Hotel Booking Calendar – Optimand vs ShootCal Web Calendar

The Optimand plugin is a dedicated booking interface designed specifically for the hospitality industry. It provides a powerful, local tool to streamline the room reservation process directly from your WordPress site. The core feature is the Smart Calendar: a high-performance availability and rate search tool. This plugin is fully functional and includes all layout templates, custom translations, and granular design options. It allows guests to select dates and room requirements on your site before being redirected to your Booking Engine (BE) URL to complete the reservation. The plugin supports automatic configuration for 16 major booking engines (Bedzzle, Blastness, Bookassist, Bookingexpert, D-Edge, Ennismore, Ericsoft, Ermes, Guestline, Little Hotelier, Mirai, Sabre Synxis, Simple Booking, Travelclick, Verticalbooking, Web Hotelier) and allows manual configuration for any custom booking URL. Key Features: * Fully Local & Functional: All styling, templates, and settings work directly within WordPress. * Smart Redirect: Acts as a bridge, sending guests to your Booking Engine with pre-selected dates and guest information. * Visual Configurator: Match the calendar design to your theme by adjusting colors and layouts without touching any code. * Multi-language & Currency: Built-in management for international guests with customizable text strings. * Dual Integration: Use the provided shortcode or trigger the calendar from any existing button via CSS selectors. * Multiple Presets: Create and manage up to 2 different calendar configurations for your site.

Using the ShootCal app? Paste your embed – that is the main way. ShootCal hands you a ready-made embed (an iframe snippet). Paste it into this plugin’s block or shortcode and it just displays your live availability calendar – the same one shown on shootcal.com, including client self-booking. It stays current on its own and is immune to page caching, so there is nothing else to set up. (You can also paste that snippet straight into any builder’s HTML / “Embed” block without this plugin at all; the plugin is the WordPress-native convenience.) Other calendars work too. Prefer to render on your own page, or not a ShootCal user? Paste any iCal (.ics) feed URL – Google, Apple, or Outlook – and the plugin draws a clean month grid itself, in availability or full-calendar mode. Those self-rendered calendars are what the Display settings, per-embed colors, and Page caching option apply to; a ShootCal embed carries its own and ignores them. ShootCal Web Calendar is the companion plugin for the ShootCal scheduling app for Mac and iOS. Publish your availability – or a full calendar – on your website straight from the calendar you already keep in ShootCal, which hides your personal events, builds each day’s availability from your session types, and auto-detects your timezone. It also works with any iCal (.ics) feed – Google Calendar, Apple, or Outlook – so you can use it with or without ShootCal. Add it to any WordPress page or post in one of two modes. Availability mode shows which days are available, limited, or booked without ever exposing your event titles, locations, attendees, or descriptions. Full calendar mode shows each event’s title and time on the grid – handy for a public schedule like sunrise/sunset times, office hours, or class times. Built for photographers and other service providers who want to show clients when they can book, without manually updating a calendar on their website every week. How it works Each calendar’s feed URL lives on the embed itself – the block’s Calendar feed URL field, or the shortcode’s url attribute – so different pages can show different calendars. In WP admin, Settings > ShootCal Web Calendar has a shortcode generator: paste a feed URL, pick a mode, and it checks the feed and hands you a ready-to-paste shortcode. Block users just add the “ShootCal Web Calendar” block and paste the URL in its sidebar. Any iCal feed works: Google Calendar – open your calendar’s settings, scroll to Integrate calendar, and copy the Secret address in iCal format. Apple, Outlook, or other iCal feeds – paste the feed’s iCal URL. ShootCal app (for ShootCal users) – open the Mac app, go to Settings > Website > Connect to your website, and click Copy URL. A ShootCal feed additionally hides your personal events, builds each day’s availability from your session types, and auto-detects your timezone and how many months to show. The plugin fetches the feed server-side, caches it for 10 minutes, and renders a clean month grid. In availability mode it keeps only busy start/end times and discards all event detail; in full calendar mode it shows the event titles and times. Privacy The plugin only reads the iCal feed server-side. The cached data lives in your WordPress site’s object cache or database (transient) and is purged when you clear the cache or change settings. The feed URL lives in the shortcode or block where you use it – treat it like a password. Note that full calendar mode intentionally displays event titles and times, so only point it at a feed whose contents are meant to be public. Features Two display modes: availability (free/busy shading, no detail) or full calendar (event titles + times) Per-embed feed URL (shortcode url or block field) plus a built-in shortcode generator – show different calendars on different pages Works with any iCal feed: Google Calendar, Apple, Outlook, or a ShootCal app feed Month grid showing up to 36 months ahead, with previous / today / next navigation and keyboard arrows Available / Limited / Booked status per day, with booked time windows shown on Limited days and a color legend Tap-to-expand booking times, plus a tap indicator on phones Per-embed Limited / Booked day colors (availability mode) and Sunday or Monday week start (the display timezone follows your WordPress site setting) Optional “Page caching” mode that loads the calendar via JavaScript so it stays fresh behind Varnish or page-cache plugins Privacy-first, accessible markup (ARIA grid, keyboard nav, AA contrast), and assets that load only on pages that use the calendar Shortcode attributes url – the iCal (.ics) feed URL to display (required). mode – “availability” (free/busy shading, default) or “full” (show event titles + times). multi_session_day – availability mode only. “1” (default): a day with only timed sessions shows as “Limited”. “0”: any event marks the whole day “Booked”. limited_color – availability mode only. Hex color (e.g. #fce3a8) for the “Limited” day shading. Default: the built-in soft gold. booked_color – availability mode only. Hex color (e.g. #f6b9a3) for the “Booked” day shading. Default: the built-in soft coral. months – how many months to display (1-36). Default: setting value (auto-detected for ShootCal feeds). first_day – “0” for Sunday, “1” for Monday. Default: setting value. timezone – IANA timezone override for this embed. Default: your WordPress site timezone (or, for a ShootCal feed, the feed’s own). Example: [shootcal_web_calendar mode="full" url="https://example.com/feed.ics" months="3"] Tip: build a shortcode under Settings > ShootCal Web Calendar – paste a feed URL, pick a mode, and it validates the feed and outputs the shortcode for you. External Services This plugin reads a calendar from the iCal feed URL(s) you put in your shortcodes or blocks. Each request is made from your web server (not your visitor’s browser) whenever a month grid is rendered and the 10 minute cache has expired. The plugin only ever contacts the URLs you configure; with none set, it makes no external requests. Only the request itself is sent – no data from your site or your visitors is transmitted. In availability mode the plugin keeps only busy start/end times, discarding titles, locations, attendees, and descriptions; in full calendar mode it also keeps event titles and times (by design, to display them). The service contacted depends on the URL you use: Google Calendar If you use a Google Calendar secret iCal address, the request goes to Google’s calendar servers (calendar.google.com). This service is provided by Google. See Google’s Terms of Service (https://policies.google.com/terms) and Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy). ShootCal If you use a ShootCal feed URL from the ShootCal Mac app, the request goes to the ShootCal feed service (feed.shootcal.com). This service is provided by Ryan Smith Photography. See the terms and privacy information at https://shootcal.com. Other iCal feeds If you use any other iCal URL (for example from Apple or Outlook), the request goes to whichever service hosts that feed. Refer to that provider’s own terms and privacy policy.