The Notification Pack add-on now allows you to create notification for each calendar / activity, for the administrator and the customer. Moreover, you will be able to send multiple automatic notifications, with different delays in minutes, before and after the bookings, to the administrators or to the customers.
Add notifications
Go to Booking Activities > Settings > Notifications tab to find the “Add a notification” button.
Add any notificationA dialog appears to let you choose the recipient (administrator or customer) and the trigger among:
- Delay before or after a booking / a booked event (scheduled notification)
- The booking status changes (Delivered, Booked, Pending, Cancelled, Refund requested, Refunded)
- A new booking is made (regardless of the status)
- The booking is rescheduled
So you can add some new notifications, create multiple reminders with different delays, send automated notifications before or after a booked event to the administrators too.
Choose a recipient and a trigger to create a notificationThe scheduled notification sent to the administrators are sent once per booked event, while those sent to the customers are sent once per booking (one event can have multiple bookings).
Filter notification per calendar / per activity…
You can also create the same notification multiple times, and then define filters in their settings so that one notification will be used only for a specific calendar, a specific activity, a specific group category, or only for groups / only for single events.
Filter your notification per calendar, activity, group category or booking typeThis allows you to send notifications tailored to the different types of activities you offer.
If you are using Booking Activities on a marketplace, you will be able to create different notifications for each vendors (by filtering your notifications per calendar).
Set the scheduled notifications delay in minutes
You can set the delay before or after the event in the scheduled notification settings. This delay can be set in minutes, hours or days.
Set a delay in minutes before or after the bookingFor example: If you set it to “30 minutes before the event”, then the notification will be automatically sent 30 minutes (or less) before the event.
The accuracy is directly related to the “Scheduled notifications trigger” option in Booking Activities > Settings > Notifications tab. So the notification may not be sent on time / at all. See the conditions below:
Trigger scheduled notifications with or without a cron- If the “Scheduled notifications trigger” option is set to “On any page load (no cron required)”:
- The notification is sent when a page is loaded. So if no page are loaded during the set delay, the notification won’t be sent. If a page is loaded but later than the desired delay, the notification will be late too.
- If the “Scheduled notifications trigger” option is set to “On a specific page load (cron required)”:
- You must visit the provided link every 15 minutes for proper operation (with a cron).
- If multiple scheduled notifications are set and if the previous ones could not be sent, only the latest is sent.
- If the scheduled notification could not be sent before the event, and the event is now past, the notification won’t be sent.
- The notification won’t be sent when it is created / updated for the events currently meeting the conditions. Similarly, the notification won’t be sent when an event / booking currently meeting the conditions is created.
There is also a minimum delay of 15mn by default between each check, to keep good performances.
add_filter( 'banp_scheduled_notifications_min_delay', function(){ return 900; } ); // 900s = 15mnHowever, remember that 1 check per minute = 1440 checks a day, while 1 check per quarter hour = 360 checks a day only. If you are using a cron, 1 check = 1 additional server request, if you are not using a cron 1 check = 1 page load that may take longer, especially if the “Asynchronous Notifications” option is deactivated. So it is recommended to keep that number as high as is acceptable for you.
Automatic notifications after the bookings
Right after you set the delay, choose whether to send the notification before or after the booking (for customer) / the booked event (for administrators).
This is useful to gather feedback from your customers, or to keep them coming back.
Send scheduled notifications once per group
The scheduled notifications are sent by default once per booking to the customers, and once per booked event to the administrators.
Now if you offer groups of events, you may want these notifications to be sent only once per booking group / group of events. You can find this option in the scheduled notification settings.
Send scheduled notification once per group instead of for each booking
New notifications tags
New tags have been added to be used in the notifications. They were actually added in the core Booking Activities 1.8.6, so that everyone can benefit from them.
| Tag | Restrictions | Description |
|---|---|---|
{event_booking_list}{/event_booking_list} |
Administrators only | Event booking list (table). Use [bookingactivities_list] shortcode parameters between the tags. E.g.: {event_booking_list}status="delivered, booked, pending" columns="booking_id, quantity, customer_display_name, customer_email"{/event_booking_list} |
{event_admin_url} |
Administrators only | URL to the booking admin panel. View all bookings for the current event. |
{refund_message} |
For “Refunded” or “Refund requested” notifications only | Message written by the customer during the refund (request). |
{activity_title} |
Activity or Group Category title | |
{activity_id} |
Activity or Group Category ID | |
{calendar_id} |
Calendar ID |