Take Group Bookings to the Next Level with the Appointment Booking Plugin v. 2.0
Table of Contents
Meet WordPress event booking features! Before this update, our Appointment scheduling WordPress plugin allowed for group bookings, but its capabilities were rather limited.
You could easily accommodate groups when a single person booked on behalf of others, for example, for private excursions or escape room visits.
However, with the release of version 2.0, we’ve introduced a groundbreaking feature: group bookings by independent people. Now, anyone can book the same timeslot, as long as there’s availability for tickets or spots you sell.
With the new WordPress event booking feature, you can:
- Sell tickets for events, workshops, and classes.
- Fill spots on retreats, tours, and excursions.
- Manage inventory for rental items like boats, bikes, etc.
Most importantly, the new feature doesn’t replace our existing group booking capabilities – but expands them significantly. You can now use the plugin in one way or another when you need to sell services and events to multiple people.
How to Enable Group Bookings of the Same Timeslot
To enable group bookings in the MotoPress Appointment Booking plugin, you need to use the same Service settings menu.
There are just 2 new settings you need to configure:
- Tick the ‘Group Reservations’ box.
- Add a Bookable Item Name (must be in plural – tickets, seats, spots, passes).
The second one (bookable item name) will be displayed in multiple booking details if more than one spot is booked:
- the booking calendar/form.
- admin bookings calendar (when clicked on the booking).
- checkout page in the form.
- emails.
- customer accounts.
- external calendar event information.
If only one spot is booked, the information will be visible solely within the admin booking calendar.
The rest of the settings from the previous plugin version must also be set up:
- Min capacity: Minimum capacity per timeslot per employee.
- Max capacity: Maximum capacity per timeslot per employee.
- Multiply price: Multiply price by the number of booked items or spots.
See how it works in the dedicated demo: Run Event Booking Demo
Even if you don’t enable ‘group reservations’ but use the service capacity, you can still add your custom bookable item name for a more tailored booking experience!
If you want to use the group booking functionality the way it was before in the plugin, simply don’t tick the box that says ‘Enable group reservations’.
How Group Bookings Are Combined in the Admin Dashboard
When multiple bookings are made for the same timeslot, it appears as a single booked timeslot in the bookings calendar.
Clicking on this combined booking displays the total number of bookings and seats reserved for that timeslot.
To view a detailed list of bookings for a specific timeslot, click on the total number of bookings.
How is Capacity Distributed among Employees?
A few employees providing the same service? Since the capacity is set for a service per employee but not a specific employee, you might be wondering how the system decides which employee to book when a customer requests multiple spots.
The answer is simple: it’s an automatic optimization so you don’t need to configure it in advance.
Essentially, the plugin prioritizes filling up an employee’s capacity (as per your service capacity settings) before moving on to the next.
For example, if a service can accommodate 10 customers per timeslot per employee, and Employee A has 5 available spots left, a customer booking 5 or fewer spots will be assigned to Employee A. If a customer books 6 or more spots, the system will start assigning spots to Employee B and so on.
Moreover, the price and capacity variations you customize for individual employees are also taken into account for group bookings. To set capacity variables per employee, expand and customize the ‘Customize Service For Employee’ menu in the Service settings.
Examples with MotoPress Themes
How might this new event booking feature work in practice? Let’s take a look at a few WordPress booking themes for appointments and events designed by MotoPress. From boat rentals to workshop, it’s going to work smoothly.
- Using the Touriny travel WordPress theme, you can now sell tickets to independent visitors by customizing capacity per tour and enabling ‘group reservations’.
- Offer workshop and lesson registration with the Edme online courses WordPress theme for multiple students.
- Sell yoga classes and retreats and with the Yogamo yoga WordPress theme by selling spots per class.
- Rent out boats, items, and bikes easier with the Lorenty rental WordPress theme.
What’s in Version 2.1.0?
Hot on the heels of version 2.0 and the WordPress event booking features, our developers delivered version 2.1.0 with several key updates, including:
- For those of you using the ‘full day’ option, we’ve simplified the way of adding it with the ‘All day’ checkbox in the schedule management interface. This will eliminate the need to specify start and end times of the shift.
- We’ve improved the admin search for bookings by customer name, email, and phone in the bookings list.
Summing up: Powerful WordPress Event Booking Feature with Appointment Booking 2.0
Let’s sum up the benefits and nuances of the new – groundbreaking! – feature of the MotoPress Appointment Booking plugin: WordPress event booking.
- The group booking feature has reached a whole new level! Easily fill spots for retreats and sell tickets for events with the new WordPress event booking feature.
- Assigning employees to appointments is an automated, intelligently optimized process designed to efficiently manage employee schedules. It aims to distribute capacity among employees by filling up one employee’s capacity (as per your service capacity settings) before moving on to the next.
- Embrace a whole new experience of using MotoPress themes with the group booking functionality.
