Appointment Hour Booking – Booking Calendar vs Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce

Appointment Hour Booking is a WordPress plugin for creating booking forms for appointments with a start time and a defined duration over a schedule. The start time is visually selected by the end user from a set of start times calculated based in the “open” hours and service duration. The duration/schedule is defined in the “service” selected by the customer. Each calendar can have multiple services with different duration and prices. This plugin is useful for different cases like booking of medical services where services with different duration and prices may be available, for personal training sessions, for booking rooms for events, for reserving language classes or other type of classes and other type of services/resources booking where start times are selected and the availability is automatically managed using the defined service duration to avoid double-booking (the booked time is blocked once the booking is completed). Main Features: Easy visual configuration of calendar data and schedules Working dates, invalid/holiday dates and special dates can be defined Supports restriction of default, maximum and minimimum dates Open hours can be defined for each date Each calendar can have multiple services defined Each service can have its own price and duration Start-times are calculated automatically based in the open hours and service duration Available times are managed automatically to avoid double-booking Multiple services can be selected on each booking Services can have multiple capacity Automatic price calculation Customizable email notifications for administrators and users Form validation and built it anti-spam captcha protection Manual and automatic CSV reports iCal addon with iCal export link and iCal file attached into emails Calendar available in 53+ languages Multiple date formats supported Blocks for Elementor and Gutenberg Multi-page calendars Printable appointments list Features in commercial versions: Visual form builder for creating the booking form fields Booking form can be connected to payment process (Ex: PayPal Standard, PayPal Pro, Stripe, Skrill, Authorize.net, TargetPay/iDEAL, Mollie/iDEAL, SagePay, Redsys) Payments are SCA ready (Strong Customer Authentication), compatible with the new Payment services (PSD 2) – Directive (EU) Addons for integration with external services: reCaptcha, MailChimp, SalesForce, WooCommerce and others Addons with additional features: appointment cancellation addon, appointment reminders addon, clickatell and twilio SMS add-ons, signature fields, iCal synchronization, Google Calendar API, Zoom Meetings … Appointment Hour Booking can be used for: Booking services or resources: Define schedule, open hours, services, prices and durations and let the calendar plugin manage the schedule. Sample cases: Medical services, personal training, resource allocation, booking rooms, classes, etc… The services can have a maximum capacity (example: number of persons that can book/attend the service at the same time). The default capacity is 1. If the service capacity has been set to 1 the time-slot will be blocked for new bookings after getting one booking. If the service capacity has been set to a greater number (example: service with capacity 10) the time-slot will be blocked after filling the capacity (example: after getting bookings for a total of 10 persons). This feature is described in detail at https://apphourbooking.dwbooster.com/blog/2019/01/24/bookings-for-multiple-persons/ The Troubleshoot Area Use the troubleshot if you are having problems with special or non-latin characters. In most cases changing the charset to UTF-8 through the option available for that in the troubleshot area will solve the problem. You can also use this area to change the script load method if the booking calendar isn’t appearing in the public website. The Notification Emails The notification emails with the appointment data entered in the booking form can sent in “Plain Text” format (default) or in “HTML” format. If you select “HTML” format, be sure to use the BR or P tags for the line breaks into the text and to use the proper formatting. Exporting Appointments to CSV / Excel Files The appointment data can be exported to a CSV file (Excel compatible) to manage the data from other applications. That option is available from the “bookings list”, the appointments can be filtered by date and by the text into them, so you can export just the needed appointments to the CSV file. Other Versions and Features The free version published in this WordPress directory is a fully-functional version for accepting appointments as indicated in the plugin description. There are also commercial versions with additional features, for example: Ability to process forms/appointments linked to payment process (PayPal, Stripe, Skrill, …) Form builder for a visual customization of the booking form Addons with multiple additional features Payments processed through the plugin are SCA ready (Strong Customer Authentication), compatible with the new Payment services (PSD 2) – Directive (EU) that comes into full effect on 14 September, 2019. Please note that the pro features aren’t advised as part of the free plugin in the description shown in this WordPress directory. If you are interested in more information about the commercial features go to the plugin’s page: https://apphourbooking.dwbooster.com/download

Formerly known as Woo Store Vacation — trusted by WooCommerce stores since 2017. Going on vacation, closing for a holiday, or pausing for a fulfilment break? Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce lets you temporarily stop taking new orders while keeping your store visible to customers. Instead of taking your website offline, the plugin keeps your shop browsable and your products indexed while giving you control over whether visitors can place new orders. Schedule a vacation period, disable purchases, display a clear notice, and automatically reopen your store when the vacation ends. This is useful when you want to: Take time off without receiving new orders. Pause checkout while still letting customers browse products. Show a clear vacation or holiday notice on your store. Let customers know when your shop will reopen. Keep selected products available during vacation mode. Avoid confusion, missed expectations, or unnecessary support messages. Pause WooCommerce orders while keeping your store visible When vacation mode is active, your shop remains online and accessible to visitors. Customers can still browse your products, but purchases can be paused by disabling the cart, checkout, and add-to-cart buttons. This preserves your storefront and product visibility — and your SEO ranking — while preventing new orders during periods when you are unavailable. Schedule your vacation dates Set a start date and end date for your vacation period based on your site’s local timezone. Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce automatically applies the vacation settings during the scheduled period and restores normal store behavior when the vacation ends. You can also deactivate vacation mode manually at any time if you return earlier than planned. Display a custom vacation notice Create a clear vacation message to explain why the store is temporarily closed and when customers should return. The vacation notice can include: Custom message text. Start and end date smart tags. Custom text and background colors. A call-to-action button. A custom button URL, such as a contact page. The notice appears on WooCommerce shop and product pages. You can also place it on other pages using the Store Vacation Notice block, Elementor widget, or [woo_store_vacation] shortcode. Control product availability during vacation mode Sometimes you may want to pause most of your store while keeping selected products available. Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce includes condition settings that let you keep specific items purchasable while vacation mode is active. You can exclude selected: Products. Product categories. Product tags. Product types. Shipping classes. This gives you more flexibility than fully closing the entire store — perfect for keeping digital downloads, gift cards, or pre-orders available while pausing physical fulfilment. Built for real store situations Store Vacation Lite for WooCommerce is designed for the closure situations WooCommerce merchants actually run into: personal vacations, holidays, illness, family emergencies, fulfilment delays, stock reviews, maintenance windows, or short business breaks. The plugin is translation-ready and includes configuration support for multilingual stores using WPML and Polylang. Lite features Schedule a temporary vacation period. Pause purchases automatically during vacation mode. Keep your shop and products visible while paused. Display a vacation notice on WooCommerce shop and product pages. Add the notice anywhere with a block, shortcode, or Elementor widget. Add a call-to-action button to the notice. Use {{start_date}} and {{end_date}} smart tags in your message. Customize notice text and background colors. Keep selected products, categories, tags, product types, or shipping classes available. Allow shop managers to manage vacation settings. HPOS compatible. Translation-ready with WPML and Polylang support. Need more control? Upgrade to Store Vacation Pro Store Vacation Pro adds advanced scheduling, saved-cart tools, storefront controls, and vacation reporting for stores that need to do more than pause purchases. Upgrade to Store Vacation Pro to unlock the full workflow. With Store Vacation Pro, you can: Plan closures for real business rhythms Schedule unlimited vacation periods — plan holidays and seasonal breaks months in advance. Set recurring weekday closures — close every Sunday, every Monday morning, or any custom pattern. Configure opening hours — publish your business hours and auto-close the shop outside them. View a calendar of every upcoming, active, and past closure at a glance. Turn closures into conversions, not lost customers Save Cart for Later — customers can save their cart before you close, then restore it in one click when you reopen. Shareable saved cart link — customers copy, bookmark, or share their cart across devices. Email the saved cart — send the restore link straight to the customer’s inbox from the storefront. Allow cart building while checkout is closed — shoppers keep adding items during vacation and check out the moment you reopen. Countdown timer — show a live counter to your reopening date directly in the notice. Announcement bar — display a site-wide vacation banner across every page. Advance notice before closure — warn customers days ahead so they can order early. Measure what happens while you’re away Vacation reports dashboard — see cart interactions, checkouts, revenue, and unique customers during each closure. Recent activity table — every add-to-cart, cart update, saved cart, and checkout that happened while paused, with product and customer resolution. Filters and CSV export — narrow by date range and vacation period, export the raw event log. Configurable data retention — auto-prune old event logs after your chosen number of days, weeks, months, or years. Track vacation orders — flag and filter orders placed while vacation mode was active, right from the WooCommerce Orders screen. Control exactly what customers see Replace shop pages with custom content — serve your own vacation landing page instead of the default product grid. Password-protect shop access — gate the store behind a shared password. Private access links — send unique URLs that unlock the store for approved customers. Bypass restrictions for unlocked visitors — approved shoppers check out normally while the rest of the store is paused. Hide prices, add-to-cart, and mini cart — strip commerce UI entirely during vacation, converting the store into a browsable catalog. Advanced vacation notices — reusable templates with smart tags, rich text, CTAs, and custom styling. Vacation Content block — build custom pages that only appear while the store is in vacation mode. Fine-tune product availability Exclude by product, category, tag, product type, shipping class, WooCommerce brand, or user role. Copy conditions between schedules so you don’t rebuild the same exceptions for every closure. Ship it with confidence Admin reminder emails — get an email before each vacation starts. Dashboard widget — see upcoming closures at a glance on your WP admin dashboard. Force close the store instantly — pause purchases immediately without setting up a schedule. Import and export settings — move Store Vacation configuration between sites. REST API — access vacation schedule data programmatically. If your store needs recurring closures, multiple schedules, opening hours, saved carts, vacation reporting, or more control over what customers see while the shop is closed, Store Vacation Pro is the best upgrade path.