• Before a booking starts
• After a booking starts
• Before a booking ends
• After a booking ends

So, for example, if you want to send a welcome email a couple of days before a user’s booking starts, you can enable the ‘Before Booking Starts’ email and enter 2 in the ‘Days’ field. Your email will be automatically sent two days before the start of the booking.

You can enter content for the email. If you wish to dynamically include the booking ID or the start date, you can use the following tags: {booking_id} and {date}. This will be automatically replaced with the correct data in the email itself.

To enable emails, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. You’ll see the four emails at the bottom of the list. Just click into each one to enable and edit it.

The post Automatic emails appeared first on Plugin Republic.

Each day shows overall availability: just click on individual dates to see what bookings you have for that day and availability information for each bookable product.

To view the back-end calendar, go to Bookings > Calendar.

The post Global calendar appeared first on Plugin Republic.

To enable front-end search, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Bookings > Search and check the ‘Enable search on archive pages’ field.

This will automatically insert a search form at the top of your shop and archive pages. Users will be able to enter the start and end dates they’d like to book, and they’ll see all your products with availability within those dates.

The post Enable front-end bookings search appeared first on Plugin Republic.

How to add a booking manually

Go to Bookings > Add Booking and enter the booking details, including the product, start date, end date and quantity. You can also enter the user details and, once the booking has been published, you can then link it to a new order.

How to edit an existing booking

To edit an existing booking, go to Bookings in your WordPress admin. Click on the booking you wish to edit and click the ‘Edit booking’ button.

You’ll be able to enter a new start date, then a new end date, and enter a quantity if enabled for the product. Click ‘Update’ and your booking will be updated.

The post How to add and edit bookings manually appeared first on Plugin Republic.

Syncing is two-way – meaning that when a user makes a reservation on an external site like Airbnb, your WooCommerce site will update availability and if a user makes a reservation on your WooCommerce site, your Airbnb site will also update its availability.

Remember that most external sites like Airbnb only sync at certain intervals, e.g. every two hours, so you may wish to manually sync if you see an order go through on your WooCommerce site. Please see the relevant service’s own guidance for full details of how to do this. You’ll find links to guidance for the most popular sites at the bottom of this article.

How to set up calendar syncs

Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Bookings > External. Enable the ‘Auto-sync calendars’ option and enter a value in the ‘Sync interval’ field. This value is the number of minutes between each sync. The minimum value is 30. Note that if you have a high number of calendars to sync, there’s a potential performance issue on your site if you sync too often.

Next, go to the Product that you wish to sync. On the Booking tab in the Product data section click the menu item for ‘External calendars’.

Check the ‘Enable sync calendars’ option.

In the table, enter the name of your external service, e.g. Airbnb, and the calendar URL from that site. There’s guidance on how to obtain this URL below. You can sync up to four calendars with external services.

Save your product.

You can now copy the URL in the ‘Export URL’ field and enter that into the correct place in your external site’s settings – guidance below.

How to get your calendar URL from external sites

Use the links below for guidance on syncing with the most popular booking sites.

• Airbnb – https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/99
• Booking.com – https://partner.booking.com/en-gb/help/rates-availability/extranet-calendar/syncing-your-bookingcom-calendar-third-party-calendars
• VRBO – https://help.vrbo.com/articles/How-do-I-import-my-iCal-or-Google-calendar

The post How to sync bookings with third party services (like Airbnb) appeared first on Plugin Republic.

• Block dates after order placed
  This setting will only block a user’s selected dates from other users when the order is placed
• Optimise calendar colours
  Use this setting to display dates using a red, yellow, green design
• Show availability per day
  Enable this setting to allow the user to see remaining availability when hovering over each date
• Show backend calendar
  Enable a calendar in the product backend to allow you to view availability
• Start week on
  Define the first day of the week in your calendars

The post Bookings settings appeared first on Plugin Republic.

Give your product a name and add a description in the same way that you would for a normal WooCommerce product. In the Product Data section, choose Booking for the product type. You’ll see some new options appear.

Use the following options to configure your booking:

• Booking unit
  The booking unit is the basic duration unit that your booking is measured in. Choose from either day, night, or week.
• Max bookings per unit (quantity)
  This is the number of times this product can be booked out per booking unit (day, night, week). So if you are renting out a single room, this should be set to 1. If you are renting out 10 bikes, this should be set to 10
• Booking start day
  If you wish, you can specify a day of the week that each booking must start on. This works well if you are renting a property that always has the same check-in / check-out days.
• Minimum and maximum booking lengths
  You can define minimum and maximum durations for bookings. These are measured in the same unit as the main booking unit so if you’ve chosen days, then you will be defining minimum and maximum booking lengths in days too.
• Postpone start
  You can use this setting to specify the number of days between now and when the booking can start. So if you want two days’ notice before a booking can start, enter 2 here
• Buffer period
  You can enter a value here to add an optional buffer period between bookings. Buffer periods are always measured in days.
• Standard cost
  In the standard cost field, enter the default cost per booking unit. If your standard cost is $50 per night, ensure you have chosen ‘night’ as your booking unit and enter 50 in this field. If your standard cost is $275 per week, ensure you choose ‘week’ as the booking unit and enter 275 here.
• Last bookable date
  You can set a date here as the last date that you are taking bookings. If you only want to take bookings up to the end of the year, use the calendar in this field to select the date. You can change it at a future date if you’re ready to take bookings beyond this date.
• Non Standard Costs
  Click the ‘Add Date Range’ to set a new date range where you might be charging more or less than the standard cost. You can add as many date ranges as you like. If any dates overlap in date ranges then ranges that are higher in this list will take priority over ones lower down. You can drag and drop ranges if you wish.
  Non standard date ranges are designed to allow you flexibility in pricing. Maybe you want to charge more over holiday periods; or you want to charge less during quiet times.
  You can also make some dates unavailable in the calendar. Perhaps you have a villa that you want to use yourself for a couple of weeks. Just add a new date range and enter 0 as the cost to block it out in the calendar and prevent it being booked.

When you’ve set up your product, click Publish and it’s live.

How to set up a weekly booking

In this scenario, we’ll set up a weekly booking that runs from a set day (in this instance, Thursday). There’s a one day buffer period which means that the booking will end on a Wednesday.

Choose Thursday in the ‘Bookings start’ field. Obviously, if you want your booking to start on a different day, choose that.

If you want to ensure that the booking finishes on a Wednesday, enter 1 as the buffer period. If you’re happy for one booking to finish on the same day that the next one starts, you can leave the Buffer period field empty.

That’s it. Enter your costs and other parameters as you wish. When the user goes to book, they’ll only be able to choose your selected start day for the check-in, and the designated end day for the check-out.

How to make dates unavailable

Maybe there are some dates that you don’t want to make your property or facility available. You can block out dates where bookings can’t be made by adding non standard date ranges with a cost of 0. This will prevent these dates from being selected as a start or end date. Please note that you will need to book out time either side of the blocked dates if your booking duration is longer than one unit.

To make some dates unavailable, use the ‘Custom Pricing’ section. Click on ‘Add Date Range’ to create a new row, then add the first and last dates that you want your property to be unavailable. Enter cost as 0.

How to allow bookings on the weekend only

You can make your property available for weekend rental only by setting the start date and the maximum booking length.

For example, if you would like bookings to start on a Friday and end on a Sunday:

• Set the ‘Booking unit’ to night
• Set the ‘Bookings start’ field to ‘Friday’
• Set the ‘Max booking length’ to 2

Users will only be able to start their booking on Friday and will have to end it by Sunday. If you would like to ensure that they can’t book a single night, then set the ‘Min booking length’ to 2 as well.

How to set discounts for longer bookings

If you like, you can apply discounts for longer bookings. Just click on the ‘Discounts’ tab.

There are three settings:

• Discount rate: set the value of the discount as a percentage. For example, enter 10 in this field to apply a 10% discount
• After: define when the discount should apply. So, for example, enter 2 in this field for the discount to start when the booking length is 2 units or more (units are days, nights, or weeks)
• Apply From: choose between ‘All’ and ‘Partial’. If you select ‘All’, then the discount will apply to the whole booking; if you select ‘Partial’, the discount will only apply to the discounted period (not to the entire booking)

The post Create a new booking product appeared first on Plugin Republic.

• A link to download the plugin files
• Your licence key

Installing the plugin

Enter your plugin license

The post Installation appeared first on Plugin Republic.