Quick Start

Get a working booking form on your WordPress site in under 10 minutes. This page is the shortest path from a fresh install to a customer successfully placing a booking.

The five things every Advik Booking site needs

1. Permalinks set to Post name
2. Two pages with the booking + portal shortcodes
3. At least one payment method enabled
4. A data model: item fields → categories → services → add-ons → staff
5. A booking flow that matches your business

1. Permalinks → Post name

Go to Settings → Permalinks and pick Post name. Click Save Changes.

Why? Advik Booking uses WordPress's pretty URLs for the booking page, the customer portal, and confirmation pages. The default ?p=123 format breaks these silently.

2. Create your two pages

1. Create the booking page
   Pages → Add New. Title it however you like (e.g. Book a Clean, Schedule a Service). In the body paste:

   text

   [advik_booking]

   Publish.
2. Create the customer portal page
   Add another page, e.g. My Bookings. In the body paste:

   text

   [advik_customer_portal]

   Publish.
3. Tell Advik which page is the portal
   Go to Advik Booking → Settings → Customer Accounts → Customer Portal Page dropdown. Pick the page you just made. Save.

3. Choose a payment method

Open Advik Booking → Settings → Payments and enable one of:

You can switch at any time. See Pay on Arrival, Stripe, and GoCardless for full setup.

4. Build your data model (the order matters)

Advik Booking separates content from presentation. The data model is the same no matter what industry you're in.

1. Item fields — the building bricks (e.g. Number of bedrooms, Oven size). You can reuse one field across many services.
2. Categories — group your services (e.g. Domestic Cleaning, End of Tenancy).
3. Services — a bookable product. Each service is a bundle of item fields plus a base price and a duration.
4. Add-ons — extras that stack on top (e.g. Inside oven, Laundry wash & fold).
5. Staff — at least one staff member must be assigned to each service, or it won't appear on the booking form.

See How It Works for the mental model, then the dedicated pages for each.

5. Design your booking flow

Open Advik Booking → Settings → Booking Flow. You'll see a drag-and-drop list of steps:

1. Service Area
2. Category
3. Service details (your item fields live here)
4. Add-ons
5. Date & time
6. Personal details
7. Payment

Toggle off any step you don't need, drag to reorder, and save. The change is immediate on the front-end form.

6. Test the booking end-to-end

1. Open the booking page in an incognito tab
   Make sure you're not logged in as admin — that way you'll see exactly what customers see.
2. Walk through all the steps
   Pick a category, fill in a service, choose a slot, enter your email, and submit.
3. Verify the email
   You (admin) and the test customer should both receive the confirmation emails. If not, see Settings → Emails.
4. Check the admin booking list
   The new booking appears in Advik Booking → Bookings. Click it to see all field values, the price breakdown, and the customer details.