Support » Plugin: Appointments » Does some really illogical things – not a great fit for taking appointments

  • It had so much promise but it just seems to lack the basic needs of an appointments system. I paid for the upgrade and tried using the fully functional version but it offered little extra in terms of functionality.

    Just little things like – as an admin, logging into the backend – there is no global view – therefore, I can’t have visibility over the calendars when a customer calls and requests an appointment change – It turns into a blind booking.

    Also, the widget provides good functionality – but the widget can only be used as a widget! There is no short code to emulate the widget inside a page???

    Also, for the novice, the documentation is terrible – You actually need to insert 3-4 shortcodes to get the calendar to work… And, trying to add service providers was difficult and confusing… It turns out, you can’t add a service provider without them being an existing wordpress user… When you add a service provider, the page just refreshes and nothing happens – so you’re oblivious as to why nothing is working… it just appears to be broken…

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Bojan Radonic – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support4)

    Hey there Shannon W,

    Thanks for your feedback, we appreciate it!

    I see that you had a thread opened on the forum where I helped you with most of your questions. Appointments plugin is pretty complex as it has to be in order to cover all the functionalities it has, there are also a lot of options in the plugin which can be confusing at first before you start using it, but once you start using the plugin it is really easy to use.

    Just little things like – as an admin, logging into the backend – there is no global view – therefore, I can’t have visibility over the calendars when a customer calls and requests an appointment change – It turns into a blind booking.

    You can see all the bookings in Appointments -> Appointments in your admin panel as admin. It is not a calendar but a list of appointments but having calendar there wouldn’t be really easy to go through as there can be multiple providers and services so it would be much harder to follow.

    Also, the widget provides good functionality – but the widget can only be used as a widget! There is no short code to emulate the widget inside a page???

    Not really sure which widget you’re referring to but there are plugins such as this one https://wordpress.org/plugins/amr-shortcode-any-widget/ that allows you to add widgets to your page content.

    Also, for the novice, the documentation is terrible – You actually need to insert 3-4 shortcodes to get the calendar to work..

    Standard page with all required shortcodes can be created automatically from Appointments -> Settings -> Display Settings by checking Create an Appointment Page checkbox and selecting type of calendar for your page.

    And, trying to add service providers was difficult and confusing… It turns out, you can’t add a service provider without them being an existing wordpress user…

    Service Providers have to be users so plugin knows to whom to send confirmation emails related to appointments.

    it just appears to be broken…

    Not really sure what you mean, if you have any specific questions or something is not working properly please open a support thread and we’ll be happy to take a look.

    Thanks for your feedback and have a nice day!

    Cheers,
    Bojan

    Thread Starter SJW

    (@whitsey)

    You can see all the bookings in Appointments -> Appointments in your admin panel as admin. It is not a calendar but a list of appointments but having calendar there wouldn’t be really easy to go through as there can be multiple providers and services so it would be much harder to follow.

    When I’m on the phone, re-scheduling an appointment, I don’t need a list, I just need to see open, available windows to book into to avoid duplication.

    Not really sure which widget you’re referring to but there are plugins such as this one https://wordpress.org/plugins/amr-shortcode-any-widget/ that allows you to add widgets to your page content.

    So your solution to using your plugin is download another plugin?

    Service Providers have to be users so plugin knows to whom to send confirmation emails related to appointments.

    I know that now, when I was setting up though, I didn’t know that, there was nothing to tell me that, no error message or notification at all – just failure

    Even your responses don’t really address the issues. You’re just telling me how to do things differently to use your system – I don’t really want to do things differently, I just wanted it to work like an appointment booking system

    Plugin Author Bojan Radonic – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support4)

    Hey again Shannon W,

    When I’m on the phone, re-scheduling an appointment, I don’t need a list, I just need to see open, available windows to book into to avoid duplication.

    While the plugin is made for front end bookings only, Appointments -> Appointments in the back end is made for admins in case some changes have to be made to bookings, you can easily have two tabs open while you’re on the phone, check booking calendar for specific service/provider to check for available slots and then make an edit based on that in the back end of your site.

    So your solution to using your plugin is download another plugin?

    It’s quite possible that what you’re looking to have in the page content can be displayed with one of the appointments shortcodes, if not using another plugin to get the functionality you need is not a bad solution.

    Even your responses don’t really address the issues. You’re just telling me how to do things differently to use your system – I don’t really want to do things differently, I just wanted it to work like an appointment booking system

    I understand that some parts of the plugin are maybe not exactly working as you want them to or some functionality you’d like to have is not available in it, I’m just trying to help you out to make that to work so you can have the functionality you need.

    If you have any additional questions and are willing to use Appointments plugin please open a support thread and I’ll be more then happy to try to assist.

    Have a nice day 🙂

    Best regards,
    Bojan

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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