Bookings Plugins
Learn about the difference between our approved plugins for different kinds of bookings and when to use which.
Find useful information & important detail snippets from the plugin documentation.
Simple Bookings
Plan Type(s): Premium, Woo | Plugin Name: Bookly Lite ((Limited Functionality))
Plugin Details:
Simple & free bookings plugin where the customer chooses the date/time and submits their selection. Bookly Lite is a WordPress plugin that lets you automate booking and online scheduling of your services, save time and money, manage your appointments and client base – all in one place.
Disclaimer: Please note that email/SMS notifications, payments, custom fields and unlimited number of staff members & Google Calendar integration are NOT AVAILABLE in the lite version. You must sign into the site to check for new appointments. There is a limited number of service providers (one). The customer can choose to upgrade to the full version of Bookly but if they want to accept payments they will still need a Woo platform.
When to use Bookly Lite:
Use Bookly Lite when a customer wants to allow simple bookings on their site free of charge.
You can create a staff member of the company, define services and service categories, determine price and duration of the services, associate the services with a staff member, create a schedule, and add the booking form to the front of site.
When NOT to use Bookly Lite:
Do NOT proceed with this plugin as an option if the customer is expecting a high-level bookings plugin, if they want calendar integration, if they want to receive appointment notifications outside of the site dashboard or if they want to sell bookings.
Details and publicly accessible info from plugin documentation:
These are a few crucial company-wide settings that you’ll have to set up before publishing the booking form:
Settings > Business Hours – This will be the default working days and hours for all your staff (=> all appointments). Specify the hours for each team member in Staff Members > Schedule.
Settings > Payments > Currency – The price that you set up in Services has to be shown in a currency, and here’s where you set it. (this does not affect Bookly Lite)
Settings > General > Time slot length – you can treat this as your standard block of time: the entire 24-h day will be divided into time slots with this length. All appointments will be scheduled as per these time slots.
For example, if you set time slot length as 15 min, clients will be offered to book even one-hour-long appointments at 10.00 or 10.15 or 10.30, etc.
Settings > Purchase Code – Copy and paste here the purchase code that you got from CodeCanyon when buying the plugin. This will allow you to get updates of the plugin for free and, in case of any issues or difficulties, get customer service. (this does not affect Bookly Lite - only needed if customer has purchased the full version of Bookly)
Settings > Company – Company name, logo, and address – to be included in emails.
Customize just about anything in the way the front-end booking form looks:
Woo Bookings
Plan Type(s): Woo | Plugin Name: WooCommerce Bookings
Plugin Details:
Paid Bookings extension to WooCommerce where the customer chooses the date/time and purchases their booking slot as a product.
Site visitors must pay for bookings. They can create booking slots, optionally create fixed time slots when bookings are available, or let customers decide. The plugin provides custom-tailored booking costs, you can define custom costs per booking, resource, block, people or duration of the reservation made and you can control booking availability.
When to use Woo Bookings:
Use WooCommerce Bookings if the customer wishes to sell a slot as a product - perfect for those wanting to offer appointments, services or rentals. There is a lot more control and manageability with Woo Bookings over the Bookly Lite plugin. It stands out by allowing email notifications and its seamless integration with Google Calendar.
When NOT to use Woo Bookings:
Do NOT proceed with this plugin as an option if the customer wants a simple calendar free booking option without selling slots as products.
Details and publicly accessible info from plugin documentation:
To view bookings that have been created, go to Bookings in admin. At the top of this screen you can view the standard filter and search area. A list of bookings appears in order of date created:
You can:
- Filter by status using the status links at the top
- Use bulk actions
- Move to trash
- Confirm bookings
- Unconfirm bookings
- Cancel bookings
- Mark bookings as paid
- Mark bookings as unpaid
- Filter by date
- Filter by the product/resource that has been booked
- Search
At the far right of each booking are actions you can perform on the row:
The two main actions are:
- Confirm booking – allowing you to confirm a pending booking and email the user
- View the booking details
Defining global availability rules
Global 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, go to: Bookings > Global Availability.
Click the add range button - This adds a row to the table.
Accommodation Bookings
Plan Type(s): Woo | Plugin Name: Woo Accommodation Bookings (Woo Bookings free add-on)
Plugin Details:
This plugin is a free add on to WooCommerce Bookings plugin (paid) for bookings. Just like in Woo Bookings, site visitors must pay for bookings. They can create booking slots, optionally create fixed time slots when bookings are available, or let customers decide.
The accommodations feature adds a new “Accommodation” option to the WooCommerce Bookings plugin with check-in and check-out times. This allows booking duration to be specified as “number of nights” and adds an “override price” feature that automatically enables special rates (i.e., weekend/holiday rates)
When to use Woo Accommodations:
Use WooCommerce Accommodations Bookings if the customer already has WooCommerce Bookings functionality and wishes to add the option for check-in/check-out times to their products. This add-on works well with sites that have set times for bookable products such as hotels, B&Bs or vacation homes
WooCommerce Bookings is required for Accommodation Bookings to work.
When NOT to use Woo Accommodations:
Do NOT proceed with this plugin as an option if the customer does not have Woo Bookings or does not want to set up bookings as products.
Details and publicly accessible info from plugin documentation:
Site-wide check-in and check-out times are displayed to the user when booking and purchasing and reviewing past bookings.
- Go to: WordPress Admin > WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Accommodations
- Enter the check-in and check-out times.
- Save.
Table Reservations
Plan Type(s): Premium, Woo | Plugin Name: Five Star Restaurant Reservations
Plugin Details:
This is a free plugin used to accept restaurant reservations and table bookings online. Quickly confirm or reject bookings, send out custom email notifications, restrict booking times and more. The plugin allows free table reservations for site visitors - payments are not possible.
If the customer intends to charge the visitor making the reservation, that can be done using another gateway/process after the customer has arrived at the area they booked. The plugin will not conduct any transactions, it will just make note of the bookings, organize them and let you export them.
When to use Table Reservations:
Use this plugin if the customer is looking for a simple, quick way to allow visitors to book tables at their restaurant or club. It doesn't have to be specifically for restaurants only, the plugin can be used for any business that requires the reservation of a spot for a certain amount of people and no payments are involved in making that reservation.
When NOT to use Table Reservations:
Do NOT proceed with this plugin as an option if the customer intends to sell reservations or requires a detailed interface.
Details and publicly accessible info from plugin documentation:
You probably only want to accept bookings when you’re open. Maybe you only want people to book for certain times.
On the Bookings > Settings > Schedule page you can define scheduling rules which limit the times people are allowed to book in your restaurant. (click here to read more)
Restaurant Reservations sends email notifications when a booking is made, rejected or confirmed. On the Bookings > Settings > Notifications page you can customize these emails to fit your brand. (click here to read more)
