WooCommerce Bookings Setup

WooCoommerce + Bookings allows you to sell and schedule bookings right from your site. Unlike with 3rd party services like Calendly or Square there are no fees except what is charged by your payment processor (PayPal, Stripe, Check/Cash).

This tutorial assumes that you have already read and completed these two tutorials:

Setup Bookings Options and Availability

Setup options under Bookings -> Settings

Timezones

Enable Timezone Calculations
Display visitors local time
Display Timezone
Set start day from Wordpress Settings
Change your local time and timezone under the main Admin Menu Settings -> General

Store Availability

There are a lot of potential options, and they might not work as you expect. Some programmer came up with these settings, not a normal person haha. Just follow the guidelines below.

When are you normally available

If every week is fairly uniform for you, setup each days availability separately. Choose Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Etc. Set your available time range for each day. Monday 8am-12pm, Monday from 2pm - 5pm, Tuesday 8am-12pm, Tuesday 2pm-5pm etc.
To schedule a block of days with uniform recurring times choose "Date Range with re-occurring time". eg. Nov1 - Nov 5th 9am - 12:00pm
To schedule a single day or block of time Choose "Date Range with Time"
Set these times as "Bookable". Set the priority for general availability to priority 15

When are you not available

Above we set your availability, and now we can exclude times or dates from that
You can technically exclude recurring times, but I believe it's much simpler to input your availability and only exclude vacations and appointments.
Exclude a range of days (for vacation etc). "Choose Date Range"
Exclude a block of time on a single day Choose "Date Range with Time"
Set these exclusions as Not Bookable and as Priority 14

Google Calendar Sync

** We have to individually enable a Google Calendar API connection for your site ** If you want to use this feature, send us a note and we'll get it setup! **
Sync with Google Calendar under Bookings -> Settings -> Calendar Connection
One way sync - This means Your Bookings Appointments will show on your google calendar. How great! Booked events will show on your Google Calendar within a few minutes.
Two way sync: two way sync means that bookings get added to your Google Calendar, and also your google Calendar appointment block off time as NOT bookable. Remember in Google Calendar you can have many calendars. Make sure to only sync with a calendar that you actually want to use to block unavailable time.... if you're like me and use Google Calendar to remind you to pay bills, don't two-way sync with that calendar or your reminder to pay a bill will block off time.
To Create a new Google Calendar, go to Google Calendars and next to "other calendars" click the + button.

Resources

Resources are things like Rooms, Cabins, Boats etc. For most coaches this is unnecessary and I would leave them blank.

Setup Bookable Products

In the Intro to Booking & Pricing tutorial you should have already decided what products you want to be bookable. If you're unclear about what to setup, contact us for help, that what we're here for!

From your main admin menu under "Products" select "add new".

Fill in the following details

Product Name (i.e. Free Discovery Call )
Product description
Product Data select "Bookable product" (choose virtual). Ignore the Has Persons and Resources unless you have rooms or multiple coaches
Fixed blocks (choose how long your appointments are)
Requires Confirmation - This is a nice idea, but it's a bit clunky and can lead to missed payments or confusion. Instead I recommend keeping your availability up to date and cancelling / rescheduling if a mistake happens. ( Recommend not enabling)
Advanced -> Purchase Note - This is a note sent to the customer on their order confirmation. You could send them instructions, if they are unique to this product. Otherwise you can customize the order confirmation email as well. For example, it might be a good idea to give people instructions on how to reschedule (text me here... or email here to reschedule)
Cost -> Fill in the cost

Availability Details

Max bookings per block: 1 unless you have multiple coaches
Minimum block bookable - how near in the future do you want to allow people to book? Most people might want to give themselves 48hrs / 2 days cushion. eg. If it's Monday, the next available appointment would be Wednesday
Max block bookable - how far out into the future can people book. Don't let it go out further than you've entered your availability
Require a buffer? Up to you if you want to allow back to back appointments
All dates are - Set this to "not available by default". We are choosing to manage your availability under Bookings -> Settings (not separately on each product)
Availability range - Unless you have a specific reason, I would recommend not entering availability for each product. Set your availability under Bookings -> Settings and leave availability under each product empty.