Booking for Appointments and Events Calendar – Amelia

I’ve just started a small business and we’re using Amelia for the booking elements it integrates very well with the site and has all of the features that we need. Most importantly, their customer support is very friendly, responsive and helpful. Big shout out to Uros in particular who has been a great help to me in getting started.

I used this plugin as the booking system on a Woocommerce website whilst using Woocommerce for the checkout functionality. I needed to do this because I’m using GoCardless for direct debit customers. Initially the plugin looked good and the ui is slick but unless you stick rigidly to Amelia’s functionality and behaviour things start becoming difficult very quickly.

A real issue for me was wanting to extract and output specifically selected events in my own ui, like a slider pattern for example. The plugin doesn’t use WordPress custom post types and generates all it’s own database tables so you can’t leverage any WordPress post query functions. This is a massive drawback as you are then let with conjuring complex SQL queries to consult the database directly in order to get anything out.

Another major issue is the integration with Woocommerce. The plugin send booking notifications to customers regardless of the order status. I’ve read several Amelia support advisors saying this is just down to the status rules that can be set in Amelia – as of writing this review THIS IS NOT TRUE. Changing these rules does not affect when booking notifications are sent. The plugin sends booking notifications to customers even if you don’t enter any payment details because the notification is only tied to when someone clicks the ‘place order’ button NOT if payment is received. This has caused huge problems with customers receiving booking confirmations but the website then doesn’t receive payment.

Reporting these issues to support has so far proved pointless. It takes support agents days to respond to messages and the responses are ‘minimal’ in nature to say the least.

Then there are other features which seem quite basic but aren’t available: recurring event dates have to have an end date – you can’t just set them to recur continuously, custom fields can’t be set conditionally, multiple attendees can’t have their own set of custom fields so users have book multiple times for the same course for multiple people, attendance lists can’t be linked to recurring events. The more you use the plugin the more issues you find.

I think the plugin is okay for basic use but if you’re looking to do anything vaguely custom I would strongly avoid this plugin. The poor rating is because I’m so frustrated that the support has been so unhelpful and this plugin has caused me hours of delay and cost.

⭐️ If you are looking for an online booking system that provides you with innumerable and beautiful options for formatting, setup, communications and integrations – Amelia is the top choice (and I did a LOT of research!). They have a suggestion board and valuable regular updates.

However the setup was challenging for me since I am a luddite AND I needed to set it up bilingually. The Tech support team is extremely knowledgeable but it is not 24 hour live help, only one issue can be addressed at a time, and issues are not prioritized so the whole setup took me 2 weeks of document-reading & trouble-shooting from after work to midnight. Their A.I. support is a great in-depth, helpful resource. Now that it is up and running, I am incredibly satisfied and happy with it. I would do it all again – it is saving me so much time, my clients love it – highly recommended! ⭐️

• This topic was modified 1 week, 5 days ago by pandamontreal.

I have been using Amelia booking plugin on my WordPress website for several years. I have always found it very reliable and the best value-for-money option on the market. The newest update is awesome, with lots of new features and a very intuitive interface at the back-end.

Very Great Plugin and Perfect Support