Let’s explore the Resources page and understand how to make your resources available for booking.
Go to Booking & Appointment > Resources > View Resources.
The different resources listed on this page will look like this:
Resources page listing all the resources
Click the resource name or the pencil icon to edit it.
Let’s set a Resource called ‘Kinjal’ and add different settings for it.
The Edit Resource page for Kinjal will look as shown below:
Resource Edit page appearance
Here, you can set the total availability for the resource. Moreover, you can add different settings in the Range Type.
Since there are 4 different range types, you can set her availability as per date range, months, weeks, or days.
Resource Edit page options
You can enable the Bookable option to show Kinjal’s availability.
You can keep it disabled to show that Kinjal is unavailable on selected dates in the booking calendar.
Similarly, you can add holidays for her to show when she will be available for the services.
These resource settings will reflect on all products in the shop.
Let us understand all 4 Range types with examples:
1. Date Range
2. Range of Months
3. Range of Weeks
4. Range of Days
5. Time Ranges
1. Date Range
Select the range of dates from 15th February to 18th February 2018 when Kinjal will be unavailable to provide the service.
Hence the bookable option is kept disabled and priority is set to 10.
Adding date range for the resource
Here’s how it will reflect on the front end of the product on the booking calendar.
The dates are disabled on the booking calendar
As you can see above, because Kinjal was set to not provide services from 15th February to 18th February 2018, these dates show disabled in the booking calendar.
2. Range of months
Let’s select the Range type as a Range of months and add February and March as bookable for Kinjal. Its priority is set to 9.
Range of months setting for the resource
*Note: The resource setting for the range type with the lowest priority set will be considered first. For example, 1 will be given the highest priority while 10 will get the least.
Since the priority of the Range of months is lower than that of the date range, the settings for the range of months will be considered.
This means all the dates for February and March will be shown available for Kinjal as seen here:
All dates for February is shown as available
In the first example, Kinjal was unavailable from 15th February to 18th February 2018. However, here she is shown as available because of the priority settings.
3. Range of weeks
In the Range of weeks, you can either assign the full week for availability or make it disabled for booking, by enabling or disabling the bookable option.
Let’s make the resource Kinjal non-bookable for Week 8 of the year. Let’s set the priority to 8 as shown below:
Adding details to the Range of weeks
Since the priority of the Range of weeks is lower than the Date range and Range of months, the settings of the Range of weeks will be considered.
This means Week 8 of the year which is from 19th February to 25th February 2018 will be shown unavailable to book for Kinjal as shown below:
Week 8 of the year is shown disabled on the calendar
4. Range of days
In the Range of days, you can have specific days of the week available or non-bookable.
For instance, in this case, it is set to all Tuesdays and Wednesdays unavailable for the resource Kinjal.
The priority settings are set to 7.
Range of days settings added for the resource
Here’s how it will reflect on the front end:
Tuesdays and Wednesdays disabled on the booking calendar
The above screenshot shows that Kinjal is unavailable for all Tuesdays and Wednesdays for this service.
Despite other settings, Range by days was considered because its priority was the lowest.
5. Time Ranges
Under Time Ranges you will be able to set up your Resources according to the:
- Time Ranges (all weeks)
- Date Range with recurring time
- Singular weekdays
With the time range options mentioned above, you can make your resources available at any preferred time. Each product can have various time slots, and a product can have multiple resources available. However, each resource might have its unique availability.
For example, let’s say that your product ‘Guitar lessons’ has weekend timeslots from 2 pm to 6 pm. However, your Resource A is only available for weekdays from 5 pm to 6 pm. Hence, it is advisable to have availability of resources based on time.
Note that this setting can be applied to the plugin’s various booking types.
To demonstrate, let’s apply this setting to the following booking types:
Now, let’s have a look at our three cases of this setting:
Case 1: Time Ranges (all week) with Booking type ‘Dates & Fixed time’
Let’s say that you offer ‘Guitar lessons for beginners.’ For this, you have added 1-hour time slots from 9 am to 6 pm daily.
Your resources are two teachers as follows:
Resource A: Priyanka
Let’s say that this teacher is available only from 10 am to 12 pm. Thus when you add this resource, you will have to ensure that the resource is non-bookable from 9 am to 10 am and from 12 pm to 6 pm.
Let’s choose ‘Range type’ as Time Ranges (all week) and create two non-bookable ranges as shown below:
Resource B: Kinjal
Similarly, let’s say that this teacher is available only from 9 am to 11 am and 12 pm to 6 pm.
Here, we will have to ensure that this resource is non-bookable from 11 am to 12 pm as shown below:
Frontend view:
Here’s how the customer gets to see the settings for each resource.
If the customer chooses Resource A, they will get the booking calendar showing all the dates.
However, the time ranges will only show the 10 am to 12 pm time slots.
If your customer chooses Resource B, they will get the booking calendar displaying all the dates.
However, the time ranges will only show time slots from 9 am to 11 am and 12 pm to 6 pm.
Case 2: ‘Date range with recurring time’ for Booking type ‘Duration based Time’
Let’s continue with the product ‘Guitar lessons for beginners’.
For this, you have added 1-hour time slots from 9 am to 2 pm every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
You have configured these settings by choosing the Booking Type ‘ Duration based time’ at the product level.
If your customer wishes, they can take more lessons from you by choosing more hours. Your resources are two teachers as follows:
Resource A: Kinjal
Let’s say that this teacher is available only from 9 am to 11 am and 12 pm to 2 pm between the date range of 20th May 2021 to 30th May 2021.
Thus when you add this resource, you have to ensure that the resource is non-bookable from the date range 20th May 2021 to 30th May 2021 and the time range of 11 am to 12 am.
That’s why under ‘Range type’ you will choose ‘Date range with recurring time’ and fill it in as shown below:
Resource B: Priyanka
Similarly, let’s say that this teacher is available only from the recurring time of 12 pm to 2 pm between the date range of 20th May 2021 to 30th May 2021.
Here, you need to ensure that this resource is non-bookable from 9 am to 12 pm between the date range of 20th May 2021 to 30th May 2021 as shown below:
Frontend view:
If the customer chooses Resource A- Kinjal, their booking calendar will show available dates falling on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 20th May to 30th May 2021.
Under these dates, the available booking time slots will not display 11 am to 12 pm timeslots.
Thus the time slots that would be displayed are 9 am, 10 am, 12 pm, 1 pm, and 2 pm as shown below:
If your customer chooses to go with Resource B- Priyanka, their booking calendar will also show available dates falling on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 20th May to 30th May 2021.
Under these dates, the available booking time slots would be 12 pm, 1 pm, and 2 pm since we had made the time slots from 9 am to 12 pm unbookable. It would appear as such on the front end:
Case 3: Singular weekdays with the Booking type ‘Fixed Time’
Continuing with our Guitar lessons example, let’s say that you offer these lessons for a ‘Fixed time’ of one-hour slots from 9 am to 2 pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
For this, you have one resource, i.e., Priyanka. However, Priyanka is only available to provide ‘Guitar lessons for beginners’ on all three days except for Fridays from 9 am to 12 pm.
To configure this out, under Time Ranges, select Fridays and make the time range 9 am to 12 am unbookable as shown below:
Frontend view:
When customers choose to book these guitar lessons, they will see one resource person on the product page, i.e., Priyanka.
The available booking dates in the Booking calendar will be Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
When the customer chooses a date that falls on Friday, then they will only get two slots, i.e, 12 pm to 1 pm slot and 1 pm to 2 pm slot as shown below:
When the customer selects any day besides Friday, then the Resource’s booking time slots will be all the time slots from 9 am to 2 pm.
This means that on Saturdays and Sundays, Priyanka will be available to give lessons from 9 am to 12 pm as shown below:
Thus, using the Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce, you can customize the availability of your Resources without any hassle.