Setting Up and Using Webba Appointment Booking Plugin

My client needed a booking plugin that would allow their customers to sign up for classes at their Pottery studio. I had never added an appointment booking functionality to a website so I was eager to begin their website project and learn the process so that I could sell this valuable feature to other clients.

What is an Appointment Booking Plugin?

An Appointment Booking Plugin for WordPress is a component that adds the functionality of allowing site visitors to see what appointment time slots are available and too choose one and “book” it by selecting it, submitting their contact information, possibly paying in advance and sending their intention to have an appointment to the owner of the website. The plugin should also block out the selected time so that other website visitors cannot double book it, causing a conflict.

Who Needs An Appointment Booking Plugin on their WordPress Website?

Almost anyone who sells services could probably use an appointment booking plugin. Attorneys, Instructors, Service Technicians like Plumbers, Handymen or Handywomen, Bed & Breakfast Owners, Studio Rental. Anyone who needs to commit something to a customer for a specific time without having time conflicts could probably benefit from this application.

How Do You Know If Your Website Client Needs a Booking Plugin?

The first step in working with a client, I’ve learned, is to talk my way through the process with the client herself so that I’m in full understanding of her expectations. And this client had some very specific expectations (listed below).

My Client’s Expectations For Their Class Booking Functionality

They needed to be able to…

• schedule classes that were ongoing (Pottery classes were scheduled at three times every Monday.)
• export a list of people who had signed up for a class.
• charge customers online and have them pay for classes.
• use Square as a payment platform.
• force students to choose four classes that they would attend, but classes did not need to be consecutive.
• be flexible enough to allow people to sign up to begin a class at any time. (There was no group “Start Date.” Any class could be someone’s first pottery class or their final class.)

Armed with these client expectations and my own expectations (The plugin had to look attractive and be inexpensive) I began searching the features and trying out appointment booking plugins and I finally settled on Webba Booking Plugin for WordPress.

Why Webba Booking Is My Choice For A WordPress Booking Plugin

Webba Booking is a WordPress Appointment Booking Plugin that has a nice-looking interface, tons of features, is sold at a reasonable price ($89 for the Pro version at the time of this article), has extremely responsive customer service (they replied to my emails promptly and even allowed me a trial Pro Version so I could see if it would work for me!), lots of documentation and a track record of a lot of WordPress installs and 5-Star recommendations.

In fact, the only thing that I could find that was lacking for the Webba Booking Plugin was an overview of how to quickly set up the plugin and an explanation of how the plugin worked, a quick and dirty set-up guide, to give me some idea of the lay of the land.

I had to block out the better part of a day to read their exhaustive documentation and examine every single feature (and there are MANY!) and search for third-party instructional videos (there are FEW!) and to piece together how to use this extremely extensive and full-featured plugin so that I could find out if it would work on my website.

Spoiler Alert!: It works GREAT!

And the lack of an Overview and a Quick Set Up Guide is what I hope this article (and accompanying video) will provide.

The Webba Booking Quick and Dirty Set Up Tutorial

Webba Booking Plugin Tutorial Overview:

Step 1 Install the Plugin

Step 2 Create a Category

Step 3 Create a Service

Step 4 Add a Signup Form to a Page

Step 5 Integrate with WooCommerce