Hello David,

Thank you for purchasing our product, and for reaching out to us.

Each shortcode has its own booking process and this cannot be changed. But what you need is our shortcode for the catalog view.

In the view catalog, you need to first select the category and then the service, and only then the date and time it sounds as if this is what you need.

We are sending you all our shortcodes so that you can read how they are used and how they can be combined, we think it will be helpful.

At the moment, the plugin has integration with Elementor and Divi builder, but we plan to add a lot more in the future. Adding specific (multiple) employees, categories, services, or locations through shortcodes is not possible (for example [ameliabooking services=1, 2, 3] is not possible).

Amelia's booking forms and panels can be added to pages using:

1. Gutenberg blocks:

On the right-hand side, there's a slider that you can enable "Preselect Booking Parameters" where you would be able to filter the available services, categories, employees, locations, and whether you're going to display only services, or only packages, or all:

2. Elementor widgets:

When you select the form, you'll be able to select booking parameters, just like in the Gutenberg editor:

3. Divi modules:

When you select the form, you'll be able to select booking parameters, like in Gutenberg and Elementor:

4. Shortcodes. Below is the list of shortcodes available in Amelia:

For Step-by-Step Booking Wizard view:

1. [ameliabooking] if you want to show the basic Step-by-step Booking wizard,
2. [ameliabooking category=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1,
3. [ameliabooking service=1] if you want to show the booking form for the service with ID 1.
4. [ameliabooking employee=1] if you want to show the booking form for the employee with ID 1,
5. [ameliabooking location=1] if you want to show the booking form for the location with ID 1,
6. [ameliabooking category=1 employee=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1 that are assigned to the employee with ID 1,
7. [ameliabooking category=1 location=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1 that are provided on the location with ID,
8. [ameliabooking show=services] if you have Packages enabled, but you only want to show services in the form,
9. [ameliabooking show=packages] if you have Packages enabled, and you only want to show packages, without services in the form.
10. [ameliabooking trigger=custom-id] if you're adding Amelia in the Elementor popup (explained in detail in the "Using Amelia in Elementor Popup" article), you need to add the button ID (class) to the button that triggers the popup, and then define it using "trigger=the-custom-id-of-your-button". "custom-id" is just an example, but you can add any ID you want, so if you add "my-button", the shortcode would be [ameliabooking trigger=my-button].

Please note: Service Description will not be displayed in [ameliabooking] form (it is only available in [ameliacatalog] form), nor will you be able to see the Category selection drop-down in this form

For the Service Catalog view:

1. [ameliacatalog] if you want to show the basic Service Catalog view,
2. [ameliacatalog category=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1,
3. [ameliacatalog service=1] if you want to show this form for the service with ID 1,
4. [ameliacatalog employee=1] if you want to show the services of one specific employee with ID 1,
5. [ameliacatalog location=1] if you want to show the services of one specific location with ID 1,
6. [ameliacatalog category=1 employee=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1 that are assigned to the employee with ID 1,
7. [ameliacatalog category=1 location=1] if you want to show only the services from a category with ID 1 that are provided on the location with ID 1,
8. [ameliacatalog show=services] if you have Packages enabled, but you only want to show services in the form,
9. [ameliacatalog show=packages] if you have Packages enabled, and you only want to show packages in the form.
10. [ameliacatalog trigger=custom-id] - similar to the #10 under "Step-By-Step" booking form (check above)

For the Search view:

1. [ameliasearch] if you want to show the basic search view,
2. [ameliasearch today=1] if you want to show the search view with a preselected current date,
3. [ameliasearch show=services] if you have Packages enabled, but you only want to show services in the form,
4. [ameliasearch show=packages] if you have Packages enabled, and you only want to show packages in the form.

Please note: The Amelia Search booking form cannot include filters like Step-by-Step and Catalog booking forms do, so you can't add something like [ameliasearch service=1].

For the Event booking:

1. [ameliaevents] or [ameliaevents type=list] if you want to show a list of all your events,
2. [ameliaevents tag='name'] if you want to show just the events that belong to the same tag defined during the creation of events, where “name” will be replaced with the tag name,
3. [ameliaevents event=1] if you want to show only the event with ID 1 without its recurring events,
4. [ameliaevents event=1 recurring=1] if you want to show the event with ID 1 with all his recurring events.
5. [ameliaevents type=calendar] if you want to show events in a calendar view.

Please note: If you're using tags in the shortcode, make sure to copy the single quotes from #2 in the list above because of issues with different keyboard layouts that may not apply the tag if used.

Amelia Front-end Customer Panel

1. [ameliacustomerpanel appointments=1 events=1] if you want to show both Appointments and Events,
2. [ameliacustomerpanel events=1] if you want to show only Events,
3. [ameliacustomerpanel appointments=1] if you want to show only Appointments in the Customer Panel.

Amelia Front-end Employee Panel

1. [ameliaemployeepanel appointments=1 events=1] if you want to show both Appointments and Events,
2. [ameliaemployeepanel events=1] if you want to show only Events,
3. [ameliaemployeepanel appointments=1] if you want to show only Appointments in the Employee Panel.
4. [ameliaemployeepanel appointments=1 events=1 profile-hidden=1] - if you want the employee to see all his booked appointments and events, but prevent the employee from accessing the profile, where they can adjust their working hours, days off, special days, and assigned services

If you have any more questions please feel free to open another ticket.

Hello David,

I'm afraid that we didn't quite get what do you mean exactly can you please explain it to us in a little more detail? Do you have issues with cron  or with you regular notifications?

Looking forward to your reply.

Hello David,

When you have several questions or issues which please open a new ticket, and we will help you there. 

In that way, issues and questions which are related to different subjects will be in separate tickets so other customers or our support agents can find them easily. 

Our policy is to have one issue or question per ticket because of the reasons that are described already.

Thank you for understanding.

As for setting up cron properly we will send detailed explanation step by step how to set it up and how the cron works hopefully this will help.

cron is a Linux utility that schedules a command or script on your server to run automatically at a specified time and date. A cron job is the scheduled task itself. Cron jobs can be very useful to automate repetitive tasks like in our plugin for notifications.

Depending on the server, there are different configurations for it, which you can contact your hosting provider about, or you can check out one of the solutions for it on this link.

Also, you can try this:

*/15 * * * * wget -q -O - "https://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wpamelia_api&call=/notifications/scheduled/send"

Or this:

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php ~/public_html/wp-cron.php --action='wpamelia_api' --call='/notifications/scheduled/send'

Or this:

GET 'https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wpamelia_api&call=/notifications/scheduled/send' > /dev/null

WP Crontrol plugin is the best option if you're not familiar with cron jobs. You can find more info about it, and detailed instructions on how to set it up in our FAQ section.

So, if you already read that, and still need some clarification here's some further info.

You copy only the URL from below a scheduled notification:

Then, go to Tools/Cron Events, and click on the "Cron Schedules" tab. In it, add a 15-minute interval:

Then go back to the "Cron Events" tab and click on "Add new":

Below it, select the "PHP Cron event" radio button, and add the URL you copied from Amelia/Notifications in this form:

file_get_contents("yourURL");

Below it add the name and set it to run a few minutes in the future, using the provided time format. So, if you're adding the cron event at 12:45 (local, current time), set it to run at 12:50; and then select the schedule you previously selected:

Click on Add Event, and that's it.

The cron runs every 15 minutes and checks if there's an email to be sent. So, in Amelia Notifications, your scheduled notifications are set to run every day at a certain time. If you set that time to be 15:00 (for example), the emails will be sent when the cron runs after that time.

For example, there's an appointment booked for tomorrow, and it's currently 14:44 - the cron runs, but since it's not yet 15:00, it doesn't send anything. It runs again after 15 minutes, so at 14:59, but there are still no emails flagged by Amelia, so it doesn't send anything. Then it runs again at 15:14 and it sees there's an email that should've been sent at 15:00, so it sends the email. It will only send emails when Amelia sees an appointment scheduled for the next day.

I hope that helps.