Availability Calendar & booking is a calendar to show the availability of whatever you might need it for (eg. holiday cottage, hotel rooms etc.).
The shortcode [availbooking name="Voorkamer"] inserts the calendar(screenshot-1) with the bookings information of the -Voorkamer- in the article. An article may contains different calendars each identified by a unique name.
An interface supports a database for the bookings and a database for the price information.
The bookings database contains all bookings for all bookable items (screenshot-2) With the menu -Add new booking- or with the -Add new booking- button a form is available to enter a new booking. (screenshot-3)
With an option the display of the calendar is switched between one month and a block of three months (see screenshot-6 and screenshot-10)
For each separate item (room) a link is created to automatically upload the calendar to external calendars like Airb&b with an ical interface. Synchronisation in the other direction (from external calendar) is also possible.
Remarks on external calendars. External calendars requires a separate advertisement for each item. Download from external calendars needs special attention. The iCal format includes an UID (unique identifier) to identify an appointment (booking) uniquely over the different calendars. So in a sequential download appointments already present can be skipped or updated. Unfortunately some external calendars do not comply to this standard. Each time a download requested from such an external calendar generates a new different UID for the same appointment which result in multiple records with the same appointment. A workaround is first to delete all appointments before downloading the external calendar. For these external calendars the possible recurrent schedule of the download is not very useful.
=Bookings Database fields=
Name: select the name from the list of available bookable items (see settings)
Status: * Requested (Booking filled by the Booking Form, displayed as free) * Reserved (Booking accepted and displayed as busy but waiting for payment) * Booked (Booking accepted and displayed as busy) * Rejected (Displayed as free)
Check-in
Check-out
Email: The email address of the applicant.
Phone number: The phone number of the applicant.
Country: The country of the applicant.
Language: The preferred language of the applicant.
Number of persons The number of persons booked for the room.
The price database contains the price definitions.(screenshot-4) The example of screenshot 4 reads as, the price of the -Voorkamer- is euro 65,00 from 2015-01-05 till 2015-05-21 and is euro 75,00 from 2015-05-22 on. With the menu -Add new price- or with the -Add new price- button a form is available to enter a new price. (screenshot 5)
=Price Database fields=
Name: select the name from the list of available bookable items (see settings)
Date: Start date of the new price.
Price: The new price.
=The menu Settings->WP Availability Calendar & Bookings Settings opens the settings form.=
This settings menu controls the user accesibility of the bookings, prices and the other settings.
=The menu WP Availability Calendar & Bookings-> Settings opens the settings form. (screenshot 6)=
Calendar display: Show one month, 3 months, 6 months , 9 months or 12 months.
Display Last Day as free: If set a new check in after a check out on the same day is allowed.
Show Week numbers: If set week numbers are displayed in the calendar (screenshot 1).
Show Prices: If set the price info is displayed in the calendar.
Price per person : If not set the price is assumed to be per room. This options controls the Total Amount calculation.
Minimum Nights: The minimum nights allowed for the booking and is used in the contactform 7 bookings form.
Small Hotel mode: In the default mode there is 1 calendar per room identified by the name of the room as given in the -List of Rooms- parameter.
In the small Hotel moder there is 1 calendar per room type e.g standard room or deluxe room. The -List of Rooms- parameter gives in this mode the room type with the number of rooms per type.
List of Rooms: List of bookable items separated by a comma.
Default mode: room_name_1, room_name_2,room_name_3
Small Hotel mode: room_type_1:x,room_type_2:y,room_type_3:z x,y and z are the number of rooms of that type.
Use fixed days for check-in and check-out. For the check-in and the check-out a fixed weekday can be selected.
Exceptions can be set by combinations of two dates as 2015-07-25:2015-07-24,date-x:date-y. 2015-07-24 replaces 2015-07-25, as for date-y and date-x.
=Integration with ContactForm7.=
The integrations with ContactForm7 not only sends the email with the booking information but also stores it directly into the WP Availability Calendar & Booking database. It also adds the name of the calendar item (accommodation) to bookings form. (screenshot 7)
This is achieved by adding the shortcode [booking] to the form part of the ContactForm7 settings (screenshot 8) and the shortcode [booking] into the message body (screenshot 9) .
The fields added to the database are:
Your Name - [text* your-name]
Your Email - [email* your-email]
Check-in Date - [text* start_date id:start_date] This must be a text field!!
Check-out Date - [text* end_date id:end_date ] This must be a text field!!
Telephone Number - [text* your-phone]
Country - [select* your-country ....]
Correspondence language - [select* your-language "nl""en"]
Number of persons - [select* number_of_persons id:number_of_persons "0" "1" "2" "3" "4"]
With the options "Show Prices" set the total amount of the booking can be displayed in the CTF7 and the email. To show it on the form add **
** to the form definition close to the number_of_person field. Selecting the number of persons will show the total amount (check-in and check-out must be set). To add the number_of_persons and the total_amount to the email(s) add [number_of_persons] and [total_amount] to the email defintion.
The email 2 of CTF7 may be used as confirmation email to the booker.
=There are three possible combinations of calendar and ContactForm7.=
multiple calendars on one page with on that page the bookings form. This is the default and needs no further actions as the above mentioned insert of the [booking] shortcodes.
one calendar with a for that calendar specific bookings form on the same page. So you need for each page a separate contactform. In this case replace the [booking] in the form part of the contactform settings with [booking room_name]
There are multiple calendar pages (one for each room) with a generic bookings form page. In this case there is only one contactform needed as in situation 2 there is a contactform for each calendar page. -The permalinks settings must be Post name.
-Set the - Title of page with booking form -field in the settings (screenshot 6) to the name of the page with the generic bookings form.
-Insert into the page with the calendar a link to the page with the generic form, add to the link part the name of the room. e.g. <a href="http://localhost/wp/contact/voorkamer">Click here to book</a>
In this example -contact- is the title of the page with the form and -voorkamer- the name of the room.
Default currency: Select the default currency format in the price info.
=External Calendar Sychronisation=
The available links are given in the settings
These links are only available after the list of rooms is set and saved.
External Calendar settings.
These settings controls the mapping to the external calendar fields. See also screenshot 11.
=Import/Export=
With the menu -Import & Export- the bookings and price info can be exported and imported in a new installation. The export file is in xml format.
Export/Import to/from a iCal file is also possible. Only bookings information is included and each room/item needs a separate file. Another option is to download bookings (manual or recurrent scheduled) with a link provided by the external calendar. For each room/item a separate link is required.