Set Up Custom Booking Interval using WooCommerce Bookings and Appointment plugin

In this article, we will show you how you can allow customers to choose from multiple intervals for your online bookings. We will cover the WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments plugin, and how it works with the PluginHive’s Custom Booking Interval add-on to provide the required functionality.

PluginHive Custom Booking Interval for WooCommerce Bookings

What does this plugin do?

This add-on is used in business scenarios where customers are required to select from multiple booking intervals. Using this add-on you will be able to set custom booking intervals for your bookable products based on your preferences.

Scenarios where this plugin can be used

The functionality that this plugin provides can be used in the following booking scenarios:

  • Tour Booking
  • Online Rentals
  • Swimming Pool Lessons
  • Sports Arena
  • Therapy Sessions

and many more..!

Explaining Plugin Settings

The add-on has the following settings which you access by clicking the Settings option on the plugin page.

Custom duration settings

  • Bookable Product ID/Name

All the bookable products are available in the multi-select option. You can select bookable products and create multiple custom durations for a product. Or you can club together multiple products and set up a dedicated booking interval for the products.

  • Interval

This option will contain the booking intervals that you want to assign for your products. You can enter multiple values separated by a comma (,) and these values will be available on the product page.

  • Extend Booking Till Next Day Opening Time

This option can be used in the case of rental services where your store will have an opening and closing time. By enabling this the booking intervals can go beyond the opening and closing times of the store. For example:

If you provide bike rentals and your store closes at 9 pm, a customer can place a booking from 8 pm for a duration of 10 hours. This way the plugin will automatically make sure the customer’s booking ends at the first bookable slot of the next day. This way he will be able to return the bike after the store opening time.

Let us now check out how the add-on works based on the business case explained below.

Note: It is not advised to use this plugin in conjunction with recurrent or multiple nonadjacent booking addons.

Business Case – Choose from a Booking Interval of 4 days or 7 days

According to one of our customer’s requirements, “…Hi, does your plugin allow fixed block and price bookings..? For example, if the user selects 4 days as the duration and then chooses the first day of rental, will the plugin automatically populate the last date of rental on the booking calendar..?

To be specific, customers can choose from either 4 days or 7 days and for a 4-day duration, if the first date of rental selected is 01st of August, the plugin must return the last date as 04th of August. 

Also, will it be possible to make the weekends as the first day of the rental..? This way I require the weekend is forced as the first day, with a booking range of either 4 days or 7 days. Also, in the case of 7 days, the rental period should go across the next weekend. 

Will it work with the Bookings plugin..?”

Solution

Pre-Requisites:


*Note
PluginHive Custom Booking Interval addon will work with calendar designs 1 and 2 only.


Follow the steps below to set up custom booking intervals for your bookable products.

  • Install and activate PluginHive Custom Booking Interval add-on
  • Visit plugin settings by clicking on the Settings option
  • Under Bookable Product ID/Name, select the bookable product from the drop-down for which you want to set multiple booking intervals
  • Under Intervals, provide the custom intervals which you want to set for the bookable product.
    In this scenario, since we require customers to choose from either 4 days or 7 days, we need to set the Intervals as 4, 7. You can provide multiple intervals separated by a comma (,)based on your requirements.

Custom Booking Interval

  • Click on Save Changes to save the settings
  • Visit the bookable product and click on Edit
  • Visit the Bookings tab and change the Booking Period to Fixed Block of 1 Day.

custom booking interval of 1 day

  • Visit the Booking Availability tab and enable Restrict Bookings to Start only on Certain Days of the Week option. Now enable Saturday and Sunday options

Weekend Booking start day

  • Save the product and visit the product page.

Bookable Product on the Website

Once the setup is complete, the customers can select from the multiple booking intervals and place a booking as shown in the images below.

  • 4-day Booking Interval

4 day booking interval

You can see the following things in the image,

A – Booking Interval Drop-Down

B – Bookings start days restricted to Saturday and Sunday

C – Booking Interval of 4 days gets selected just by clicking once on 08th September

  • 7-day Booking Interval

7 day booking interval


Final Thoughts…

WooCommerce Bookings and Appointments plugin is a one-stop bookings solution when it comes to WooCommerce store owners. And now, the plugin even supports the functionality to provide customers with a choice of booking intervals – thanks to the Custom Booking Interval add-on.

If you have any queries based on the plugins discussed above, or you have a complex booking scenario, feel free to contact our support team. We will try our best to help you find a solution and set up your online WooCommerce store.