amythyst34

So I figured out how to do this and will mark this issue as resolved. I’m also going to list my solution here, however, as I doubt I’m the only one who has struggled with this problem:

Go to [em]Amelia > Settings > View Google Calendar Settings[/em]. Whatever is entered into the “Event Description” field is synced to the Google Calendar as the event description. Dynamic content (such as the custom field information collected from customers) can be added using the same placeholders that can be found under [em]Amelia > Notifications > Show Email Placeholders[/em].

This allowed me to send the custom field I created for the customer’s address to the Google Calendar by including %custom_field_6% in that field.

Although this is in the documentation, the name of the field containing the word “Event” was misleading. My client utilizes Services, but not Events. It took me looking in the code to realize that those fields (“Event Title” and “Event Description”) are not specific to Events (as defined under [em]Amelia > Events[/em]). Rather, these fields are used for any appointment that is synced to the Google Calendar.

That is the solution; now for a suggestion. I would like to suggest to TMS (@ameliabooking), in a future update, the ability to customize this field for different services (much like we can customize different notifications). My current client has two different services and they collect very different information for each of those services (via different custom fields). Unfortunately, since the “Event Description” field is a boilerplate field that affects anything syncing to the calendar, we can’t really include those custom fields in a way that is meaningful.

Here’s the example – my client provides mobile alterations (where she will come repair your garments) and deliveries (where she delivers repaired garments to your home, after working on them at her shop). For the mobile alterations, we have a drop-down custom field that captures the number of garments. This information isn’t gathered for the deliveries. So if I include “Garments: %custom_field_2%” in the “Event Description” field, it will always be blank for any delivery appointment. I could just include “%custom_field_2%” without any context, but (as things without context tend to be) that can be confusing.

The ideal solution would be to have the capability to create a different “Event Description” per “Service” (especially since the custom fields seem to be tied to each specific Service).

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Thanks for the great plugin — it is very flexible, for a variety of different services/needs. It is definitely my go-to now for any future clients that may need an appointment booking solution.

I totally agree with you @nlpro — I definitely feel like the plugin isn’t the issue and that it only uncovered an issue.

The web host seems to be dismissive of the problem, telling me I should just filter the emails. What they don’t seem to understand is that the emails are correct — they ARE MY security logs. It’s concerning that they are displaying another domain name in the email address.

I’m tempted to just write some PHP — unrelated to WordPress — and see if I can get it to replicate the issue. Maybe then they will stop telling me that “the emails are not configured or sent from any SiteGround software but from an iTheme software”.

Anyway, I’m going to close this as resolved. Thank you all for your input — I appreciate your help.

I’m not associated with this plugin or the developer, however I know the answer to one of your questions:

Hmm, it seems as if my clients have been receiving the “Appointment Approved” email after they book, but it does not seem they are receiving the, “Appointment Follow Up” email. I have it checked at Notifications>Appointment Follow Up. When do the follow up emails generally go out after the appointment?

They go out between 1 and 24 hours after the appointment start time. You set this by going to Amelia > Notifications > Appointment Follow Up. At the top, where the subject is, you’ll see the drop-down option for “Scheduled After Appointment”.

You have to set up a cron job for these for these to work. There is an info box underneath the email preview that explains what you need to do to enable the follow up emails.

That’s the really odd thing – sometimes I’m getting emails from [email protected] (as expected) and sometimes I get them from [email protected] (the domain I’ve never heard of up until this issue). Even the ones coming from the wrong email address, though, contain information regarding abetteralteration.com – which is why I don’t think it’s an issue of them inputting our email address in their settings (for whatever weird reason someone would do that).

I really feel like this is an issue at the host level, whether the web host or domain host, I don’t know. My web host keeps pointing at this plugin, but i don’t think this plugin is the problem. I’ve used this plugin on multiple different hosts for multiple different websites and have never had this issue occur before.

That being said, I don’t know everything. I’m making educated guesses, at best, based on the information I have available to me.

Thanks for your insight, @nlpro. I have not changed the “From” email address in the Notification Center. Additionally, I’m still receiving emailed security logs/digests/etc for abetteralteration.com — it’s just that I’m also receiving them for destinationweddinghairstylist.com.

The response from SiteGround (the host) was this:

I checked on the domain name destinationweddinghairstylist.com and it seems to be pointed to the same server your account is on.

However it doesn’t seem to be hosted on it, rather it is simply pointed here. In such situations, it is possible for the request to be sent to the first domain name listed in the configuration of the server, which is sorted alphabetically, so yours is on the top.

There is no way for us to change this, we have no control over the domain name itself, and if it belongs to another customer we have no access to make changes. It is best to ask iThemes how to proceed, as they are the ones sending you the notifications. From the server end, there is no kind of solution that can be done as the configuration does depend on a domain name to which we have no access to. The only thing I could do is to regenerate the server configuration which can help with the redirect issue.

If anything on our end is further needed do not hesitate to check with us again.

Thanks @anotherdave – I appreciate the info. I had actually found most of the same information, myself, which is why I originally reached out to the host. Like you pointed out (in not so many words), I too feel like the issue lies with them and not with the iThemes plugin.

I had not noticed the redirect, however, which is confusing because my client (abetteralteration.com) is not associated with the other domain (destinationweddinghairstylist.com) in any way. This isn’t just any client — I know her personally. She’s never been a hairstylist, never owned any other domain names, and wouldn’t even know how to set up a domain or a redirect even if she did (after all, that’s what she’s paying me for). I’m not entirely sure why an unrelated domain would be redirecting to my client’s website.

And no, @beardedginger, destinationweddinghairstylist.com is not one of my clients. I’ve never done any work with that domain name and this is the first time I’ve ever used SiteGround as a host.

Just for the sake of conversation, this is an example of the email headers I’m getting:

Subject: [www.abetteralteration.com] Site Lockout Notification
X-PHP-Originating-Script: 522:class-phpmailer.php
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2019 12:06:13 +0000
From: WordPress <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <ec9411699154e6012cd2a06e637ac842@destinationweddinghairstylist.com>
X-Mailer: PHPMailer 5.2.22 (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer)

If there’s any reason that I can’t think of, that would make anyone suspect this might be an issue with the iThemes plugin, I’m all ears. So far I’m still leaning towards this being an issue with the host, even though they told me to put a support ticket in with iThemes.

Thanks again for everyone’s input.

Although not an option of the plugin, if you have access to your .htaccess file you could potentially use a redirect to accomplish what you’re wanting. There might be a cpanel option or a plugin that can assist with this, as well, depending on your host.

I don’t want to link any articles, because I’m not sure of the policies regarding that here, but if you Google “Redirect Only Root Directory or Index Page with .htaccess” you’ll find a wealth of resources that can assist with this.