WordPress Plugin for SuperSaaS Appointment Scheduling

SuperSaaS is a flexible online appointment scheduling system that works with many different businesses. This page explains how to integrate it into a WordPress based website. To be able to use it you will first need to sign up for a (free) SuperSaaS account.

Using WordPress login names for your SuperSaaS schedule

The SuperSaaS WordPress plugin displays a "Book now" button that automatically logs the user into a SuperSaaS schedule using his WordPress user name. If you are not using the WordPress user registration system then you should instead follow the general instructions to integrate a schedule on your site.

The button generated by the plugin passes the WordPress user database information along to SuperSaaS, creating the user in the SuperSaaS database or updating his information as needed. This saves users from having to create a separate login for the booking system and avoids the need to log in twice.

Installation and setup of the plugin in WordPress

1. Install the plugin. First download the plugin to your computer. Next, on the WordPress administrator dashboard choose "Plugins" → "Add New" from the left hand menu. Click "Upload" at the top and select the file "wp_supersaas.zip" that you downloaded. Click "Install Now" and follow the instructions on the next screen and click "Proceed". If all went well you can now click an "Activate Plugin" link. (You can also manually unzip the file and upload the directory to your server with an FTP program)
2. Set up the plugin. Select "Settings" → "SuperSaaS" from the menu to go to fill out the "SuperSaaS Settings" screen:
   • SuperSaaS account name. This is name of your account (not your e-mail address)
   • SuperSaaS password. This is the password that the administrator uses to log in to SuperSaaS
   • Schedule name or URL. You can either put the name of a schedule or you can provide a full URL if you want to add specific parameters to direct the user to a specific view. If you are using more than one schedule, see below
   • Button image.
     
     (See more buttons)
     If you leave this blank a standard button will be used, alternatively you can enter a URL like this one "http://assets.supersaas.com/book_now.png"
   • Custom domain. If you created a custom domain name to point to your schedule then you can enter it here to correctly point your users to it
3. Add the button to your pages. Place the short code [supersaas] on your pages everywhere you want the button to appear. The short code can take the optional parameters "after", "label" and "image" to overwrite the values on the settings screen. This is useful if you want to add multiple buttons to different schedules, for example:
   [supersaas after="schedule1" label="Book on Schedule 1"]
[supersaas after="schedule2" label="Book on Schedule 2" image="book_now.gif"]

Change SuperSaaS account settings to work with WordPress

Your WordPress user database is leading, which means that changes in user information on your WordPress site propagate to SuperSaaS but not the other way around. Therefore it is recommended that you do not let your users change their user information on SuperSaaS because that could easily confuse them. For example, if a user were allowed to change his password on SuperSaaS he would probably not realize that his WordPress password is still the same. Make the following changes to your SuperSaaS account to avoid such inconsistencies:

• On the "Access Control" page select the button "Log in and registration managed on your site"
• On the "Access Control" page select the check box "Prevent users from updating their own information"
• On the "Layout Settings" page fill out the box "Your URL" with the page on your site where users can log in

Secondly, you need to ensure that the database fields in WordPress match those in your SuperSaaS user database. Make the following changes on the "Access Control" page:

• On the "Access Control" page deselect the check box "Use e-mail address as login name"
• Switch the "E-mail address" radio button that appears to "Optional" (or Mandatory)
• Switch the "Full name" radio button to "Optional"
• Switch all other fields to "Don't Ask" (you can switch off the "Password" field too if you have selected "Login is not handled here")

You can now try out the button on your site. As the administrator, you will still need to log in through the main SuperSaaS login page so you would want to try this out pretending to be a regular user. If you want to define "superusers" in SuperSaaS make sure they have logged in at least once using the button before changing their role on the "User Management" page.

Troubleshooting tips

• Note that the button only appears to users who are logged in to your Wordpress site
• If you see an error "Email is not a valid e-mail address" then please read the previous paragraph again to confirm you have made the correct settings in your SuperSaaS account
• If the button redirects the user but does not appear to actually log him in and you have used a URL in the field "Schedule name or URL" then make sure that the domain of that URL is entered in the field custom domain name

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