Not great with authentication

  • If you’re looking for a plug-n-play booking tool, this does the job as well as — or better than — many others out there.

    However, if you have a user workflow that’s just a little more than basic, you may have problems making this work for you. It’s not only a little odd the way it’s organized, but it’s also rather inflexible.

    For example, you’d think allowing a user to access their appointments would be an obvious feature. Well, it is a feature, but it’s ill-conceived. Here’s why…

    Your site may allow bookings for non-logged-in, anonymous users. That’s fine… in that case, Amelia will essentially create an “Amelia Customer” user when a booking is made. To access his/her upcoming appointments, that user will need to create a username and password *with Amelia* to access the “customer panel”. Or, if you specify, you can make the access to the “customer panel” not require a password… in this case, the customer will need to use a tokenized link sent via email to access their appointments.

    Not a really big deal, and it’s obviously necessary since if the user wasn’t already known at the time of the booking, and assuming there isn’t any sort of user login mechanism on your site… without Amelia doing the work of identifying the user (so they can access their appointments and not somebody else’s appointments), there isn’t any other way.

    But what if I don’t WANT my KNOWN (logged-in) users to have to create a separate Amelia login? Then the user will need to use the link in the email. But what if I don’t want to send an email… what if I just want my ALREADY LOGGED-IN USER to be able to simple view their appointments? There is no way.

    So in making the plugin work for both authenticated and unauthenticated users, the plugin has created unnecessary roadblocks for sites that ONLY function (for bookings at least) for authenticated users.

    It’s really poorly thought out… and unfortunately, by the time I finally got around to working through this with the site I’m building, I’m past my refund period so I’m out $$ AND I don’t have a solution working for my client that I’m happy with.

    • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by ctmartin2020.
Viewing 2 replies - 16 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Plugin Author ameliabooking

    (@ameliabooking)

    Thank you for your feedback, @charlesrodmell but it seems we’re going a bit off-topic here.

    In the original review, the pain point was this (and we quote):

    But what if I don’t WANT my KNOWN (logged-in) users to have to create a separate Amelia login? Then the user will need to use the link in the email. But what if I don’t want to send an email… what if I just want my ALREADY LOGGED-IN USER to be able to simple view their appointments? There is no way.

    This has been resolved and once a known (logged-in) user books an appointment, they create a link between a customer in Amelia and the WP user. Once they are logged into WordPress, they only need to access Amelia’s Customer Panel page, and they’ll automatically be logged in, without the need to log in again.

    As for the booking form itself, the form has to have email/name fields and we’re pretty confident when we say that (if not all) the majority of booking plugins require details to be entered when someone books an appointment. There’s no way anyone can prevent a customer from entering anybody’s details.

    We apologize if we misunderstood, and if that’s the case, please explain in more detail what exactly you were referring to.

    @ameliabooking Just provide the option to set subscriber role as a Amelia customer. Instead of using custom amelia roles it will be better if it goes with the existing WordPress roles.

Viewing 2 replies - 16 through 17 (of 17 total)
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