The Notification Pack add-on allows you to set up different notifications for each of your calendars or activities. You will be able to choose per-activity recipients too. It also allows you to set up automatic notifications to be sent few minutes before or after the bookings. All the notifications can be sent via email, SMS and Push, to the administrators and customers.

 

Scheduled notifications (reminder, feedback request…)

You will be able to schedule multiple notifications few minutes / hours / days before or after the bookings. So you can send reminders to your customers before their bookings, and request their feedback afterwards, or keep them coing back.

You can also send scheduled notifications to the administrators few minutes / hours / days before or after a booked event. This can prove useful to automatically send the booking list and other useful information to the person in charge of the activity shortly before it starts.

An example of automatic reminder email

You can set any delay (at 15-minute intervals) and add as many scheduled notification as needed (before and after the booking / the event, to the administrators and to the customers, for a specific activity only, etc.).

Set a delay in minutes before or after the booking

The scheduled notifications are fully customizable, just like the other Booking Activities notifications. You can use the notification tags to display the booking-specific data, and HTML code to build and customize the email as you wish.

Customize entirely the scheduled notifications

There is an option to trigger the sending of scheduled notifications using a direct link so that you can use your own scheduling method (a cron). Otherwise, any page load can do the trick, so you won’t need necessarily to set up a cron.

Trigger the scheduled notifications with or without a cron

In addition, you can send your scheduled notifications by email, SMS and Push, so your customers won’t miss a single reservation anymore!

Create scheduled notifications and send them by email, SMS and push

 

Notifications per calendar / activity / booking type

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 type

This 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).

 

Push Notifications

With Notification Pack add-on you can send every notifications as push notifications. Here’s how they appear on mobile and computer:

A Push notification on an Android tablet
A push notification on Firefox on Windows 10

You can fully customize them. Define the title, the content, the icon displayed along them, the page to be redirected when you click it… You can even choose the small white icon appearing in the mobile status bar. Also if you wish, the “Silent Notifications” option can make your notifications more discreet on mobile.

Set each Push notification title and content
Fully customize your Push notifications

Indeed, the main advantage of push notifications is that your customers can’t miss them. On mobile, the phone vibrates, plays music, a light flashes, and the screen turns on as they come. On a computer, they appear as soon as the user opens his browser (or immediately if it is already the case), even if he is not on your website. And regardless of the device used, push notifications remain displayed until the user interacts with them.

Your customers will need to subscribe to notifications to receive them. A shortcode will simply display a subscription button. Your users will be able to allow your notifications on all their devices.

A shortcode display the button and the button display the pop-up

 

SMS notifications

You can also send all available notifications as SMS. As for emails and push notifications, the SMS content is configurable for each notification. The same applies to the recipients of the notifications sent to the administrators.

Set SMS content for each notification

To send SMS to your customers, you only need to ask their phone number when they register. If you use WooCommerce, a field is already provided for this purpose.
You can choose whether your customers should receive SMS by default. Then, you can use a simple shortcode to display a button to subscibe / unsubscibe.

Display a SMS opt-in button thanks to a shortcode
Bypass SMS sending permission (if not explicitly unsubscibed)

Finally, sending SMS requires a telecom service provider, and you will have to pay an additional cost towards this one for each SMS sent. We chose Twilio, a reference when it comes to send SMS over the web, see their pricing here.

 

Event-specific messages

If you don’t want to create totally different notifications per activity, or if you need to integrate specific instructions for each activity or event into your notifications, it is possible. For example: “Come with your ID”, or “Here is the link to your webinar: …”, etc.

To do so, simply write your message in your event / activity settings, in the calendar editor. You can also set specific messages for groups of events and group categories. Your messages can be fully customized thanks to HTML.

A new to field to input an event-specific message

Then, use the {specific_message} tag in your notifications and the message(s) corresponding to the booking will appear.

Insert this tag in your notifications to display booking-specific messages

 

Activity-specific recipients

You can set specific recipient for each activity / group category. So you can target only the desired administrators to receive notifications about those specific activities, instead of notifying everybody. If you run a marketplace thanks to Booking Activities, this is a must-have; you don’t want your vendor A to receive notifications about your vendor B’s bookings.

Per activity / group category admin notification recipients

 

Requirements

Notification Pack is a Booking Activities add-on, therefore you will need to install and activate Booking Activities plugin first.

⚠ Warning: SMS and Push notifications have their own requirements:

  • To send SMS, you will need to create a Twilio account and recharge your SMS balance with them (see their pricing).
  • To send push notifications, you must have an active and valid SSL certificate on your site (that is, your site URL must start with HTTPS).
  • Push notifications can be received only on the following browsers:
    • Desktop: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera
    • Mobile (Android only): Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Samsung Internet

    (See the updated and detailled compatibility list (or here))

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1.2.22 - 2023/05/23

  • Tweak - Scheduled notifications sent after a booking are now based on the ending time instead of the starting time
  • Tweak - Add event-specific message columns to bookings export and frontend bookings list
  • Tweak - Add tag in Display Pack add-on's events tooltip to display event-specific message
  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.15.13

1.2.21 - 2023/05/04

  • Fix - Prevent scheduled notifications from being sent if the booking is in cart

1.2.20 - 2023/04/14

  • Tweak - Add German translation (by @lillimarilli)
  • Fix - Booking Status selectbox not displayed in dialog to add a notification on MacOS
  • Fix - The "Send when an order is..." option was not displayed in administrator's status change notifications

1.2.19 - 2023/02/24

  • Fix - Do not send new booking notifications when order status changes if already sent
  • Fix - SMS may not be sent to Activity / Group category admin recipients if their phone number has no country calling code
  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.15.8

1.2.18 - 2023/01/09

  • Fix - Custom new booking notifications were sent to customer when booking status changes
  • Fix - Custom status change notifications were not sent to administrator when booking status was different than pending or booked

1.2.17 - 2022/11/24

  • Dev - Standardize dialogs JS and CSS with BA 1.15.5
  • Dev - Standardize the use of nonces with BA 1.15.5 (input name = nonce)

1.2.16 - 2022/10/06

  • Tweak - Use select2 library for options using selectboxes with multiple values
  • Dev - Change js and css minification processor to Google Closure Compiler (replace all .min files)
  • Dev - Change settings id (add banp- prefix)
  • Dev - Compatibility with BA 1.15.4 (managers selectbox)

1.2.15 - 2022/08/31

  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.15.0

1.2.14 - 2022/06/19

  • Dev - (Beta) Compatibility with Persistent Object Cache (Memcached, Redis...)

1.2.13 - 2022/06/13

  • Fix - {admin_message} may be empty if notifications are sent asynchronously
  • Dev - Add hooks to change notifications args before they are sent
  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.14.1

1.2.12 - 2022/06/08

  • Dev - Compatibility with WPML and Booking Activities 1.14.0

1.2.11 - 2022/02/24

  • Dev - Add a hook to filter the bookings retrieved for scheduled notifications

1.2.10 - 2022/01/10

  • Fix - Cannot find Twilio on multisite install

1.2.9 - 2021/09/23

  • Fix - Reminder notifications sent once per group may not be sent for single bookings

1.2.8 - 2021/09/08

  • Fix - PHP error when trying to send a notification once per group

1.2.7 - 2021/08/23

  • Fix - All custom notifications were sent if the booking status was not provided
  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.12.0

1.2.6 - 2021/04/22

  • Tweak - Add a default country calling code field in the settings as a fallback if the phone number country code could not have been determined
  • Tweak - Feedback when the latest scheduled notifications were sent and if the external cron is not properly configured in the Scheduled notifications trigger option
  • Fix - Do not load backend CSS on frontend

1.2.5 - 2021/03/12

  • Feature - Write a message for your customers when you reschedule or cancel a whole event (use the {admin_message} tag in your notifications)
  • Fix - Custom notifications were not sent when changing booking status

1.2.4 - 2021/01/27

  • Tweak - Add a link to the documentation and a warning message in the Scheduled Notifications Trigger option
  • Tweak - Do not send scheduled notifications if the booked event has been deleted
  • Tweak - Remove the title above the specific_message tag. Add the title directly in your notification messages instead.
  • Fix - Scheduled notifications with the same delay and recipient were not displayed in the list
  • Fix - banp_get_notifications_settings did not filter the default notification settings
  • Fix - Do not send the scheduled notification if the booking was made after the set delay
  • Dev - Compatibility with Booking Activities 1.9.0

1.2.3 - 2020/09/11

  • Fix - SMS not sent with recent versions of Twilio's API

1.2.2 - 2020/09/08

  • Fix - Scheduled notifications were asynchronous even when triggered by an external cron
  • Fix - Deprecation warning for the whitelist_options hook in WP 5.5

1.2.1 - 2020/09/02

  • Fix - Twilio install button didn't work
  • Fix - PHP warning may appear in logs when a notification could not be sent with Push or SMS
  • Fix - Allow to insert notifications tags (including Advanced Forms custom fields tags) in {specific_message}
  • Fix - Some texts were not translated

1.2.0 - 2020/08/26

  • Breaking change - The link to trigger reminders externally (with a cron) has been changed
  • Feature - Set up multiple notifications for any existing trigger (reminders, booking status changed, new booking, booking reschduled) and recipient (customer or admin)
  • Feature - Set up different notifications per calendar / activity / group category and for single or group bookings
  • Feature - Schedule notifications after a booking / a booked event
  • Feature - Send scheduled notifications to administrators (before or after a booked event)
  • Feature - Option to send scheduled notifications once per group only, instead of once for each bookings of the group
  • Fix - Support new Twillio path when installed for recent versions

1.1.7 - 2020/06/04

  • Fix - The add-on was not loaded on multisite intalls

1.1.6 - 2020/05/21

  • Fix - Use a standard way to display and fill user selectboxes with respect to permissions

1.1.5 - 2020/05/12

  • Fix - PHP Notice may appear when a notification is sent

1.1.4 - 2020/02/20

  • Fix - Send push notifications to administrators of the current blog only by default on multisite installs

1.1.3 - 2020/01/29

  • Tweak - You can use tags in Push notifications titles
  • Fix - FCMInstallError appears in browser console on the backend
  • Dev - Update sanitize with bookacti_ids_to_array

1.1.2 - 2020/01/16

  • Breaking change - You must update your FCM key and your FCM script according to the [documentation](https://booking-activities.fr/en/docs/user-documentation/get-started-with-notification-pack-add-on/push-notifications-initial-configuration/)
  • Optimization - Load only the necessary files to send Push notifications
  • Fix - Send push notifications to network administrators by default too on multisite installs
  • Fix - Fix some english texts
  • Dev - Update FCM messaging libraries
  • Dev - Better feedbacks for FCM errors

1.1.1 - 2019/10/25

  • Tweak - Allow shortcodes in SMS and Push notifications thanks to the new tag

1.1.0 - 2019/08/04

  • See the friendly release note
  • Feature - Set activity / group category -specific recipients
  • Dev - Replace PHP constant in text domain by a raw string

1.0.10 - 2019/06/06

  • Tweak - Log SMS errors to make them easier to troubleshoot

1.0.9 - 2019/03/01

  • Tweak - Backend javascript and css files are loaded only on Booking Activities screens to avoid conflicts
  • Fix - Dates in reminders were not translated

1.0.8 - 2019/01/13

  • Fix - Send SMS to users who have booked without account
  • Fix - Strip HTML tags for SMS and Push notifications
  • Fix - Use WooCommerce billing country to determine the phone prefix (unused feature)
  • Tweak - Add the {specific_message_raw} notification tag
  • Dev - Change banp_reminder_notifications_sent hook to filter

1.0.7 - 2018/11/29

  • Booking Activities 1.6.0 support
  • Tweak - Check BA option to delete all data before uninstall, in order to avoid accidental data deletion
  • Fix - Update links to booking activities documentation

1.0.6 - 2018/09/28

  • Dev - Add a PHP filter to let thrird-parties change the valid booking status for reminders (banp_reminder_booking_status)

1.0.5 - 2018/06/30

  • Fix - Load on multisite

1.0.4 - 2018/05/05

  • Fix - Load on multisite

1.0.3 - 2018/03/09

  • Fix - PHP notice regarding external reminder calls (banp_send_reminder_notifications)
  • Fix - PHP notice if user has no phone number set

1.0.2 - 2018/01/28

  • Booking Activities 1.3.0 support
  • Fix - SMS were not sent to customers

1.0.1 - 2017/12/27

  • Fix - Specific messages are now displayed in user's lang in notifications
  • Optimization - JS and CSS files are now versioned to refresh cache only when it is necessary
  • Optimization - JS and CSS files are now minified

1.0.0 - 2017/11/12

  • Feature - Send notifications via SMS (with Twilio)
  • Feature - Send notifications via Push (with Firebase)
  • Feature - Send reminder notifications some days before the event starts. You can set the number of days
  • Feature - Use WordPress Cron or a link to trigger reminder notifications
  • Feature - Set a specific message to event, groups of events, activities and group categories and use it in notifications