Configuration

[TOC] OS Services Booking provides a comprehensive setup that allows your store to operate smoothly and adapt flexibly to your needs. The Configuration section is divided into multiple tabs, making it easy for you to manage and customize features in an intuitive and efficient way.

General tab

This tab contains the basic configuration settings for your Service Booking system, including business name, date and time format, currency format, footer content, and meta keywords.

Download ID We have option to allow you to upgrade component directly from Back-end side. To ensure the benefit of customers in the use of the product and also to increase security for online upgrade feature, you must register Download ID for all domains that you want to use OS Services Booking. To register new Download ID number, please go to http://joomdonation.com/download-ids.html. You will need to login before you can go to this page. Once you have Download ID from us, please fill it into field: Download ID in Configuration page. After that, you will able to upgrade new OS Services Booking verion from your Back-end side easily.
Show Update Available When there is new version of OS Services Booking available for updating, the system will show the update available message in Dashboard. If you don't want to show this message, set this to No

Business Name – The general name of your OS Services Booking system. This name will appear in email content and on OS Services Booking pages.

Date/Time Format – Defines the date and time format used in your OS Services Booking system.

Date Format – Specifies the format for displaying dates.

Time Format – Specifies the format for displaying time.

Notification Email Address – This email address will receive all notification emails from the booking system.

Notification Mobile Number – This mobile number will receive SMS notifications from the booking system. Ensure that the SMS feature is enabled to receive messages.

Bootstrap Version – OS Services Booking supports Bootstrap 3,4 and 5. Choose the version that matches your website template.

Load Twitter Bootstrap – If using Bootstrap 2, enable this option to load the Twitter Bootstrap library. If your template does not support Bootstrap, turning on this option may resolve display issues, such as non-functional service and resource name fields.

CSV Separator – Choose a CSV separator based on your system settings. The two available options are Colon (:) and Semicolon (;).

Select Currency – Choose the currency to be used in the OS Services Booking system.

Currency Symbol Position – Determines where the currency symbol is displayed relative to the amount. Options: Before or After.

Integrate GCalendar – Enables integration with Google Calendar. If enabled, when a customer books an appointment with a resource, an event will be automatically added to the employee’s Google Calendar. If the customer cancels, the event will be removed. Admin must enter the Google Account API for each resource. For more details, refer to the GCalendar integration section.

Reminder

This tab contains configuration parameters for reminder notification emails sent to customers who have booked your services.

The OS Services Booking cron task is responsible for sending reminder emails and sms messages to customers when the services they ordered is about to arrive.
In previous versions, you can setup the Cron task command to file: root -> components -> com_osservicesbooking -> cron.php But on Joomla 4, this way is no longer work. To fix this situation, we improved the system plugin: OSB Cron task. In new OS Services Booking versions, you can setup the Cron task command on your hosting to run the function to send reminder emails and sms to customers. By default, OS Services Booking Booking uses a system plugin to trigger sending reminder emails and SMS process. That mean it requires someone access to the site (search engine bots are also counted) to trigger process. Sometime, it is not reliable or causes multiple emails sent to administrators in case your site has a very high traffic. To address that limitation, you can setup cron job from your hosting account to trigger sending reminder notifications instead. Please see detailed instructions below:

Go to Extensions -> Plugins, find the plugin System - OS Services Booking - Cron task , click on it to edit. You should see a parameter called Trigger Code . Enter a secret string there.
Setup a cron job to make a request to this URL using CURL (note that you should use the CURL so that the variable can be passed in the GET request, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11375260/cron-command-to-run-url-address-every-5-minutes for detailed instructions

domain.com/index.php?trigger_reminder_code=SECRETCODE

  • Replace domain.com/ with URL of your site
  • Replace SECRETCODE with the secret string which you entered in the Trigger Reminder Code parameter

That will make the reminder only processed when there is a request made to that URL (which should be secret as no real users will access to that URL). It will make it more reliable compare to replying a system plugin.

Booking Configuration

This part contains all important configuration parameters related to booking information.

User Settings

Select User Group for Resources – This setting utilizes Joomla’s ACL (Access Control List) functionality. Since resources can view their work schedules on the front end, you may create a dedicated menu for them (for staff resources). However, if you set the menu access level to "Registered," all registered Joomla users (including non-resources) will see it, which may cause confusion.

To resolve this, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new user group in Joomla by navigating to Users > Groups > Add New Group and entering a name for it.

  2. Go to Users > Access Levels > Add New Access Level, and assign the new group to it.

  3. In OS Services Booking > Configuration > Booking Configuration tab, select this group in the Select User Group for Resources field.

  4. When creating a menu item for resources, set its access level to the newly created group.

This ensures that only resources can see the menu from the front end.

Resource Can Change Availability Status – Allows resources to modify their availability status.

Required Login/Registration –

  1. Yes – The booking form will display login and registration options, requiring users to log in or sign up before booking.

  2. Optional – Users can proceed with booking without logging in or registering.

Show Register Form – Enables or disables the Joomla registration form on the checkout page.

Select Special User Group – Allows you to designate a specific user group whose members do not need to make a payment when booking services. This is useful when customers book by phone, and your staff manually adds their booking request via the front end.

Payment Settings

Disable Payments – If enabled (Yes), the system will hide all price information for services, and customers will not be required to make any payments when booking an appointment.

Enable Tax – Enables tax calculation in OS Services Booking.

Tax Payment – Specifies the percentage of tax that will be added to the total order amount.

Deposit Payment – Defines how the deposit is calculated:

  • A percentage of the total amount.

  • A fixed amount based on the total order value.

Allow Pay Full Amount – If enabled, customers can choose to pay the full order amount instead of just the deposit.

Enable Early Bird Discount – Activates discounts for early bookings. Service-level discounts override standard service prices and are not cumulative.

Enable Slots Discount – If enabled, customers will receive discounts when they book more than X custom time slots.

Allow Remaining Payment – Allows customers to pay the remaining balance of their booking at a later time.

Deposit Payment Failure Order Status – Defines the order status (Pending or Canceled) when a deposit payment fails.

Remaining Payment Failure Order Status – Defines the order status (Pending or Canceled) when the remaining payment fails.

Allow Pay Full Amount – If enabled, users can choose to pay the full order amount instead of just the deposit. This option is only applicable if the deposit is less than 100% of the total order amount.

Booking Settings

Disable Timeslot of Service When One Resource is Booked – If a service has multiple resources, enabling this option will disable the timeslot when one of the resources is booked.

Disable Timeslots of Venue When One Resource is Booked – If enabled, when a timeslot of a service in a specific venue is booked, all other timeslots for services in that venue will be disabled.

Apply Rest Time to All Resources and Linked Services –

  • Yes – Rest time applies to all resources of the service and any linked services.

  • No – Rest time applies only to the specific resource for whom the appointment was booked.

Resource Can Work in Multiple Services at the Same Time –

    Yes – Resources can be booked for multiple services at the same time. Example: Resource A is booked for Service B from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM, another customer can still book Resource A for Service C during the same period.

    No – If Resource A is booked for Service B from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM, they cannot be booked for any other service during that time.

Select Maximum Timeslots Per Order – Defines the maximum number of timeslots a customer can add to a single booking.

Prevent Registered Users from Booking More Than One Timeslot Per Date – If enabled, registered users cannot book more than one timeslot per day. This applies only to logged-in users.

Limit Bookings Per User/Email – Allows you to restrict how many bookings a Joomla user or email can make per day, week, or month. Set to 0 for no restrictions.

Step in Minutes – Defines the interval for available booking times. For example, with a 15-minute step, available times would be 10:00, 10:15, 10:30, etc. (Note: This setting only affects normal time-slot services.)

Default Order Status – When payment is disabled, choose the default order status:

  • Pending
  • Completed

Use QR Code – If enabled, OS Services Booking will generate a QR code and include it in the booking confirmation email and invoice.

Notification Email Address – The email address that will receive notifications when a customer makes a booking request.

Send Confirmation Email – Defines when the system sends a confirmation email:

  • None – No confirmation email is sent.
  • After Completing the Booking Form – Sent after the customer fills in the booking form.
  • After Completing Payment – Sent only after the payment is successfully processed.

Send Payment Confirmation Email – Defines when the system sends a payment confirmation email:

  • None – No payment confirmation email is sent.
  • After Completing Payment – Sent after the customer successfully completes the payment.

Temporarily Cart Live Time – The time (in minutes) a selected timeslot remains in the cart before being released.

Min Check-in Date – Sets the minimum number of days in advance that a booking can be made. Example: If set to 1, the first available date for booking is tomorrow. Leave blank or set to 0 to remove this restriction.

Max Check-in Date – Sets how far in advance customers can book an appointment. Example: If set to 7, customers can book appointments within the next 7 days. Leave blank or set to 0 for no limit.

Add Multiple Slots Per Session – If enabled, customers can add multiple timeslots to their cart in a single session. (Note: This only works with the Radio Timeslots theme.)

Enable Waiting List – If enabled, customers can join a waiting list for a fully booked service with a specific resource.

Remove Confirmation Step – Normally, after checkout, there is a confirmation step displaying all booking details. You can remove this step if desired.

Apply Venue Feature – If your system has only one venue, enabling this option allows venue-related settings (e.g., disable booking before/after a certain time).

Order removal Settings

Allow customers to cancel the booking request – Enables customers to cancel their booking requests if needed.

Allow customers to remove order items – If enabled, customers can remove individual items from their booking request.

Customer can cancel the booking request – Specifies the number of hours before the appointment when customers are allowed to request a cancellation.

Remove payment failure orders – Automatically deletes orders if the payment process fails.

Auto remove pending orders – If enabled, pending orders will be automatically deleted after a specified period.

Remove pending orders after – Enter the number of hours after which pending orders will be removed.

Remove pending offline orders after – Enter the number of hours after which pending offline orders will be removed.

Other Settings

Generate ICS file – When enabled, the system will generate and send .ics calendar files to customers after they complete a booking.

Send ICS file to administrator and resources – If enabled, .ics files will also be sent to administrators and resources.

Activate Linked Services – This feature allows you to link a service with other services that have the same type and timeslots. When a service is booked, the timeslots of linked services will either be occupied (for normal timeslots) or reduced (for custom timeslots).

Active comment & review – Enables customers to leave reviews and rate both services and resources.

Checkout Menu Item ID – You can enter a Fields integration – Allows OS Services Booking to integrate with Joomla User Profile. The system will retrieve and update user profile fields from Joomla’s user data.

Email required – Determines whether the email field is mandatory. If you use online payment, it’s recommended to enable this option, as many payment gateways require customer email information.

Form fields

Show field Salutation in booking form – Enable this option if you want to display a salutation field (e.g., Mr., Mrs.) in the checkout form.

Show First name in the booking form – Enable this option to include the first name field in the checkout form.

Show field Phone in the booking form – Choose whether to display the phone number field in the booking form.

Show field Country in the booking form – Choose whether to display the country field in the booking form.

Show field City in the booking form – Choose whether to display the city field in the booking form.

Show field State in the booking form – Choose whether to display the state field in the booking form.

Show field Address in the booking form – Choose whether to display the address field in the checkout form.

Show Captcha in the booking form – Select ‘Yes’ to enable a CAPTCHA in the booking form. If enabled, OS Services Booking will use Joomla’s built-in CAPTCHA. You can also choose JD Captcha, but you must install it before selecting this option.

Bypass captcha for registered users – Choose whether registered users can skip the CAPTCHA verification.

Enable term and condition – If enabled, the Terms and Conditions section will be displayed in the booking form on the front-end.

Default Term and condition article – Select the article that contains the Terms and Conditions.

Invoice Setting

Activate Invoice Feature – If enabled, invoices for bookings will be generated automatically.

Send Invoice to Customer – When set to Yes, invoices will be attached to the notification emails sent to customers.

Send invoice to admin – Choose whether the administrator should receive a copy of the invoice.

Invoice will be sent when order status is – Select the order status at which the invoice will be generated and sent to customers. It is important to choose the correct status, as setting it to "Pending" may result in customers not receiving the invoice.

Send invoice in payment notification email – Enable this option to include the invoice in the payment success email.

Send invoice to order – If set to Yes, a PDF invoice will be sent to customers once they complete their booking requests.

Invoice Start Number – Define the starting number for invoices. For example, if set to 100, the first invoice will be numbered 100, the next 101, and so on.

Invoice prefix – Enter a prefix for invoice numbers. For example, if set to "IV," the invoice numbers will follow the format IV00001, IV00002, etc.

Invoice Number Length – Set the total length of the invoice number. For example, if set to 4, the invoice format will be IV0001, IV0002, etc.

Invoice PDF font – OS Services Booking supports various fonts; select one for use in generated invoices.

Invoice Format Content of Invoice – Customize the content format for invoices.

Note: Please do not make any changes in these tags [NAME],[PHONE],[EMAIL],[DETAILS] Because when the system creates the invoices, it will find those tags and replace by the real data. We will not be responsible when the system creates the wrong invoices after you have changed those tags.

Note: In case you are using Joomla multilingual, you will able to translate invoice content into different languages.

SMS setting

SMS:New booking notification (To admin) The sms will be sent to administrator when customer make the appointments booking request
New Booking, customer just add new booking with ID {OrderID}

Note: Please do not change {OrderID}

SMS:New booking notification (To customer) The confirmation sms will be sent to customer
_You have booked service(s) from {businessname}, your order ID is {OrderID}

Note: Please do not change {OrderID} and {business_name}

SMS:Payment complete (To admin) The sms will be sent to administrator after customer complete the payment Content Payment complete, Customer has paid for the order {OrderID}

Note: Please do not change {OrderID}

SMS:Payment complete (To customer) The sms will be sent to customer after they complete the payment
_You have paid successfully for service(s) from {businessname}, your order ID is {OrderID}

Note: Please do not change {OrderID} and {business_name} SMS:Booking reminder (To customer) The reminder sms will be sent to customer You have cancelled the booking request. Order ID {OrderID} Note: Please do not change {OrderID}

SMS:Booking request cancelled (To admin) The sms will be sent to administrator when customer cancel the booking request Booking cancelled, customer has cancelled the order {OrderID}

Note: Please do not change {OrderID}

You must have an account with Clickatell.com.The data for this screen comes from your Clickatell.com account's "Manage My Products" page. You should ensure you account is functioning properly before incorporating it into OS Services Booking. To test your Clickatell.com account copy this to your browser:
http://api.clickatell.com/http/sendmsg?user=[your user id]&password=[yourpassword]&api_id=[your api_id]&to=[your cell number]&text=Test+from+OSB

Note: your cell number must include the country dialing code, for example add '1' in front of your number for USA and Canada - 14035551212 (no dashes)

The above messages that will be sent to administrator and customers. SMS text messages are limited to 160 characters in length so we need essentially a short text. In SMS msg content, we can't add the order details like service names, resource names, start and end time v.v. because they may over the limit characters. We only can add the Order ID number in the text message, you can change the message content, but please do not change "{OrderID}". When the system process to send the SMS, it will replace {OrderID} by the Id number of Order

Note: To send the SMS to one mobile phone number, system need country dialing code. So if you select not to show the dial code dropdown list in booking screen, the system will get the default dial code when it send the SMS message. If administrator want to receive the SMS notification, admin should enter the mobile number in Configuration, tab Booking Configuration.

Layout Setting

Layout type – OS Services Booking supports both bright and dark templates. Depending on your website’s color scheme, select the appropriate layout type for the frontend.

Checkout Form style – Choose whether to display fields in the Checkout form horizontally or vertically, depending on your template's main body width.

Calendar and Cart position – Select whether the calendar and cart column should be displayed on the left or right side.

Show Tax in Cart – Choose whether to display tax details in the cart box.

Service Cost including Tax – If enabled, the service cost displayed will include tax.

Disable Calendar on Non Available Resources date – If enabled, the top-right calendar will automatically disable dates where no resources are available.

Skip unavailable dates – This setting is useful when using Min Checkout Dates or Disable Booking before options. If enabled, the system will automatically skip unavailable dates and move to the first available booking date on the calendar.

Show Occupied Time Slots – Choose whether to display already booked (occupied) time slots in the booking table.

Show Popup at Front-end – Disabling the JavaScript popup will reduce the number of clicks needed when customers add time slots to their cart.

Using Cart box – Decide whether to use the cart box. If disabled, customers will be redirected to the Checkout page immediately after adding a time slot.

Show customer information in monthly calendar – Enable this option if you want to display customer information in the monthly calendar.

Show total amount in checkout page – If enabled, the total amount to be paid will be displayed at the top of the Checkout page.

Hide Calendar box – You can choose to display the calendar box on all booking pages, hide it from the Checkout page, or hide it from the Booking confirmation page.

Calendar start date – Set whether the week should start on Sunday or Monday.

Show Services and Resources in – Choose between Tab or Select List display formats. If you have many services and resources, switching to a dropdown Select List will prevent overcrowding.

Select Timeslot Theme: Radio and Simple Timeslot themes, It shows time slots of resource in flat buttons. And customer can click on those buttons to add time slots into their cart.

Radio timeslots theme
Simple timeslots theme

Hide Tab when having one item: When your Booking system has one Service or one Employee, the Tab (Contains name of Service or Employee) will be disappeared

Show just one nearest timeslot When this configure option is enabled, OS Services Booking will show one nearest timeslot in Booking table page. When that timeslot is chosen, the next one will show

Show end time of timeslots By default, in each timeslot, we will have start and end time showing, but you can disable this configure option to show Start time only

Show Employee Information bar: (Yes/No)

Show number slots input box: This box will be hidden and number slots value will be setup is 1. This option only available for Custom Timeslot Services

Do you want to show Employee photo and notes in Booking page: Yes/No

Show Employee Cost: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Employee cost in Booking table

Show Venue information: (Yes/No) If enabled, venue details will be displayed in the booking table. This helps customers see where the service will take place before confirming their booking

Show dropdown select list Month, Year: (Yes/No)

Calendar Arrow: Select Calendar Arrow styles

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Header Style: Select Header style in OS Services Booking system.

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Calendar Normal Style: Select Calendar Normal Date style (Top-left calendar)

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Calendar Actived Date Style: Select Calendar Actived Date style (Top-left calendar)

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Calendar Current Date Style: Select Calendar Current Date style (Top-left calendar)

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Show service information box: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Service Information box in Bookign table page

Show service photo: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Service Photo

Show service description: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Service Description

Show Booked Information Box: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Booked Timeslots information

Show Progress bar: Do you want to show Booking Progress bar at the top of OS Services Booking layouts

Progress bar color: Select color of Progress bar

Note: This configure can be overridden by your Joomla template

Time Slots background: Select Background of Timeslots in Booking table

Show available seat of slots This option only be applied for Custom timeslots services, do you want to show number Available Seats of timeslots in booking form

Show Order URL and Cancel URL: (Yes/No) Do you want to show Order details url and Order cancellation url in Order details and Email content.

Email Marketing

This feature is used to setup OS Services Booking with access information for adding customers to your AcyMailing lists. When enabled, OS Services Booking will call AcyMailing and insert a new mailing list user as part of the appointment booking process.
Note:

  1. Changing the status of a booking has no effect on AcyMailing.
  2. Cancelling a booking does not remove a list entry.
  3. OS Services Booking never removes list entries from AcyMailing.
  4. You must have the AcyMailing component installed to use this option. See https://www.acyba.com/acymailing.html

Select Default list: Select Default list of Acymailing that the customers who makes the booking request will be added into. This value can be overrides by special Service.