MY HOSTEL

My Hostel, a WordPress Online Booking and Management plugin, is a customized solution for specific needs of hostels, dorms and other accommodation providers.

My Hostel is designed to meet specific needs of:

• Hostels
• Dormitories
• Campings
• Campus or Dorm Rooms
• Youth Accommodations
• Other bed-based lodging providers

MyHostel WP Plugin adds following functions on your WordPress website:

• - availability search and online booking
• - availability calendar for beds and rooms
• - property management system (PMS) and more

My Hostel will add following mobile-friendly pages:

• - search and booking page
• - book now page with online payment modes (integrated with PayPal and Stripe)
• - booking confirmation

Customers and managers will receive automated email notification after each booking.

My Hostel is integrated with Live Chat and multi-lingual ready.

With My Hostel you will also get a Property Management System (PMS) that will allow:

• - to manage your reservations via Central Reservation Office with availability calendar
• - beds / rooms / accommodation management
• - customers database and managements
• - invoices generation and printing

There are 2 ways to install a WordPress plugin:

• using the WordPress installer
• uploading the plugin via FTP

1. Using the WordPress installer

1. Go to Plugins > Add new
2. Click Upload
3. Select the my_hostel.zip file
4. Click Install now
5. Once the plugin has been installed click Activate Plugin

2. Uploading the plugin via FTP

1. Upload the my_hostel folder into the wp-content/plugins/ folder on your server
2. Once the plugin is uploaded log into WordPress and go to Plugins
3. Find the My_Hostel plugin and click Activate Plugin

In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding general settings.

• Click on General Settings submenu (My Hostel Plugin menu)
  Enter Name of your hostel and its Address. This information will be sent to customers with email notification and appear on Booking Confirmation page.



• Enter the Getting there - brief instruction how is better to get to your Hostel. This information will be sent to customers with email notification and appear on Booking Confirmation page. If you do not want to include Getting there section in email notification and Booking Confirmation page, leave this field blank.



• If you choose to categorize your units, you can insert a name for your categories (e.g., Rooms Categories, Dorm Categotires, etc.)

Search Parameters

You can customize the search parameters, which are displayed when a customer makes a reservation:

• Click on General Settings submenu (My Hostel Plugin menu), enter parameters.



• You can also customize number of Accommodations displayed on the webpage and the color to match your website look. Don’t forget to save changes.

Setting Up Pages

The My Hostel Plugin comes with the following pages:

• Search Result page
• Services page
• Booking page
• Confirmation page

In addition, the My Hostel Plugin provides single post templates individual Accommodations (Accommodation section of this Documentation).

The pages can be edited in All Pages submenu of Pages menu.

Search Result page

The Search Result page template let you display the available accommodations for certain dates. Please enter a title of your choice and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard.

(Pages menu > All Pages submenu > Search Results page > Edit).

Services page

You can customize extra services page.

Services page template let you display extra services (eg., airport transfers, cleaning fee, etc.) for booking. The extra services can be added as a multiple options to be picked from. It will be offered at the booking and customer can select to book it. You can set same price for all properties or set different price for different properties.

Please enter a title of your choice and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard.

(Pages menu > All Pages submenu > Services page > Edit).

Booking page

The Booking page template let you create the booking form page. It is the booking form that the customer is redirected after selecting the accommodation / services he wants to book.

1. Please enter a title of your choice and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard.

2. You can add booking conditions, which are displayed when a customer makes a reservation:

• Click on General Settings submenu (My Hostel Plugin menu) and customize your preference.



You can customize the Terms and Conditions title and text.

• Please enter a title and text of your choice and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard. (Pages menu > All Pages submenu > Terms and Conditions page > Edit).



If you wish to add another condition (eg, Privacy Policy), you can customize it as well.

• Please enter a title and text of your choice and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard. (Pages menu > All Pages submenu > Privacy Policy page > Edit).

Confirmation page

Booking Confirmation page template summarizes the booking information for customers and allows to print out the reservation details.

1. Please edit this page by going to Confirmation page > Edit in All Pages submenu of Pages menu of your WordPress admin dashboard. Enter a text of your choice and click Update.

2. You can add / remove Print button by going to Booking Settings section in My Hostel plugin menu.

With My Hostel plugin you can offer 2 types of booking - by beds and by unit (room, tent, etc.). In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding the settings and customization of beds, rooms and other booking units (Accommodation menu).

If you choose to categorize your accommodations, you can add your categories (eg, non-smoking, city escape, business class, etc.) in Categories sub-menu (Accommodation menu).

You can customize Features for each accommodation in Features sub-menu (Accommodation menu). You can categorize different features by creating groups (eg., Amenities, Accessibility Features, Wellness, etc.)

After that you can add a feature and assign it to certain group.

You assign certain Booking Rules for each accommodation by creating a separate page in Pages menu.

• Click on Add New button.



• Enter Title and Description for a specific Boking Rule, select Booking Rule as a Parent in Page Attributes and press PUBLISH button.

You can add extra services (eg., airport transfers, cleaning fee, etc.) for booking. The extra services can be added as a multiple options to be picked from. It will be offered at the booking and customer can select to book it.

Extra services can be added in Services menu.

• Click Add New



• Enter Name of service and set a price



• You can offer services:
  - per booking (eg, transfers)
  - per person/per day (eg, breakfasts)
  - per person (eg, excursions)
  



All services will be offered at the booking and customer can select to book it.

For the plugin to work correctly you need to create at least 1 accommodation.

• Click Add New



• Enter the Accommodation name and the Accommodation description



• Select the Rate basis for the Accommodation



• Enter the Accommodation size and indicate your custom measurement unit (eg., 100 sq.m., etc.).



• Enter the number of beds and number of rooms in this Accommodation



• Enter the Bed type in this Accommodation



• Enter the Bath type in this Accommodation



• Enter the Maximum number of guests and Minimal price in this Accommodation



• Upload images of this Accommodation and set a Featured Image





• Assign Booking Rules for this Accommodation



• Assign Category and Features for this Accommodation





• click Publish once you have filled in all necessary details of the Accommodation.

You can view, edit and delete your Accommodations in All Accommodations section of the Menu. Click on selected Accommodation Link and view and edit any detail you wish.

In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding currency and tax settings and customization of different payment modes and methods.

• Click on General Settings submenu (My Hostel Plugin menu)



• Currency settings and taxes: Set your base currency and custom display mode. You can also set your taxes that will automatically calculated and shown in reservations invoices.



• Payment Modes: My Hostel Plugin allows you to offer your customer a choice of payment modes. If you wish to charge a deposit, don’t forget to enter amount for deposit.



• Payment Gateways Activation: My Hostel Plugin is integrated with PayPal and Stripe.com to accept online payments.



• PayPal settings: Set your PayPal account



• Stripe.com settings: Set your Stripe.com account.

In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding confirmation e-mail customization and Live chat activation (Other Settings submenu of My Hostel Plugin menu).

After the reservation customer will receive a notification email with details of his/her reservation. You can customize email subject, title, text, as well as header and footer.

• Click on Other Settings submenu (My Hostel Plugin menu).
  Please enter email subject, title, greeting and footer texts. Also, upload header and footer images of this email.



• Don’t forget to save it.

My Hostel Plugin is integrated with live chat service (Olark Live Chat). You can activate your Live chat or you may wish not to do so.

• Click on My Hostel Plugin and set your preferences. If you wish to show Live Chat enter your Olark Live Chat ID. Don’t forget to save changes.

To display the My Hostel Plugin’s search box on your website, you need to insert main short code - [booking-home title="When would you like to stay at My Hostel?"] - anywhere on your website.

The title of the search box can be customized.

• Click on Pages menu > All Pages submenu > Front page > Edit



• Please enter a text of your choice next to the short code and click Update in your WordPress admin dashboard.

You can also display the Availability Calendar on your website. If you want to do that, please insert the short code [booking-avcalendar title="PLACE_TITLE_HERE"] on the page where your search-box short code is inserted.

You can customize the title of your Availability calendar

The search box and availability calendar will be displayed on your website:

In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding the pricing (Rate Plans & Promotions menu).

With My Hostel plugin you can create the following rates and rate plans:

1. Standard Rate
2. Rate Plans & Custom Rates
3. Promotions

1. Standard Rate

The standard rate will apply for all booking dates where you haven't set rate plans, season/custom rates and/or promotions. Standard Rate is the best way to ensure you have a base price set for each night throughout the year.

The standard rate will only apply if there aren't any custom rates such as daily rate, weekend rate etc. in place. To set up your standard rate, follow the below steps:

• Click on Rate Plans & Promotions menu.



• Click on Assign Rate button.



• Select Accommodation and press SELECT button



• Enter standard rate amount for the Accommodation and click Update Standard Rate. You will now see the Standard rate amount in your calendar. Once you have set up your standard rates, you can follow the same steps for editing this.

2. Rate Plans & Custom Rates

You can create a specific Rate Plans for weekends, weekdays or Seasonal/Custom rates for non-standard dates, like seasons, holidays, etc. The Rate Plans & Custom Rates will apply for a selected date range. To set up a Rate Plan & Custom Rates, follow the below steps:

• Click on Add New in Rate Plans & Promotions menu. Enter Rate Plan name (eg., Weekend Discount, Best Available Rate, etc).Custom Rate can be used as many times as needed. That is why we suggest we suggest general names (low season, school holidays, etc.) as you will be able to reuse them again in the future.





• Enter amount for certain days of the week, weekends, whole week and select a color.



• Then save the Rate Plan.



Now you can assign the Rate Plan to the certain dates:

• Click on Rate Plans & Promotions menu.



• Click on Assign Rate button. Select Accommodation and press SELECT button.





• Mark date range on the calendar, select a Rate Plan and click ASSIGN.





• You will now see the Rate Plan reflected in your calendar. Once you have set up your Rate Plan, you can follow the same steps for editing this.

3. Promotions

You can set promotional rates for certain dates, like weekends, certain dates, etc. The Promotional Rate can be rate can be used as many times as needed. That is why we suggest general names (Weekend Discount, New Year’s Special, etc.) as you will be able to reuse them again in the future. To set up a Promotions, follow the below steps:

• Click on Add New in Rate submenu. Enter Promotion rates name (eg., Sunday Package Deal, Family Weekend Special, etc).





• Enter amount for certain days of the week, weekends and whole week. Select a color and save the Rate Plan.



• To assign the promotion to the certain dates click on Rate Plans & Promotions menu.



• Click on Assign Rate button. Select Accommodation and press SELECT button.





• Mark date range on the calendar, select a Promotional rate and click ASSIGN. If you wish to assign promotion for one day only, double click on same date.



• You will now see the Promotion rate reflected in your calendar. Once you have set up your Promotion rates, you can follow the same steps for editing this.

My Hostel plugin comes with in-built Property Management System (PMS) with following sections:

1. Central Reservation Office (CRO)
2. Make New Reservation
3. All Reservations
4. My Invoices
5. My Customers

In this section of the documentation, you will find information regarding the Property Management System (PMS) menu.

Central Reservation Office (CRO)

Central Reservation Office (CRO) allows you to view all your rates and reservations per bed / room / accommodation in the calendars, view all reservations and make new reservations.

Reservations Calendar

• The Reservations Calendar allows you to view all your reservations.

1. The current day is highlighted
2. Go two weeks backward or forward
3. Or select a month from the calendar
4. A confirmed reservation will appear in green
5. A number of booked beds will be displayed

Reservation Details

• By clicking on a number of booked beds in the Reservations Calendar, the reservation details will be shown below.

Rates & Availability

• With Rates & Availability Calendar you can view available beds / rooms and rates for certain dates.

Make New Reservation

You can make Reservation by request (email, phone, social networks and other requests). First of all you can check the availability of certain Accommodation for certain dates in Central Reservation Office (CRO).

• Click Central Reservation Office (CRO) submenu and find Rates & Availability calendar. Select Accommodation, check availability and click Make New Reservation.



You can also click Make New Reservation submenu directly.

• Insert number of guests



• Select your Accommodation and mark the dates on the Availability calendar. Dates and price will be automatically shown in the booking forms.



• Enter reservation details, assign extra service and save it.

All Reservations

All reservations made will appear in the All Reservations submenu. You can view your reservations, modify and / or cancel them.

• Click All Reservations submenu

My Invoices

With My Hostel plugin you can generate and print invoices for all reservations.

• Click My Hostel Plugin and customize your Invoice settings





• Click My Invoices submenu. Here you can generate and print out invoices.

My Customers

All customers can be viewed and managed in My Customers submenu. The customer list is generated automatically after reservation. You can view your customer details and add a comment.

• Click My Customers submenu

My Hostel plugin is ready for localization via .po/.mo files.

If you use qTranslate-X plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/qtranslate-x/), the languages will be automatically set. After activation My Hostel plugin will use configuration file (i18n-config.json) to work with qTranslate-X plugin.

My Hostel Plugin is also compatible with the WordPress Multilingual (WPML) Plugin.

All texts can be translated through .po files. The booking.pot file is included in My Hostel plugin languages sub-directory.

New translation files must have names like “booking-en_EN.po, booking-en_EN.mo” (change “en_EN” to your language code).

Please find more information about WordPress plugins translation here

In addition to the texts, parameters and appearance customization, with My Hostel plugin you can also customize the fields for custom posts.

My Hostel incorporates CMB2 plugin, a metabox, custom fields, and forms library for WordPress. You can can easily create custom fields for custom posts and /or use it for different customizations. Please find more information here.

Example, in order customize the booking fields on Booking page of your website you need to:

• Go to functions.php of your WordPress theme. Here you can add custom booking field on the front-end:

add_filter ('mh_booking_form_fields', 'add_fields_to_booking_form');

function add_fields_to_booking_form($fields){

$fileds = '<div>

<label for=" _custom_field_1">FIELD LABEL HERE</label><br>

<input id=" _custom_field_1" name=" _custom_field_1" type="text" value="">

</div>';

return $fileds;

}

• Then, you need the save the custom field:

add_action('mh_create_booking', 'save_custom_fields');

function save_custom_fields($booking_id){

update_post_meta($booking _id, '_custom_field_1', $_POST['_custom_field_1']);

}

• And finally, you need to add the custom field in the admin interface:

add_action( 'cmb2_admin_init', 'your_cmb2_metaboxes' );

function your_cmb2_metaboxes(){

$cmb = new_cmb2_box( array(

'id' => 'your_metabox_1',

'title' => 'METABOX TITLE HERE',

'object_types' => array( 'booking' ), // Post type for Reservations

'context' => 'normal',

'priority' => 'high',

'show_names' => true,

) );

$cmb->add_field( array(

'name' => 'FIELD LABEL HERE',

'id' => '_custom_field _1',

'type' => 'text',

) );

}

The following shortcodes are included in the My Hostel plugin:

1. [booking-home title="When would you like to stay at My Hostel?"] - to display search box anywhere on your website
2. [booking-search title="When would you like to stay at My Hostel?"] - to display availability search results
3. [booking-avcalendar title="PLACE_TITLE_HERE"] - to display availability calendar on the website
4. [booking-services title="Your booking"] - to add extra services
5. [booking-booking title="Your booking"] - to display booking form
6. [booking-thanks title="Thank you for your booking!"] - to display booking confirmation page
7. [booking-invoice] - to generate invoices