Booking Management System 2.0

Version 2.0 of the Booking Management Add-on for the CabGrid Pro WordPress taxi plugin has been released. It includes a number of new features including;

  • Calendar view with daily itinerary
  • Add, edit & duplicate bookings from the admin
  • Checking for timing conflicts
  • Customisable messaging
Note: Please still refer to the information below which describes the functionality of version 1, most of which still applies to v2.

Manage CabGrid booking requests from the WordPress Admin

In it’s standard form, CabGrid expects users (taxi companies) to have their own booking processes. Therefore, booking requests are simply emailed to the website administrator, whereon they are dealt with manually. (See: Managing taxi booking requests. Note: CabGrid Pro v4.4 introduces raw data CSV attachments in notification emails.)

The Booking Management add-on for CabGrid Pro adds online booking management to the CabGrid Pro WordPress plugin. This means that bookings are stored in the WordPress database and can be processed (accepted, declined, cancelled, deleted, etc.) from the WordPress admin section of your website.

This Add-on is now available to try via our back-end demo and buy for your website.

Installing the CabGrid Booking Management Add-on

The Booking Management Add-on ZIP file is downloaded once payment is complete. It will then need to be uploaded to WordPress. This is the same process as adding the main CabGrid Pro plugin. The first part of the CabGrid installation tutorial video shows how it is done, however here are step by step instructions:

  1. Log in to WordPress admin
  2. Click PLUGINS > ADD NEW (from the left side menu)
  3. Click UPLOAD PLUGIN
  4. Click CHOOSE FILE or BROWSE. A file browser window will open.
  5. Navigate to the folder containing the Booking Management Add-on ZIP file and click it to select it.
  6. Click OPEN or CHOOSE to select the file. The file browser will close and the file name will appear in the file field.
  7. Click INSTALL NOW to upload the ZIP file.
  8. Click ACTIVATE PLUGIN to activate it.

A new BOOKINGS item will appear as a tab on the CabGrid Pro admin page or as a sub-menu item in the main CabGrid Pro menu (on the left). Settings & bookings will appear in this tab.

Cab Grid Pro Workflow (PDF)

Processing bookings with the CabGrid Booking Management Add-on

With this add-on enabled any new bookings will be stored in the WordPress database. Email notifications will still be sent as set in CabGrid OPTIONS.

If a payment is completed via either Paypal or the Stripe Integration Add-on, this will be recorded against the booking in the WordPress database.

The list of bookings is shown when clicking either the ‘Bookings‘ tab on the CabGrid Pro admin page or by clicking the ‘Bookings’ menu item under the main CabGrid Pro menu in the WordPress admin section.

Booking Actions

The right column of each booking displays a set of action buttons. Which buttons are displayed depends on the status of the booking.

The terms ‘ACCEPT’ and ‘CONFIRM’ are interchangeable here and are taken to mean the same thing: confirming or accepting the booking request.

  • A PENDING booking may be ACCEPTED or DECLINED
  • An ACCEPTED booking may be CANCELLED
  • A DECLINED or CANCELLED booking may be DELETED
  • An UNPAID booking can be set to PAID

Details

Full details of the booking including any custom form field and extras can be viewed in a separate window by clicking DETAILS. These are formatted to be printed and there is a PRINT button at the bottom.

Within the booking table itself, supplementary details are shown as the mouse hovers over certain cells. These include status, payment info, address info, and modification dates, amongst others.

Customer communications

 

The customer can be contacted directly via email or telephone. Clicking the customer’s name will open a new email addressed to them. Clicking the phone number will initiate a telephone call (if the device/browser supports calling).

For CONFIRM, DECLINE and CANCEL action buttons a custom message can be entered that will be sent to the customer along with the relevant message.

Include a payment link

 

Optionally, the confirmation email can generate a link to a payment page on your site where the customer can make a payment via Paypal, Stripe (if the Stripe add-on is installed), or both.

To enable this, tick the box above the custom message field labelled, “The link will be included below the custom message.

Sorting, Filtering and Searching Bookings

On the CabGrid Bookings page/tab, booking requests can be sorted by clicking column headings. The list will then be sorted by that column. Clicking the same column again will reverse the order.

The ‘Filter by‘ drop down menu allows only bookings with the selected status to be displayed. This is useful if only pending requests or accepted bookings should be shown.

The search box at the top left of the bookings table will look for bookings by name, email or system reference. For name searches a partial name can be entered (e.g. typing ‘Wil‘ will return results for customers who’s name contains ‘wil‘ like ‘Wilson‘ or ‘Williams‘). If the search text contains an ‘at‘ (@) symbol, custom email addresses will be searched. For system reference numbers, the search text matches the starting characters, so entering ‘210‘ will return all bookings whose reference number begins ‘210….

Pressing the Enter (or Return) key submits the search text and returns results.

Calendar Events

calendar event iconA CONFIRMED and PAID booking will offer an ‘Add to Calendar‘ link icon displayed in the Pickup Date column. Clicking this link will download a calendar event file (.ICS). This can be added to a device calendar. Hand-held devices will often add events automatically.

Exporting/Backing Up Bookings

From version 1.4 of the Booking Management Add-on, it is possible to export taxi booking data as CSV (comma separated) file. CSV files can be opened or imported to common software such as Microsoft Excel.

To export bookings:

  • Insure all the bookings to export are in view on the BOOKINGS page.
    • Optionally, use the filter or search function to limit the bookings displayed.
    • Use the ‘records in page‘ links at the bottom to show ALL if necessary.
  • Select the bookings to export. Either:
    • Click the SELECT box next to each booking to be exported, or
    • Click the SELECT ALL box in the top right row of the bookings table to select all displayed records
  • From the ‘With Selected’ drop down menu above the bookings table, choose ‘EXPORT AS CSV’
    • Click OK in the confirmation dialogue if ok to continue.
    • The CSV file will be processed
    • You will be prompted to download the CSV file to your computer.
Bookings are stored in a table in your WordPress database. This means they can easily be backed up by backing up your WordPress database. There are various plugins available that can do this.

For the technically inclined, this could also do this directly using a mySQL client application. Bookings are stored in your database in a custom table. It’s name will depend on how you have WordPress configured, but look for ‘cabgridprobookings’

 

Bulk Actions

It is possible to process a group of bookings in one go. When this is done, the same supplementary message will be sent to each of the selected customers. However, if the payment link option is selected, each customer will receive their own dedicated link.

To use this feature a group of bookings must be selected. This can be done either by clicking the SELECT box next to each booking, or using the SELECT ALL button at the top of the table. The SELECT ALL function will select all bookings currently displayed, thus it is advisable to search or filter bookings and insure all matching books are in view by selecting ‘ALL’ by ‘Bookings per page:’ at the bottom of the booking table.

Once the required group of bookings is selected, choose the action from the ‘With Selected‘ drop-down menu at the top of the booking table. You will be asked to confirm your choice before the action is started.

You can ACCEPT (CONFIRM), DECLINE, CANCEL, DELETE or EXPORT.

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