As a result, when an order only contains a bookable product that is virtual, the order will be marked as Completed automatically if the payment has gone through.

By contrast, when an order contains a bookable product that is not virtual, the order status is set to Processing.

Alternatively, you can use Order Status Manager to manage the order statuses even more in detail, regardless of product type.

Where can I see an example of Bookings being used?

Take a look at shops using Bookings in the real world, or add your own store: Customer Stories.

Example scenarios:

• Book activities if you have an active subscription – Gym Member/Activities
• Hair Salon
• Recording Studio
• Law Office
• Tourist Activity
• Museum – Example with Order Barcodes

Why is the calendar not displaying on bookable products?

Listed below are suggestions to troubleshoot a calendar that may not be displaying on the products page.

1. If you are using Cloudflare, you may need to disable Rocket Loader as it might be interfering with the calendar’s JavaScript.
2. If you’re using Chrome or Firefox, review the console for errors or conflicts on the product that should be displaying the products calendar.
3. If your site is hosted on WP Engine, you might see the calendar display an endless loading spinner. Reviewing the browser console will showcase a 403 error. To solve this issue, you need to get in touch with WP Engine support and ask to have them exclude all WooCommerce cookies from cache. A complete list of WooCommerce cookies can be found on this document.

How do I create a manual booking with Product Add-Ons?

This article discusses how: Manual Booking with Product Add-Ons.

How do I charge a deposit for a booking?

Use WooCommerce Deposits.

How can I send a text message reminder about bookings?

WooCommerce Twilio can be used to send booking SMS notifications. When both plugins are active, you’ll find booking notifications under WooCommerce > Settings > SMS. Here you can enable the following messages:

• Admin reminder – sent to recipients before a booking starts
• Admin cancellation – sent to recipients when a booking is cancelled
• Customer reminder – sent to customer before a booking starts
• Customer follow up – sent to a customer after a booking is completed
• Customer cancellation – sent to a customer when a booking is cancelled
• Customer confirmation – sent to a customer when a booking is confirmed

Learn more about using this integration in the WooCommerce Twilio documentation.

How can I email a customer X days before his/her booking date?

Follow Up Emails can be used to email customers a reminder. Emails from Follow Ups include:

• Before Booked Date
• After Booked Date
• After Booking is Created
• After Booking Status: unpaid
• After Booking Status: pending
• After Booking Status: confirmed
• After Booking Status: cancelled
• After Booking Status: complete

Each email can be scheduled to be sent within minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.

Can I charge a different price for adults and children?

Yes, you can, by setting up different Person types and configuring different prices for each type.

Can I change the daily rate of a booking depending on how many days a customer books?

Yes. Take a look at: Daily Rate Changes.

Can I charge a different price for weekend bookings?

Yes! Take a look at: Weekend Prices.

How can I configure bookings by nights?

Night bookings can be done using the free WooCommerce Accommodation Bookings add-on. By default, Bookings only supports bookings by days.

Why are bookings not showing on my Google Calendar?

Double-check that you completed steps of the integration process: Google Calendar Integration. You can also enable logging in your WooCommerce > Status > Logs to see if there are errors in the connection.

Is the extension [insert extension name] compatible with Bookings?

Please see below a list of extensions:

Compatible with

• Product Add-Ons
• Force Sells
• Order Barcodes
• PDF Invoices
• Sensei
• Follow-Up Emails
• WooCommerce Deposits
• Print Invoices Packing Lists

Limited compatibility

• Dynamic Pricing – Since bookable products do not use product quantity, Advanced Category Pricing rules will not work. However, pricing rules based on Order Total, User Roles and simple Categories, should be compatible.
• Product Vendors – currently Vendors do not have access to resources. We are actively working on adding this feature in the future.

Not compatible with

• Pre-Orders
• Name Your Price
• Gravity Forms Product Add-Ons
• Composite Products
• Product Bundles
• Point of Sale for WooCommerce

Please review the feature request to bundle bookable products on our Ideas Board and add your vote and comments. The more popular an idea becomes, the more of a priority it is for our developers to review. 

How can I change the colors of the Bookings calendar that customers see?

Colors of the date picker calendar are managed by CSS. More info at: WooCommerce Bookings Calendar CSS Style Elements.

Is it possible to use an available dates drop-down instead of the date picker calendar?

From Bookings version 1.13x, time slots/blocks that are a customer-defined duration in minutes/hours will display a dropdown.

Bookable products that are a fixed duration still display with no dropdown, but there’s a third-party (non-Woo) free plugin to change that: WooCommerce Bookings Dropdown.

What happens to abandoned bookings if the customer does not pay for the order?

Like all pending orders, WooCommerce automatically cancels them when the Hold Stock (minutes) is reached. This can be configured at WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Inventory.

In addition, any bookings that have an “in-cart” status will be removed from the cart if the user’s session is inactive for 60 minutes, thereby freeing up the availability. Specifically, a CRON job is scheduled named wc-booking-remove-inactive-cart which will be automatically called every 60 minutes. If In-Cart Bookings are not being deleted it is typically a symptom of CRON jobs not working properly on your server.

Why are no dates bookable after adding Custom Date Range?

Let’s say your store is open every day between 8:00AM and 4:00PM, and on December 25th you are closed. This includes a Custom Date Range and a Time Range.

The following rules do NOT work and will cause your enter calendar to be greyed out. This is because Custom Date Range and Time Range are both being used.

The rules need to be rearranged and include a Range of Days rule. Below is a screenshot of the correct rules for this to work:

We added Range of Days and included the rule towards the top. Custom Date Range is added towards the bottom.

How can I change the starting day on the Bookings calendar on the product page?

To set your bookings calendar to start on a different day, it requires a setting change in WordPress itself.

1. Go to: WP Admin Dashboard > Settings > General
2. Scroll down to Week Starts On and change it to the day of the week you prefer.
3. Save Changes.

How can I cancel unpaid bookings that require confirmation after the site admin has confirmed the booking?

If your bookable products require confirmation, you can mark them as complete, but if that customer does not come back to pay for their booking, the slots they booked will still show as unavailable, preventing new customers from booking the same slots.
To cancel these unpaid bookings, you can create a workflow with the AutomateWoo extension to cancel these bookings after a set amount of time;

The post Bookings FAQs first appeared on CODIBU.

• Store Availability
• Timezones
• Calendar Connection

Previous to version 1.13x, some settings were located at WooCommerce > Settings.

Store Availability

Store availability rules apply to all bookable products in your store. Configuring these rules is useful if you, for example:

• Have consistent/expected hours of availability (e.g., Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.)
• Need to block out a specific date range for all products (e.g., Unavailable for Christmas break)
• Only have availability during specific seasons (e.g., Closed from October – May)

To define a global rule:

1. Go to: Bookings > Settings > Store Availability.
2. Select Add Range. This adds a row to the table (next step)
   
3.  Enter rules using the dropdown menus. Select:
   • Range type
   • Range
   • Whether it’s bookable or not
   • Priority
     
4. Save changes.

Use Case

A hair salon offers one-hour appointments for haircuts and is open Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. with the last appointment at 5:00 p.m. The owner has decided to close the salon for a holiday break between December 22, 2019 and January 4, 2020.

In the Bookings Settings, the following global availability rules are added:

• Time Range (all week): 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Bookable – Yes
• Range of days: Monday – Friday; Bookable – Yes
• Range of days: Saturday – Sunday; Bookable – No
• Date range: 2019-12-22 – 2020-01-05; Bookable – No

By default, Store availability rules take priority over product level availability rules and product availability rules take priority over resource priority rules.

• For more information on setting up availability rules, see: Creating a Bookable Product.
• For more examples, go to the other Use Cases.

Timezones

To control how Bookings displays the timezone to customers:

1. Go to: Bookings > Settings > Timezones.
2. Tick the box for Enable Bookings Timezone Calculation, if you want Bookings emails and other automatic events to be triggered using the site’s configured timezone. If disabled, events are triggered on UTC time.
3. Select.
   • Timezone – Use your visitors’ local time or yours. This only affects bookable products with the booking duration configured to either minutes or hours. Bookable products with the booking duration set to days or months are always displayed in the site’s configured timezone.
   • Calendar start day – Use the visitors’ locale or yours. If yours, info is pulled from: Dashboard > Settings > General > Week Starts On. Some countries start the week on Sunday; some on Monday.
4. Save changes.

Usage

Timezone

The frontend Bookings calendar displays in the timezone specified: Visitor or yours.

After the booking is made, the time displayed to the customer is in their timezone, including the cart, order confirmation, and reminder emails.

Calendar

The frontend Bookings calendar displays according to the Start Day specified: Visitor or yours.

Calendar Connection

WooCommerce Bookings enables one-way or two-way sync with Google Calendar. You need a Google account to use this functionality.

To set this up, go to: Google Calendar Integration.

The post Booking Settings first appeared on CODIBU.

Examples of usage include:

• An assistant who can be booked to organize a wedding or a 50th birthday party, but not both at the same time.
• A room that can be rented for a kid’s birthday party or for a company event, but not at the same time.

Adding a new resource

To add a global resource, or a resource that can be used site wide:

1. Go to Bookings > Resources. A list of current resources and any products they are assigned to is displayed.
   
2. Select Add Resource at the top. The Add New Resource screen appears.
   
3. Enter a name/reference for the resource.  Make sure you name your resources appropriately and do not use the same name twice to make managing your site easier as your site grows.
4. Input the Available Quantity.
5. Add Range if the resource has any restrictions on availability. Similar to Availability on a Bookable product. More details at: Custom Availability Range.
   
6. Publish to make the resource available.

Adding a resource to a product

Once the resource has been added, you can assign the resource to products.

To add a resource to a bookable product:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Products.
2. Select the bookable product you would like to Edit.
3. Scroll down to Product Data and tick the Has Resources box.
4. Go to the Resources tab.
5. Enter a Label to be shown to customers if Resources are Customer Selected. If automatically assigned, leave blank.
6. Select a Resource from the dropdown in the lower right.
   • New resource: Select Add/link Resource, then you are prompted for the resource name. Once entered, a new global resource is created in the system.
   • Existing resource: Select Add/link Resource, then you are prompted to enter a Base/Block cost. The Base cost is applied when the resource is chosen; the Block cost is multiplied by the number of blocks booked.
     
7. Update the Bookable Product to save resources

The post Using Resources in Bookings first appeared on CODIBU.

To filter bookings, select options from a familiar menu at the top.

Filter by:

• Status
• Date
• Product/Resource

To use bulk actions, select an action from the dropdown and Apply.

• Move to trash
• Confirm bookings
• Unconfirm bookings
• Cancel bookings
• Mark bookings as paid
• Mark bookings as unpaid

To search bookings, use the upper right search box and select Search Bookings.

On individual bookings, you have the option to perform two actions.

• Check mark: Allows you to confirm a pending booking and email the user. If you confirm in error, use the Unconfirm Booking bulk action.
• Eye: View booking details.

The next sections explain these actions in more detail.

Approve Bookings

To approve a booking that requires confirmation:

1. Go to Bookings. Any booked products that require confirmation will display Pending Confirmation.
2. Select Confirm (check mark) to approve the booked product.

Once approved, the user receives an invoice via email to pay. The customer can then pay on their My Account page. The link to their My Account Page is included in the email they receive.

View a booking

To view a booking, the Eye takes you to the Edit/View Booking page. This works similar to other admin pages such as Edit Order, except it is for booking data.

These details can be edited, then saved when you are done.

Be careful when changing start and end dates and times. Be sure that the start date is always more recent than the end date. Note that the customer will not receive an automatic email with any changes.

Booking Status

• Unpaid: Booking requires payment. Order has not been paid.
• Pending: Booking awaiting Admin approval. See Approving Bookings.
• Confirmed: Booking is confirmed after it was set as Pending. Still requires payment.
• Paid: Booking has been paid for.
• Cancelled: Booking has been canceled.
• Complete: Booking is paid, and the date is in the past. The assumption is that the experience/service was delivered.
• In Cart: Booking has been added to a customer cart. If not purchased, it is deleted within 60 minutes.

View bookings on a calendar

For a calendar view, go to Bookings > Calendar. By default, it shows a Day-based view with Filter options on the left.

By Day

A Day-based view can be used to view all bookings in a day:

When using Day view, select a booking to view/edit it, or hover to view a summary of details.

By Month

Select Month to show a Month-based view with Filter options on the left.

Select a booking to view details.

By Schedule

Select Schedule to show a scrollable overview with the current day highlighted and Filter options on the left.

Create Bookings Manually

To manually create a booking for a customer:

1. Go to: Bookings > Add Booking.
2. Search for a customer by entering a name or other term. Or leave as Guest.
3. Select a bookable product from the dropdown.
4. Create booking
   • New: Create a new order, which you must process and complete before it is active.
   • Addition: Add the order to an existing booking, and enter that ID.
   • No order: Create booking only.
5. Next. The Bookings calendar displays.
   
6. Select a date/time.
7. Add Booking.

You are then redirected to the new booking or the Order screen, depending on your selection(s).

Per Person Discount with Coupon

You can offer a coupon code to customers that gives a per person discount for bookings with multiple people.

Google Calendar Integration

WooCommerce Bookings can be integrated with a Google Calendar, with one or two-way synchronization. For more information, see Calendar Connection and Google Calendar Integration.

The post Managing Bookings first appeared on CODIBU.

A booking form is generated for the front-end Add to Cart form. This is set up according to how the product has been configured. Here is an example of an hourly, time-based booking.

If multiple spaces are available per block, the number of remaining spots is shown.

The cost is updated dynamically as options are selected. Once a valid booking is chosen, the customer can select Book Now to add to cart.

Checkout Process

Booking data, including dates, times, persons, and resources, is shown in the line item once in the cart.

Even if the booking duration crosses over into the next calendar day, this can be handled by the system.

If the booking requires approval, Add to Cart is replaced with Check Availability and payment is not taken in checkout. The booking goes through checkout on its own. This creates the booking and the order, but does not request or take payment.

Once you approve the booking, the customer is emailed a Booking Confirmed email as described in the Email Notifications section below.

This email contains a payment link they can click to pay; the customer can also log into their My Account page and make a payment.

Bookings not requiring payment behave as any other product in your store.

More information at: https://help.codibu.com/blog/kb/managing-bookings/.

Email Notifications

Bookings has five email alerts that are handled for you automatically. You can edit all emails sent to customers at: WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. They are:

• New Booking: Email is sent to the Admin when a new booking is created.
• Booking Confirmed: Email is sent when a booking is confirmed.
• Booking Reminder: Email is sent to the customer one day prior to their upcoming booking as a reminder.
• Booking Pending Confirmation: Email is sent to notify that the customer’s booking is awaiting answer from the store owner.
• Booking Notification: Notification emails are sent manually from Bookings > Send Notification.
• Booking Canceled: Email is sent when a booking is canceled.
• Admin Booking Canceled: Email is sent to Admin when a booking status changes to canceled.

You can also send custom notifications using Follow-up Emails (separate purchase).

Sending custom email notifications

All customers with a future booking of the product you select will receive a copy of this email.

To send a custom email notification:

1. Go to: Bookings > Send Notification.
2. Select the Booking Product from the dropdown.
3. Enter a Subject.
4. Enter your message.
5. Tick the box to send an .ics (calendar file) attachment. This is optional.
6. Send notification.

Send SMS notifications

You can send SMS notifications for bookings via Twilio using the WooCommerce Twilio plugin.

When both plugins are active, you’ll find booking notifications under WooCommerce > Settings > SMS. Here you can enable the following messages:

• Admin reminder – sent to recipients before a booking starts
• Admin cancellation – sent to recipients when a booking is cancelled
• Customer reminder – sent to customer before a booking starts
• Customer follow up – sent to a customer after a booking is completed
• Customer cancellation – sent to a customer when a booking is cancelled
• Customer confirmation – sent to a customer when a booking is confirmed

Learn more about using this integration in the WooCommerce Twilio documentation.

The post Customer Booking Process first appeared on CODIBU.

1. Go to: Products > Add New. A familiar WooCommerce interface for product creation appears.
2. Enter a title and description for your product.
3. Scroll down to Product Data and select Bookable Product in the dropdown menu.
   
4. Tick the Virtual checkbox, if your product does not require shipping. This omits the Shipping Costs tab from your product.

Fields will change to reflect bookable products.

General settings

The first settings are booking duration, calendar display and confirmation preferences.

Taxes

Select the appropriate Tax status and Tax class for this product, should you need to charge tax or not.

Booking duration

This determines how long a booking lasts. The duration can be admin defined (fixed block) or customer defined (they need to input on the front-end). Duration units can be Hours, Minutes, Days or Months.

Fixed blocks have a set duration that you define. The customer can only choose one block which will last the defined amount of time. For example hair dresser appointment lasts one hour and you can only book one at a time.

Customer-defined blocks have a set duration, but the customer can choose how many blocks they want. For example, the co-working space is rented out in hourly intervals, and the customer can define how many 1-hour blocks they would like to rent.

If you set your Booking duration to be customer defined:

• A minimum and maximum allowed value can be included in the General tab. This allows for a more flexible starting schedule.
• It is possible to use 30-minute blocks and set the minimum to 2 blocks. Your customers now need to book at least one hour, and can add increments of 30 minutes.
• A customer-defined duration with blocks in minutes/hours will display a dropdown.

Calendar display mode

Select Calendar always visible or Display calendar on click. By default the calendar is set to always show.

If the Booking duration is set to be Customer defined with a unit of Days, then another option will be shown to enable the calendar range picker. Enabling this allows customers to select a start date and an end date for their booking within the calendar itself.

Requiring Confirmation

If the booking needs to be reviewed by an Admin before confirmation, tick the Requires confirmation? checkbox. Rather than take payment at checkout, the user inputs details and submits them for approval.

To learn more, see Managing Bookings.

If the Requires Confirmation? checkbox is ticked:

• the Check Availability option will be the only payment gateway presented when checking out
• other items will be removed from the Cart when this bookable product is added to the Cart

Please note that the Check Availability “payment gateway” can’t be enabled/disabled under WooCommerce > Settings > Payments like other gateways can, and is displayed/hidden based purely on a Bookable Product requiring confirmation being in the Cart.

Once the booking is approved, the customer receives another email to then submit payment.

Allowing Booking Cancellation

You may choose whether you want the user to have the option to cancel their booking. After selecting the option Can be cancelled?, two fields appear that allow you to choose how many Minutes/Hours/Days/Months prior to the start date that customers can cancel a booking.

Availability settings

Availability (what slots can be booked) can be controlled via the Availability tab. The first options allow you define dates that can be booked:

Max bookings per block

This setting allows multiple bookings at the same time. With a fixed booking of 1 day and maximum bookings per block set to 2, then each day you can accept two bookings.

Minimum/Maximum block bookable into the future

If today is March 1 and you set minimum block bookable to 1 month into the future, then the first date a customer could book would be April 1. The same applies to the maximum date bookable.

Require a buffer period between bookings

Based on the unit of time set for the booking (minutes, hours or days), you can specify a period of time after a bookable slot that is unavailable for anyone else to book. For example, if you sell appointments in 1-hour blocks and wish to have a break of 1 hour between them, you can specify a buffer period.

If you prefer to add a buffer before and after your appointments, tick the Adjacent Buffering checkbox. This option adds the specified block both before and after each booking. Defining a buffer period of one hour between booking with adjacent buffering will result into 2 hours between bookings.

Buffer periods are always defined in the same time measurement (minutes, hours or days) chosen for blocks. If you want to have a 30-minute buffer between your 1-hour appointments, be sure to use 60-minute blocks instead of 1-hour blocks.

All dates are

Depending on how you want to set up availability, this option allows you to set available by default or not available by default. Available by default means all blocks are available and you can specifically turn some off with rules, where not available by default means all blocks are not available and must be turned on through availability rules.

Check rules against

You have two options:

• All blocks being booked – This checks all available blocks within a duration. For example if a customer chooses to book for 5 days and 1 block is equal to 1 day, it will check availability for all 5 days.
• Starting block only – This checks the first block the user selects. For example if a customer chooses to book for 5 days and 1 block is equal to 1 day, it will only check availability for the first day.

Restrict start and end days

Say you have a weekly rental, but you only allow customers to start their rental on Fridays.

1. Tick the box.
2. Select the day (in this case Friday), or day(s) you would like to restrict the booking to start on.

This does not affect availability; other days are still available, they just cannot be selected as the day(s) that bookings start on.

Custom Availability Range

You can set up specific availability rules, such as availability for:

• Months
• Day of the week
• Time
• Specific date

To add a rule, select Add Range:

A new row is created, where you can choose a range type, from/to, whether it’s bookable or not (yes or no) and a priority number.

The from/to values differ based on the range type:

• Date range – from/to will show a datepicker/calendar selection field
• Range of days – from/to will show a dropdown of days of the week (Monday to Sunday)
• Range of months – from/to will show a dropdown of months (January to December)
• Range of weeks – from/to will show a dropdown of weeks (1 to 52)
• Time ranges – from/to will show time inputs
• Date Range with time – period with a start date/time and an end date/time. Range applies from start time on the start day to end time on the end date.
• Date Range with recurring time – set based on a custom date range. Range is repeated on each day in the date range.

Note that the time ranges are not opening hours, but booking hours. If you offer 1-hour time blocks and your shop is open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, your last booking is at 5:00 pm, not 6:00 pm.

By default, Global availability rules take priority over product level availability rules and product availability rules take priority over resource priority rules. The order can be changed using the priority numbers. A lower priority, irrespective of context, overrides any other context with higher priority number. For example, a 9 will always override 10, even if 10 is on the Global level.

Rows can be removed by clicking the X on the far right, or dragged and dropped to sort using the handle on the far left.

Also be aware that availability options can be set up globally if all bookable products share some dates. To read more about Global availability, see Booking Settings

Costs for Bookable Products

Costs for specific slots are controlled from the Costs tab.

The two main costs you can add are Base cost and Block cost.

• Base cost is applied regardless of a customer’s choices on the booking form.
• Block cost is the cost per block that was assigned in the General tab. If a customer books multiple blocks, this cost is multiplied by the number of blocks booked.

Display cost does not affect the actual cost of the product. In the example above, the product page displays 300 on the frontend. The cost is displayed to the user on the frontend. Leave blank to have it calculated for you. If a booking has varying costs, the lowest available cost is shown and is prefixed with the word “From:”

Beneath the display cost, you have an area where you can define extra costs. This works similar to availability. Click Add Range to begin:

A row appears where you can input the range type, from/to and cost:

The from/to values differ based on the range type:

• Date range – from/to will show a datepicker field
• Range of months – from/to will show a dropdown of months (January to December)
• Range of weeks – from/to will show a dropdown of weeks (1 to 52)
• Range of days – from/to will show a dropdown of days of the week (Monday to Sunday)
• Time range – from/to will show time inputs
• Date range with time – set based on a custom date range
• Persons count – from/to will show number inputs
• Block count – from and to will show number inputs

Base cost and Block cost can be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided by the amount you enter. Since version 1.10.9, you can also directly set the costs applied for the rule.

Rows can be removed by clicking the X on the far right, or dragged and dropped to sort using the handle on the far left.

Persons

If the booking can be made for multiple persons at once, tick the Has persons checkbox. Once selected, a new tab appears:

You can set a min and maximum for persons. Similar to duration, the customer can input a value on the frontend booking form, if enabled.

Persons also impacts the following cost options:

• If multiple costs by person count is enabled, all costs are multiplied by the number of persons the customer defines.
• If count persons as bookings is enabled, the person count is used as the quantity against the block. Remember the max bookings per block setting above? That determines the upper limit for allowed persons per block. Once the limit is reached, more persons cannot book.

The Persons tab also allows you to define different prices depending on the person type. You might want to offer a different price for children or for teachers on a museum tour for example. To set up different person types, tick the Enable Persons Type checkbox in your Persons Tab:

Once you tick this checkbox, you have the option to add multiple types.

Give your Person type a name and define the cost for the type. Adding a description is optional.

You can define a minimum and a maximum number for each person type. For example, you could require at least one adult for each booking while making children optional (minimum 0). If you leave Max blank, there are no other restrictions than those of the bookable product itself.

Clicking the Unlink button will remove the person type from the product. The person type will still exist, but be hidden, this is so previously created bookings are not broken.

Resources

For added flexibility, WooCommerce Bookings supports Bookable Resources that can be booked independently within a bookable product. Tick the Has resources checkbox to enable a new tab:

There are two types of bookable resources:

• Customer selected – A booking form shows a dropdown list of resources that the customer can select.
• Automatically assigned – A resource is automatically assigned to a customer booking if available.

An example use case for a customer selected resource would be a room type, such as single and twin rooms.

An example use case for an automatically assigned resource would be a hair salon where the resources are staff and someone is assigned a booking. More at: Hair Salon.

After enabling resources, choose your type. If you have chosen Customer selected be sure to give your resource a label. This is what is shown on the frontend booking form.

Resources can be used globally across multiple products. For more information, see: Using Resources in Bookings.

The post Creating a Bookable Product first appeared on CODIBU.

Installation

1. Download the .zip file from your WooCommerce account.
2. Go to: WordPress Admin > Plugins > Add New to upload the file you downloaded.
3. Activate the extension.

Once installed and activated, a Bookings menu appears in your dashboard.

More information at: Installing and Managing Plugins.

Use cases

WooCommerce Bookings is built with flexibility in mind and aims to cover a variety of use cases with the same interface and logic. Examples of possible use cases for bookable products include:

• Booking services and appointments
• Hotel reservations, using the free WooCommerce Accommodation Bookings add-on
• Rentals/Hires

That said, there are some use cases that Bookings is unsuited for. For example:

• A one-off event tickets — an event is not a booking, and the existing Digital/Downloadable Product Handling or WooCommerce Box Office might be a better fit!
• A recurring event (i.e., every week) — Bookings is unable to handle recurring events.

Understanding how bookings works

WooCommerce Bookings adds a new product type called Bookable Product. Bookable products are given options such as availability, pricing, persons, and resources. Adding a bookable product is typically the first thing you do after installation.

See: Creating a Bookable Product

When a customer views a bookable product, they fill out the booking form and do one of two things:

• Add the booking to their cart and pay
• Enquire about bookings availability without payment, if the booking requires approval.

See: Customer booking process

After checking out with a bookable product in the cart, a new order and a new booking are created. The order is used to track payment, the booking has details about the service booked and stores the customer’s information.

See: Managing bookings

The post Getting Started with Bookings first appeared on CODIBU.

• A schedule block displaying a list of available slots in a day, a week or a month.
• A calendar block displaying available slots on a weekly or monthly calendar.

Both blocks enable customers to customize the booking if it has options available and add it directly to their cart.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher, with the Gutenberg Block Editor
• WooCommerce 3.6 or higher
• WooCommerce Bookings 1.14.5 or higher (separate purchase)

Should WooCommerce Bookings be absent or deactivated when installing Bookings Availability, a notification will appear.

Installation

1. Download the extension from your WooCommerce dashboard.
2. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload and select the ZIP file you just downloaded.
3. Click Install Now, and then Activate.

This adds two blocks to the Block Editor under WooCommerce called:

• Bookings Calendar
• Bookings Schedule

Setup and Configuration

To use the WooCommerce Bookings Availability extension, you need:

• An active install of WooCommerce Bookings. More info at: Getting Started with Bookings.
  and
• One or more bookable products. More info at: Creating a Bookable Product.

There are three steps to setup:

1. Add a block.
2. Select products.
3. Configure settings for the block.

Adding blocks to a post or page

Following installation and activation of WooCommerce Bookings Availability, a message appears and guides you to the next step.

1. Select an existing page or post, or create a new page or post, where you would like to offer bookings to customers.
2. Select the ⊕ in the upper left corner of the Editor to add a block. More info about adding blocks at: Adding a block.
   
3. Go to the WooCommerce category and toggle open to find the Bookings blocks.
   
4. Select Bookings Calendar or Bookings Schedule to add, and it then appears on the page or post.
   

Learn how to configure the block in the next sections.

Selecting products to display

Once a Bookings block is added, specify which products to display and their availability:

• All bookable products displays the availability of all products.
• Specific bookable products displays availability of only certain products. If this option is selected, search for the name of the desired product(s) or tick the box(es) on the list.
• Specific categories displays availability of products associated with certain categories. If this option is selected, search for the name of the desired category/ies or tick the box(es) on the list.
• Specific resources displays availability of products using certain resources. If this option is selected, search for the name of desired resources or tick the box(es) on the list.

Select Done to save your selection(s).

To correct an error or make a different selection, select Display Different Products to go back to the previous screen and start again.

Now that bookable products have been selected, the last step is to configure settings for the Bookings block.

Configuring a block

Bookings Calendar block

1. Select the block to show the Bookings Calendar Block Schedule and Display Settings in the right sidebar.*
   
   *If the Block Settings do not display in the right sidebar, toggle the kebab menu (three dots) to open more options and select Show Block Settings.
   
2. Enter a preference for each setting.
   

    

   • Schedule settings allow you to change the selected products, offering the same options the block displayed when first added to the Editor (section above). Should you make a different selection than the current, be sure to finish setup with Done to save changes.
   • Display settings offer a way to change how the calendar is displayed to customers.
     • Time range allows switching between a weekly or monthly view of the calendar.
     • Show date navigation toggles visibility of controls that allow customers to move forward/back on the calendar. Off: Only shows current week/month.
     • Show sold-out times toggles visibility of bookable slots that are no longer available.
   • Advanced is for CSS styling.
3. Update to save.

Bookings Schedule block

1. Select the block to show the Bookings Schedule Block Schedule and Display Settings in the right sidebar.*
   
   *If the Block Settings do not display in the right sidebar, toggle the kebab menu (three dots) to open more options and select Show Block Settings.
   
2. Enter a preference for each setting.
   

    

   • Schedule settings allow you to change the selected products, offering the same options the block displayed when first added to the Editor (section above). Should you make a different selection than the current, be sure to finish setup with Done to save changes.
   • Display settings offer a way to change how the calendar is displayed to customers.
     • Time range allows switching between a daily, weekly or monthly view of the calendar.
     • Show date navigation toggles visibility of controls that allow customers to move forward/back on the calendar. Off: Only shows current day/week/month.
     • Show all available times provides pagination. Off: Only the number specified in Maximum number of times to show at first is displayed when a block is initially shown, then the same amount is rendered as the customer scrolls down.
     • Show empty dates toggles visibility of only available times/dates and not slots already sold or booked.
     • Advanced is for CSS styling.
3. Update to save.

Removing a block

To remove a block:

1. Select the block.
2. Toggle the kebab menu (three dots) to open more options.
3. Remove Block.

Usage

Customers have different ways to interact with bookings, depending on the Bookings block selected and how it’s configured.

Bookings Calendar

Customers are presented with a weekly or monthly calendar that displays available bookings.

Hovering over any slot displays a popup.

which contains additional info for that booking:

• Date
• Time
• Price
• Button to book or customize this option

If navigation is enabled, the calendar also has arrows in the top right corner that give customers the ability move forward/back.

Bookings Schedule

Customers are shown an ordered list of available slots, each with the product name, time, price and, as in the Calendar block, a button to book or select options.

If the block is configured to only show a certain number of slots, a link to load more items is displayed at the end of the list. Otherwise, new events are auto-loaded as the customer scrolls down.

The post WooCommerce Bookings Availability first appeared on CODIBU.