Availability Checker

Overview

The Availability Checker within MDJM provides a number of features and has full support for multiple employee businesses.

In its simplest form, it can be placed on the front end of your website either within the main content or a widget to enable your clients to check whether or not your business is available on the date that they need.

When used, MDJM will loop through all employees and check for events they are assigned to work on the given date, the event statuses, and finally whether or not the employee is absent for another reason (i.e. holiday). If at least one employee is available, and they have one of the Employee Roles you have defined in settings, the availability checker will report that your business is available. The way in which it reports this to the client, can be configured within settings.

If all employees are unavailable, this will be reported back to the client in your chosen way.

Additionally, within the admin interface, the availability checker provides a summary of up and coming events, the ability to quickly check if you or any of your employees are available for an event and options for your employees to enter their time off.

Configuration

The settings for the Availability Checker can be found within MDJM -> Settings -> Client Zone -> Availability Checker.

If you use the widget version of the availability checker, some of these options can be over ridden within the widget options.

An overview of each of these settings can be found within Client Zone Settings.

Hint: If you redirect to a page that hosts a contact form powered by the MDJM Dynamic Contact Forms add-on, the date field will be pre-populated with the date that was checked

Hint: You can use the content tag {event_date} in both the Available Text and Unavailable Text settings

Use on a Page

Add the availability checker to any page by inserting the shortcode [mdjm-availability] into the location on the page where you want the form to appear.

This shortcode has a number of configurable options to enable you to customise its display. Those options, together with their default values are;

label
The label to be displayed before the date input field
Default: Select Date

label_class
The CSS class to be applied to the label
Default: mdjm-label

field_class
The CSS class to be applied to the input field
Default: empty

submit_text
The text to display on the submit button
Default: Check Availability

submit_class
The CSS class to be applied to the submit button
Default: empty

please_wait_text
The text to be displayed whilst the availability check is running. Only applicable if ajax is enabled
Default: Please wait…

please_wait_class
The CSS class to be applied to the please_wait_text
Default: empty

display
The orientation of the availability checker form. Possible values horizontal or vertical
Default: horizontal

Example Usage

[mdjm-availability]
Will display an availability form with the default values per above

[mdjm-availability label="Enter your date" submit_text="Go!"]
Will display an availability form with the label Enter your date and a submit button that states Go!

Hint: If you use the MDJM button on the tinymce editor toolbar to insert the shortcode, all default values will be inserted into your page allowing you to easily and quickly adjust as required

Use in a Widget

The benefit of using the availability checker widget that MDJM provides, is that it can be displayed on all pages whilst only needing to be configured once.

This enables you to encourage potential clients to start the process of engaging with your company no matter which page on your website they are viewing.

To use the availability checker widget;

• Go to Appearance -> Widgets
• Locate the MDJM Availability Checker widget and add it to the desired widget location
• Expand the widget to reveal the configurable options
• Click Save to save the options

Use within Admin

The availability checker provides a number of features within the WordPress Admin area for you and your employees.

Employee Availability

The Employee Availability admin page, provides a summary by month for each employee. Absences are displayed, as are events that the employee is scheduled to work.

In addition, forms are provided to add employee absences into the calendar, or to check availability of your employees. These checks can be performed for all employees and roles, per employee or for a selection of employee roles.

Events Screen

When viewing the list of events, any events that are in the Unattended Status will display an Availability option within the Event ID column. Clicking this link will run an availability check against all your employees for the event date. The results will be reported at the top of the screen with options to assign each available employee to the event.