A WordPress booking system only feels simple to customers when the work behind it is organised first. With DayTidy, you create the thing people can reserve, decide when it is available, define what they choose, and then publish and test the customer path. This guide walks through that first complete flow so you can launch with confidence instead of piecing together a form, calendar, and manual follow-up process.
Understand the four parts of a DayTidy booking flow
DayTidy is built around a practical sequence:
- Offering: the event, appointment, class, tour, service, or experience customers see.
- Sessions: the dates and times customers can book.
- Booking options: the ticket or service a customer selects.
- Bookings: the records you manage after customers reserve.
Keeping these parts separate is useful. A workshop might have one offering, several scheduled sessions, and two ticket types. A consultation can use one appointment offering, recurring slots, and a service that depends on a staff member or room being available. Start with one real scenario rather than trying to configure every possible variation at once.
Prepare DayTidy before you create anything
Install and activate DayTidy Free first. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload bookup.zip, install it, and activate DayTidy.
Then open DayTidy → Settings → General. Confirm the date format, time format, currency, and other site-wide preferences before you build public pages. If you plan to use a Pro-only workflow, install DayTidy Pro alongside Free; it extends the base plugin rather than replacing it. You can then enter the license at DayTidy → Settings → License and enable the required modules at DayTidy → Settings → Modules.
For a full installation checklist, see the DayTidy installation and activation guide.
Choose the first booking scenario to publish
Your first offering should resemble the way the business actually works. DayTidy supports two useful starting points:
- Event for a workshop, webinar, class, tour, performance, or another scheduled experience where people choose a ticket.
- Appointment for a consultation, staff service, room reservation, or equipment hire where availability depends on a resource.
Begin with the narrower option if you are unsure. One class with one ticket, or one consultation with one service, is enough to validate the whole WordPress booking system. You can add more offerings, dates, options, and resources after the public flow works.
If a scheduled event is your first scenario, follow the step-by-step guide to creating an event booking for the event, session, ticket, and public test.
Create the offering customers will book
Go to Offerings → Add New. Add a clear title, a useful description, and a featured image if it helps customers recognise the offering. In the Offering panel, choose Event or Appointment.
For an event, you can add details such as a location, host, categories, tags, labels, or agenda items when they genuinely help someone decide to book. For an appointment, concentrate first on the service outcome and the information a customer needs before choosing a time.
The offering is the public promise. Describe what the customer gets, who it is for, how long it runs, and anything they need to bring or know before booking. Do not bury the important decision details in a long paragraph; make the outcome and timing easy to scan.
Add dates and times that match the real schedule
Open the offering’s Schedule tab to choose when it can be booked.
Use Custom Date and Times when you have a one-time event, a small set of dates, or an irregular schedule. Add a start and end date/time for each session.
Use a recurring schedule when the same pattern repeats. DayTidy can generate sessions on a minutely, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly pattern. Set the first start time, duration, repeat interval, and finish method, then check the preview before publishing. A weekly class is usually a better fit for a weekly pattern; a special holiday workshop is usually better as a custom session.
Duration is not cosmetic. It shapes the public information and can affect resource conflict checks, so use the time the booking truly occupies—not only the time a customer spends in front of you. Read the schedule and session guide when your recurrence pattern has more than a few moving parts.
Add the option a customer selects
In the offering editor, open the Booking section. Event offerings normally use tickets; appointment offerings normally use services. Add at least one option with a clear name, price, and available count.
A free event can use a ticket priced at 0. A paid service still needs a name that lets customers understand what they are choosing, especially when you later add longer or premium variants.
Review the offering-specific booking behaviour as well. This is where you can consider confirmation behaviour, booking availability, and the booking or participant fields you need. Keep the first version focused: only collect information you will actually use to deliver the booking.
For detailed options and capacity behaviour, use the booking options, tickets, and services guide.
Add resources only when availability has a real constraint
Resources are useful when a booking must use a particular staff member, room, table, vehicle, or piece of equipment. They are not a requirement for every event or service.
For an appointment flow, create the resource first at DayTidy → Resources → Add Resource. Set its name, type, capacity, timezone, active status, weekly availability, and any exceptions for leave, holidays, or special hours. Then, in the appointment service’s scheduling settings, decide whether DayTidy assigns an available resource automatically or lets the customer choose one.
You can also limit a service to eligible resources, decide whether availability follows service count, resource capacity, or both, and add buffer time for preparation or cleanup. The first appointment booking walkthrough explains this resource-based path in more detail.
Publish the customer booking experience
Publishing the offering creates its public page, which is the simplest place to start. Open that page and check that the title, dates, option names, price, capacity information, and booking fields make sense to a first-time visitor.
You can also place a single offering’s booking form on another WordPress page with:
[bookup-booking id="OFFERING_ID"]Replace OFFERING_ID with the offering’s WordPress post ID. For a reusable archive, calendar, or grid of offerings, create a saved view at DayTidy → Views and place its shortcode on the relevant page. The views and shortcodes guide covers the display choices and shortcode formats.
Test the booking as a customer would
Do not treat publishing as the finish line. Open the public offering page in a private or incognito browser window and make a real test booking. This is the quickest way to catch an unclear field, unexpected date, incorrect price, or capacity rule before a customer does.
After submitting the booking, go to DayTidy → Bookings. Confirm that the booking record has the expected customer details, offering, session, option, payment status, and booking status. If you use an appointment resource, make sure it was assigned as intended. If you use payment, test the appropriate payment path rather than assuming the public form is enough.
The booking management guide explains the record fields, payment states, rescheduling, and cancellation workflow you will manage after launch.
Avoid these first-setup mistakes
Publishing before checking the timezone and duration
Check the site’s settings before creating a recurring pattern. An incorrect timezone or an unrealistic duration can make availability look right in the editor but wrong to customers.
Treating a resource as an optional label
If a service depends on a specific person, room, or piece of equipment, configure it as a resource with actual availability and capacity. Otherwise, the booking flow cannot reflect the constraint that matters in real life.
Creating too many booking options too early
Start with the option a customer is most likely to choose. Add alternatives after the core flow is tested and the difference between each option is easy to explain.
Skipping the public test
An administrator can understand a configuration that a customer cannot. Test in a private window, then inspect the booking record immediately. This validates both sides of the system: the customer experience and the operational record.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use DayTidy for events and appointments?
Yes. Event offerings are suited to scheduled experiences where customers select tickets, while appointment offerings are suited to services with constrained availability. Both use the same basic flow of offering, schedule, booking option, and booking record.
Do I need a resource for every booking?
No. Add a resource when availability depends on staff, rooms, equipment, tables, vehicles, or another limited asset. A straightforward event with a ticket capacity can begin without one.
Can I accept free bookings first?
Yes. Set an event ticket or appointment service price to 0 for a free option. You can introduce a paid payment workflow when it fits your operation.
Where do I manage bookings after they are submitted?
Open DayTidy → Bookings in the WordPress admin. Each record connects the customer, offering, selected session, booking option, submitted details, total, payment status, and booking status.
What to do after the first booking works
Once the test booking is correct, repeat the process for the next real offering. Add resources only where they protect a genuine capacity constraint, and use views when you need a browsable list, grid, or calendar. If you need a deeper explanation of a specific setup decision, the DayTidy documentation is the current reference for product configuration.