The Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce plugin helps you set up different booking methods such as:
After setting your bookable product with any of the above booking methods, if you wish to restrict your bookings for a date, day, or time slot then it can be done easily with the “Maximum bookings” setting.
You will have the maximum number of bookings for:
1. Specific Dates
2. Specific Dates with Time Slot
3. Recurring Weekdays
4. Recurring Weekdays with a Time Slot
1. Specific Dates
For instance, you conduct seminars on parenting tips namely Parenting Goals and Expectations on specific dates.
Set up your bookable services using the Specific Dates booking method.
In this case, you want merely 150 participants to be present in a particular seminar conducted on the 2nd, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 30th of April 2024.
Add these specific dates and then under the Maximum Bookings field, update the value to 150.
Click on Save Settings to save it.
The front end of Parenting Goals and Expectations will look like this when a customer visits your product page:
Let’s say that you have received 150 bookings for the date 22nd April 2024.
Following this, a customer visits your website to check the dates available for your seminar and tries to choose the date 22nd April 2024.
The date will display the message Booked because its booking has reached its lockout limit.
This is how you can restrict bookings for specific dates by setting its lockout limits.
2. Specific Dates with Time Slot
Let’s take the instance of you conducting the Parenting Goals and Expectations Seminar at 2 different time slots i.e. 10.00 AM to 12.00 PM and 4.00 PM to 6.00 PM for specific dates.
Create this product using the Specific Dates with Time Slot.
If you want to accept a different number of bookings for each time slot then you need to update the Maximum bookings for each time slot.
Create two-time slots with their lockout limit:
- 10.00 AM to 12.00 PM. Set up the maximum bookings to 100
- 04.00 PM to 06.00 PM. Setup maximum bookings to 150
Set up different time slots with different lockout limits for all specific dates. Click on the Save Settings button.
Please make sure that the maximum bookings for dates are not set to anything if you wish to keep the lock for just the timeslots.
In this case, the maximum booking for the specific date 15th April 2024 is left empty.
This would mean that the maximum bookings added to the timeslots for the date 15th April 2024 will be applicable instead of the maximum bookings added for the specific date 15th April 2024.
Once saved, the timeslots can be edited or deleted as shown here:
Suppose you have received bookings for 15th April 2024 for 150 participants.
They’ve selected the time slot 04:00 PM to 06:00 PM.
After this booking, another user selects the date 15th April 2024 to make their booking.
The maximum booking lockout (150 bookings) for the timeslot 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM has already been reached.
That’s why, the only remaining time slot i.e. 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM will be displayed for booking:
This is how you can set different lockout limits for different time slots using the Specific Date booking method.
3. Recurring Weekdays
Let’s take an example of providing a Bungalow for Rent. The availability for it is a day on any weekend.
Set up this product using the Recurring Weekdays booking method.
You wish to accept only 2 bookings on a particular weekend. That’s because you have only 2 bungalows.
Go to the Availability tab.
Update the Maximum bookings to 2 for Sunday and Saturday.
Click on the Save Settings button to save it.
The front end of Bungalows on Rent will look like this when the customer visits your product page:
Let’s say that both of your bungalows have been booked for date 14th April 2024.
After this, another customer comes to your site to have a look at the available dates for booking.
At this point, 14th April 2024 will be shown booked as it has reached its lockout limits.
4. Recurring Weekdays with a Time Slot
In this instance, you are a Physiotherapist whose clinic offers a Six Point Physiotherapy Treatment. It is open from Monday to Friday for a particular time. This setup can be done using the Recurring Weekdays with Time Slot.
If you want only 5 appointments to be considered for each time slot, then you will need to update the Maximum Bookings.
Firstly, enable the bookings for all of your weekdays.
Next, create 2 time slots for all the weekdays.
Set their lockout limit or maximum bookings to 5 as shown below:
After setting both the time slots with lockout limits for selected recurring weekdays, click on Save Settings to save it.
You can now edit or delete the time slots from the Action column.
This is how the product will appear on the front end when a customer tries to make an appointment:
When they try to make an appointment for a particular date, they will get to view the two timeslots added:
Let’s assume that for the date 20th March 2024, 5 appointments for the timeslot 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM have already been booked by a customer.
When a new user comes to your site to book an appointment on 20th March 2024, they will get to select the time slot 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM for further bookings.
This is because the other time slot from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM has reached its lockout limits.
That’s how you can set lockout limits for different time slots for recurring weekday booking method.
Conclusion
To conclude, using the Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce plugin’s Maximum Bookings option start restricting bookings to a day, date, or timeslot more precisely and accurately!