Hello there,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

For cron the best and easiest way to set this up is just to ask your hosting provider to set this, Since cron-reminder notifications are created and set on your server with your hosting provider,

We can send you some instructions but if you are not familiar (even if you are) the best way is to ask them to set this up for you because it is their server and there can be several possibilities for each server.

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Cron is not Amelia's feature cron is a WordPress feature. You can use cron with Amelia, but setting cron is not part of Amelia's support because it is not our feature. If your cron is not working and you cannot set it up, you need to contact your hosting provider so that they can set up cron for you.

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So the procedure is such because this is not our product and this is how cron which are reminder notification works. You are mention other product that can be set by click those products are SaaS. That means that this is done on their servers not on yours and those product are because of that much more expensive then Amelia. We have a booking product also called Trafft which is SaaS and there you can set cron with couple of clicks but since it is a SaaS it is more expensive then Amelia but if you wish to check it out you can do that on this link trafft.com.

With Amelia you need to set everything on your own and cron must be set in your server with your hosting provider and you can reach out to them and ask them to set this up for you.

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We will try to help you as best we can in the meantime 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 in case it doesn't please contact your hosting provider.

Should you have any further inquiries, we kindly request that you open separate tickets for each question and we will gladly help you there.

We wish you all the best and hope you have a wonderful day ahead. 

Hello there,

We thank you for your suggestion and the best I can do is to forward this to our developers so that they can take a look and see if this possibly can change in the future but I can not make any promises. Hopefully, everything will work with WP Control but there is no harm in sending mail to your hosting provider so that they set this up for you on the server. They are familiar with it and this should not take them more than couple of minutes on their server.

Best regards. 

Hello again Franck,

If you can not set it on your own you need to reach out to your hosting provider so that they can set this up for you because this is set on your server.

As we mentioned cron is not Amelia's feature cron is a WordPress feature. You can use cron with Amelia, but setting cron is not part of Amelia's support because it is not our feature. If your cron is not working and you cannot set it up, you need to contact your hosting provider so that they can set up cron for you.

For cron the best and easiest way to set this up is just to ask your hosting provider to set this, Since cron-reminder notifications are created and set on your server with your hosting provider.

Should you have any further inquiries, we kindly request that you open separate tickets for each question and we will gladly help you there.

We wish you all the best and hope you have a wonderful day ahead. 

Hello again Franck,

We are sorry that you feel this way but as we previously mentioned, the functionality you're referring to, regarding cron or reminder notifications, is actually a built-in feature of WordPress itself and can be utilized independently of Amelia or any other plugin. Amelia serves only as a mediator in this process, but the setup occurs directly on your server through your hosting provider.

To enable these features, all you need to do is reach out to your hosting provider, much like you've reached out to us and just send them one simple mail. They will be able to set this up for you on their server.

In comparison, Trafft, our other booking product, operates on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This means that setup is streamlined with just a few clicks, resulting in a higher cost compared to Amelia. With SaaS products, everything is managed on the service provider's servers, allowing for seamless integration such as reminder notifications and calendar integration.

So with Trafft, you can set everything up with just a few simple clicks, because of this possibility, all SaaS products, not only Trafft, cost more than Amelia because everything is set up on the servers of the company that has the SaaS product. When a company has its own server, it can set not only reminder notifications, but also, for example, calendar integration, and you just need to click on it. When you use a product where you don't have a server with a company whose product is Amelia, you need to send a simple email and just tell your hosting provider to set up cron for you.

We understand that the setup process may seem more complex with a self-hosted solution like Amelia, but rest assured, we've endeavored to simplify it as much as possible and at this point this is how it needs to be set. We've even provided preset configurations that your hosting provider can easily implement, further easing the setup process on your server.

We wish you all the best and hope you have a wonderful day ahead. 

Hello again Franck,

Except that Trafft isn't available in French! The languages offered are Spanish, Serbian, Czech, and English. How do you expect me to suggest to my client to use this tool when she won't understand anything???

If you want to offer products that can be sold to everyone, you should seriously think about translating your plugin into French and other languages like you did for Amelia. Without wanting to be mean, how many people speak French compared to Serbian? Let's be serious for 5 minutes... French is spoken by 250 million people compared to only 9 million for Serbian... What would be the most useful for your customers??? - Yes, that's right, and it was available in English at first, now there are more languages and we're adding more and more. Please note that we do not have translators in our company, so all translated languages Amelia has been translated by our customers. Trafft was just an example to explain the difference between a SaaS product where everything is set by the company where you leased that product and a plugin such as Amelia where you adjust the settings yourself in Amelia or in this case with the help of a hosting provider. Where you only need to send them a short email that they need to set up cron reminder notifications, they will do it for you because it is set up on the server of that hosting (while with the SaaS product, you also get a server and that company sets everything up for you)

So, I imagine you're going to tell me that's what you plan to do... someday. The problem is that you've said that about every suggestion I've made to you over the past few months: "someday, we'll do it." "someday, we'll be able to choose the color of days off or on," "someday, we'll be able to choose whether to display the payment for a service," someday we'll be able to, someday we'll be able to, someday we'll be able to. For now, anyway, we're paying almost €100 for a plugin that allows for booking appointments but seems to be in constant development. - We sincerely regret any dissatisfaction you may feel, and we understand that it's impossible to cater to every individual's preferences. We acknowledge that achieving 100% user satisfaction is a challenging feat and impossible for any plugin or software.

You have requests that are not currently available, we currently do not accept individual requests for customization. The best we can say is that it will still be implemented in the future if there are requested by other users as we have explained. So regarding the suggestion feature, it's important to clarify that the mere submission of a suggestion doesn't guarantee automatic implementation. Features with a substantial number of votes receive priority for implementation, such as the cart feature, which has already been implemented, and the upcoming waiting list feature.

For features with a lower number of votes, say 5, 6, or 15 out of, for example, 100,000 votes, there is a higher likelihood that the implementation might not be immediate and could be considered for the distant future. While we currently do not accept personal customization requests, we prioritize features based on the collective needs of the majority. Features with a higher number of votes are identified and they will be implemented sooner. 

We hope this clarifies how our system operates, and we sincerely appreciate your suggestion. We remain hopeful that it might be considered for implementation in the future. Thank you for your understanding and valuable input.

For now, anyway, we're paying almost €100 for a plugin that allows for booking appointments but seems to be in constant development. Next time you develop a plugin, develop it all the way instead of treating your customers like beta testers and doing updates every time you realize there's a bug or a feature missing from the initial plugin... - As we said, we understand that we cannot satisfy the needs of 100% of our users, but we also have requests with a very large number of votes that have already been implemented because the majority of the market requires those options and those options are of course considered a priority because a large number of users are looking for them because are important and necessary to them and we will of course comply with the market situation and develop those options that are requested by a larger number of users. 

As for beta testers, this is an established practice all over the world, even at Microsoft (we are not comparing ourselves to them, of course, we just think it is important to rmention that they do that as well as the vast majority of companies in the world in any area of the market) and every software such as Windows for example has bugs that are solved over time, which is natural, that's the nature of the IT sphere, and it's impossible to make a product without any bugs sooner or later.

Regarding the development of the plugin, I'm afraid we don't agree with that, but we always respect the right to everyone's opinion, we have a very stable development plan for Amelia and in which direction we want it to progress and develop. We certainly follow the requests of the clients and if a feature appears that is asked from 3000 of our users and that will be benefitial to our users, of course we will adjust the development plan to that as well. I would also add if you allow that the vast majority of our users like to participate in the development of plugins and they want to be beta testers, so we don't use them they are glad to be a part of that, but it's something they want, and certainly when something is released into production, the beta version goes first and then full version is released.

Sorry for not being very friendly, but my client just informed me that she's terminating our contract because of your calendar, which is far too complicated to configure for a healthcare professional or even a sports professional. - We are honestly sorry to hear that, this is not just a phrase and we understand you, but not every plugin can be suitable ofr everyone. We have seen cases where users don't want to set up anything themselves, they expect us to set up everything, but they don't want to pay more for that service, like any SaaS software where they can do everything with a few clicks. If we could set the integrations to be simpler, we would do it, but for some things, it is not yet possible to do so. We are very sorry to hear that, and the best thing I can offer you is to check with our team if a refund is possible for Amelia, if that is something you want, considering that the client has given up on Amelia.

Looking forward to your reply. 

Hello again Franck,

I apologize if I crossed the line, I checked with our billing team and a refund is still possible for you if that is something you want and which we completely understand due to the situation where the client gave up on your project.

Looking forward to your reply.