Plugin Documentation

Hi,

Thanks for contacting us. You can find a documentation and a knowledge base section on our official website, but if you are going through the first configuration right now, then the page Dashboard of the wp-admin section should guide you through the first-setup wizard.

The minimum configuration to publish the booking process and allow reservations in the public (front-end) section of your website requires the following elements to be configured:

1. Create at least one rate plan from the page “Pricing – Types of Price”. For example “Standard Rate”.
2. Create a room-type, whether it’s a hotel room with multiple units or a Vacation Rentals listing (i.e. apartment/villa), by providing at least the adults minimum and maximum occupancy.
3. Define the base rates (“listing default nightly rates”) for your room-type and for at least one rate plan that was previously configured, for any number of nights of stay allowed (i.e. from 1 to 28 nights).
4. Configure your Shortcodes and link them to WordPress pages to let the URL routing system work properly.

Feel free to reach out to our technical assistance team through our website should you have any difficulties or questions.

Thank you,
The VikWP Team

Hi,

The documentation may not include the first configuration requirements, but if your VikBooking dashboard still shows the first-setup wizard, then it means some mandatory aspects have not been configured yet.

Our plugin is both a Booking Engine and a PMS, and with our E4jConnect service you also get the Channel Manager. It fully supports hotel rooms and/or vacation rental listings (hotels and apartments), but you need to go through the first configuration in order to configure the pricing details. Also, the Free plugin version will only let you configure the base nightly rates, with no possibility of defining “Occupancy-Based Pricing” or different rates on specific dates of the year. Those functionalities are only available in the Pro/Commercial plugin version, but with the Free version you can still read the room rates by using the page “Pricing – Rates Overview” or the Multi-Calendar, available in the page “Bookings – Availability Overview” under the “Actions” drop-down menu.

We invite you to visit the official demo website of VikBooking to see some of the available functions. Also, our team is available to provide assistance or to clarify any doubts you may have with the configuration of your rooms/apartments and their pricing details. You can reach out to our team by using the contact form on any of our websites.

Thank you,
The VikWP Team

Hi,

Thanks for your message. Most management operations are disabled in the demo website to keep its structure intact. That’s why you are getting the “not authorised” error message when testing specific functions.

The scenario you described can be perfectly configured with VikBooking. We believe to have understood that your Villa can be booked with different options, either as a residence (with its own room types) or as an apart-hotel (with the individual accommodations/listings). It is also possible to share the availability calendars across multiple listings/room-types, so that if a listing from the apart-hotel is booked, the system can also occupy some or all room-types of the residence. Not sure if this is something you would need to configure, but the function is indeed available. It’s like offering the “whole Villa” or some individual rooms. In this case, if the parameter for sharing the availability is enabled (at room-level), by booking an “individual room”, then the “whole Villa” would also become unavailable.

As you’ve noticed, seasonal rates cannot be tested or configured with the free plugin version, but VikBooking is part of our certified all-in-one solution (E4jConnect: Booking Engine, PMS and Channel Manager), and so it supports any kind of pricing model (Occupancy, LOS, Standard Calendars etc..). The same exact (and beyond) pricing settings that you would configure on an OTA like Airbnb, Booking.com or Expedia, can be easily configured with VikBooking, and pushed back to all OTAs through the Channel Manager.

If you would like to share your main concerns, then we will be happy to provide answers and solutions. However, testing the pricing configuration may not be fully possible with the free version, nor with the demo website, even though you will find no challenges or difficulties with our full solution.

The VikWP Team

Hi,

You can probably test the shared calendars functionalities also with the free plugin version. What’s very limited with that version is actually the pricing model, beside many other sections of the framework.

The goal is to identify first all possible listings that can be booked. You will need to create a new room record in VikBooking for each listing your guests will be able to book. Then you can take care of sharing their availability calendars. For example, you may allow your guests to book the entire Villa, or the 3 individual apartments. In this example, the total number of room records to create will be 4: “Entire Villa”, “Apt 1”, “Apt 2” and “Apt 3”. The listing “Entire Villa” should be sharing the availability calendars with each “Apartment” (#1, #2 and #3). This way, by booking the “Entire Villa”, the 3 individual apartment listings will also be occupied on the same dates. Instead, by booking “Apt 2”, the system will occupy “Entire Villa” as well as “Apt 2”, but the other listings (Apt 1 and Apt 3) would still be available for bookings. That’s how you configure the shared calendars.

Regarding the pricing configuration: each listing (room record) will have its own guests capacity, and for each combination of adults occupancy, you will be able to define an offset (+/- $/%). That’s how the occupancy-based pricing model works, and it will be fully compatible with OTAs like Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, Vrbo etc.. in case you will ever decide to activate our E4jConnect Channel Manager service with VikBooking.

Regarding the English translations: our plugin defines a textdomain for WordPress to load the official language translation files in PO/MO format. You can use any free WordPress plugin to override specific Gettext translation strings that you wish to change.

We invite you to reach out to our team through our official website should you have any difficulties with the configuration of the booking and pricing settings for your listings.

The VikWP Team