03rd June 2023- New version 2.20.0

The OS Services Booking developer team are proud to announce the release of OS Services Booking 2.20.0. This is a first release for the 2.20.x series of OS Services Booking with a lot of great improvements and addresses issues introduced in previous versions.

What's new in OS Services Booking version 2.20.0
1. Add Extras option
This is one of important improvements of OS Services Booking, it allows customer to select the additional time option for their order.  In previous versions, the customer's order only contain the timeslots with fixed start and end time, but with "Extras" feature, you will able to setup additional selection beside main service and extend the booking time and with additional price. It helps customers to feel comfortable when selecting your services by using incremental services when the need arises.
Field Extras is one attribute of field option, beside additional price.


See more details about Field Extras feature and Custom Fields of OS Services Booking through this link: osbdocs.joomservices.com/custom-fields .

2. Provide crontask solution on Joomla 4
The OS Services Booking cron task is responsible for sending reminder emails and sms messages to customers when the services they ordered is about to arrive.
In previous versions, you can setup the Cron task command to file: root -> components -> com_osservicesbooking -> cron.php
But on Joomla 4, this way is no longer work. To fix this situation, we improved the system plugin: OSB Cron taskIn this version, you can setup the Cron task command on your hosting to run the function to send reminder emails and sms to customers. By default, OS Services Booking Booking uses a system plugin to trigger sending reminder emails and SMS process. That mean it requires someone access to the site (search engine bots are also counted) to trigger process. Sometime, it is not reliable or causes multiple emails sent to administrators in case your site has a very high traffic. To address that limitation, you can setup cron job from your hosting account to trigger sending reminder notifications instead. Please see detailed instructions below:

1. Go to Extensions -> Plugins, find the plugin System - OS Services Booking - Cron task , click on it to edit. You should see a parameter called Trigger Code . Enter a secret string there.
2. Setup a cron job to make a request to this URL using CURL (note that you should use the CURL so that the variable can be passed in the GET request, see stackoverflow.com/questions/11375260/cro...ress-every-5-minutes for detailed instructions

domain.com/index.php?trigger_reminder_code=SECRETCODE

• Replace domain.com/ with URL of your site
• Replace SECRETCODE with the secret string which you entered in the Trigger Reminder Code parameter

That will make the reminder only processed when there is a request made to that URL (which should be secret as no real users will access to that URL). It will make it more reliable compare to replying a system plugin.

3. Add Payment failure alert plugin
This plugin allows sending notification emails to users you want (usually administrators) when a payment for booking failure for some reasons
See more about plugin at: osbdocs.joomservices.com/modules-plugins...payment-notification .

4. Add Clean Email Logs system plugin
This plugin if enabled, will delete emails older than certain number of days (by default 90 days) from emails log. That helps reducing number of emails stored in database in case you have many emails sent from system (so save your hosting space)
See more about plugin at: osbdocs.joomservices.com/modules-plugins...tem-clean-emails-log .

5. Add notify emails (including ICS) when new order item created
From this version, when the order item is created for existing orders, 3 notification emails will be sent to

• Customers
• Employees
• Administrator

Those emails will include .ICS files, that user can import them into their online calendar

6. Fix previous issues
Fix various minor issues in previous OS Services Booking version

Thanks
Developer team

 

I still can not get the cron job to run after the update -

Also I noticed in some places you refer to yoursite.com/index.php?trigger_reminder_code=secret

and others

yoursite.com/index.php?trigger_code=secret

Neither one seems to work - although the weird thing is I see one email appointment sent for the first Appointment but nothing else

Sorry, it should be: domain.com/index.php?trigger_reminder_code=SECRETCODE
i already corrected it
Have you setup the cron task like in the instructions above?
Thanks
Dam

Ok thanks the reminders are being sent but the date and time for {Services} is left blank in the email. The other details are populated.

Hi,
In this case, you can submit ticket on category: OS Services Booking and provide your site url with super admin account. I will check this issue for you
Thanks
Dam

I think you guys have an issue with your code merging - the cron job is broken again -

Hi,
I am not sure with your idea. Could you please explain your issue more details?
Thanks
Dam

I found that after the upgrade, every time I try to find my order using "Search" on "Manage Orders" page, it show an error 1054 Unknown column "a.order_first_name' in 'where clause'

Hi Harris,
Please click on My Downloads at the top and re-download and install latest OS Services Booking version to get the problem resolved.
Thanks
Dam