Super Simple Availability Search for Woocommerce Bookings

You know what, I need to raise my hand here for a second and admit I made a classic mistake.  Something I hated about when I worked for other companies.  I built a plugin that I thought people wanted, instead of listening closer to what people were asking me.

 

I built Datefirst Pro to provide many different ways to search a single or group of products, by selecting the date first.  Awesome right?  But.. and this is a big one, I built it as I would for my current client and their need to have the search, selection, and booking on the same page.  A very sophisticated way of doing things.

 

Am I saying this is wrong.  Heck no, it’s right, and works great, but it isn’t what everyone needs.  And a new idea has been taking shape this past month.  A new  very simple idea.

 

It started with 2 requests that I received.  Other developers/designers who needed a date first selection to work on their sites.  I asked questions, I over thought it a little, and in the end they really just wanted a little widget to drop into any page to search for availability.  Nothing too fancy, just a nice filter to use where ever it worked on their site and business.

 

Ah, oh yeah, I can do that.  Sure no problem.

 

Of course that got me thinking, is this what so many people were coming to my site for?  Just a simple way to filter out bookable products, and still allow the bookings to happen on the normal product page.  I guess I’m about to find out.  I’ve built a tidy little plugin, Super Simple Availability Search.

 

There are 2 examples out in the wild for you to have a look at.

 

You can see the demo of the plugin I created here.

 

The first is a apartment rental in Spain, Alojamientos Valle del Riopiedra.  Here is their set-up

1. Woobookings with the Accommodation add-on
2. Resources to represent the different rooms
3. Some have a minimum of days needed to book
4. Uses start and finish dates

You select your start and end dates

 

 

A simple list of Apartments available is shown and you then click through to booking.

 

 

The second is bouncy castle hire here in the UK, Total Bounce. Here is their set-up.

1. Woobookings
2. Product with availability but NO resources
3. You must book a minimum of 3 days in advance
4. Select single date of booking

Here you select your date

 

 

A product list is created showing all products that can be booked that day.

 

 

You can see the look and feel is very different between the 2 sites.  I wanted to make sure that you could have a high level of control of the style, based on your theme and how you would like your products to show.

 

To modify the look of the search:

1. Create a new folder in your theme directory called datefirst.
2. Copy and paste the ‘date-selection.php’ file from the plugin directory frontend/templates.
3. Put it into the new folder you created
4. Modify it as needed
5. You can also add your own css file in the same folder.  Name it datefirst.css

 

If you want to change the look of the search result, you simply modify the Woocommerce template ‘content-product.php’ as normal.

 

I get really excited when these types of projects come up.  I get a chance to help businesses that are stuck at a final step in releasing their site.  I also get the chance to analyse, improve, and create something that will help more people.

 

Are you interested in the Super Simple Availability plugin? It’s ready  now $29.  See it here.