Installing & enabling the Joomla plugin

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Locate: Manage > Integrations > Website Integration > Joomla
Prerequisites: 

• Admin permissions to manage integrations.
• A hosted website with the free Joomla software.
• Ability to copy and paste into your website code or some helpful person to do this for you!
• The Joomla integration is available to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

Version Support At this time, our integration supports Joomla versions up to and including 3.8. Do you need support for a higher version? Submit your feedback to our Product Team via the Community. For now, we recommend using the widget to display your Checkfront booking page on your website.

 

This article is an introduction to the Joomla plugin feature with information on how to install and enable the booking plugin.

Please read the full series of articles, accessed at the side and bottom of this page, to get set up with the Joomla plugin.

 

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“Joomla! is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build websites and powerful online applications.” ~ Joomla.org

 

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Checkfront has created a plugin for Joomla which enables you to generate a shortcode, paste it into your webpage, and publish a booking portal for your Customers to reserve their items/products.

Once configured, the plugin takes care of the complicated code required to display the portal. All you need to do is add the shortcode to your page and we take care of the rest.

If you want to alter the way the booking portal appears or behaves, then you can do that by adding arguments to the shortcode. This guide shows you just how to do all of the above.

 

Learn more about the benefits of the Joomla integration here: Add our Drupal Booking Module to power your online bookings

 

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Unlike our Booking Widget integration method, the Joomla-based booking portal requires the installation of an extension known as a plugin.

The two methods yield exactly the same results, but by installing the Joomla plugin, you avoid a complicated mass of code and are able to make changes to your website URL without needing to edit any code on your web page.

If you've used Joomla before, then you're probably familiar with the process of finding plugins and installing them on your server. If not, then don't panic! It's very easy to do and takes just a few moments to complete.

In the following steps, we show you exactly how to do this with just a few clicks of the mouse.

 

The following navigation options may differ depending on the Joomla version that is installed. This guide refers to Joomla version 3.8.13.

 

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The first step is to locate the Checkfront plugin within the Joomla Extensions area. Navigate to your Joomla dashboard.

1. Click on Extensions from the main menu.
2. When the dropdown appears, select Manage and then Install.
3. Choose the Install from Web tab.
4. Enter Checkfront in the search field.
5. Either press Enter or click on the Magnifying Glass button to begin the search.
6. When the Checkfront plugin appears, click on the hyperlinked title.

 

The screen that follows presents you with some information on the Checkfront plugin. You see a green button labelled Install. Click on this to proceed with the installation.

 

Next, you are asked to confirm the installation by clicking on another Install button.

 

If you experience trouble installing the plugin from the Install from Web tab, then another option is to download the plugin file manually from GitHub. Next, choose the Upload Package File tab and upload the downloaded file instead.

 

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Once the plugin is installed, you see a confirmation message on the screen. Before you can use the plugin, though, you first need to enable it.

1. Click on Extensions from the main menu.
2. When the dropdown appears, select Manage and then Manage again.
3. Enter Checkfront in the search field.
4. Either press Enter or click on the Magnifying Glass button to begin the search.
5. When the Checkfront plugin appears, select it by checking the box to the left.
6. Click the Enable button to continue. The status of the plugin now shows a green checkmark, rather than the red 'x' which displayed before.

The plugin is now active. The final stage in activating the plugin is to select it from the Plugins manager page by clicking on the hyperlinked plugin name.

You can do this at any time in the future should you wish to make changes to the host URL.

 

After clicking on the plugin name, you see a field to enter your Checkfront URL. This is the URL by which you access your Checkfront admin area and was chosen by you when you first created your account. It is most likely [BusinessName].checkfront.com.

In our example, we use demo.checkfront.com.

1. Enter the Checkfront URL.
2. Click Save.

The plugin is now fully installed and enabled.

 

Pay close attention to your Checkfront URL. Depending on where you are located, your URL may not end with .com. It may, for instance, end with .co.uk. Entering this incorrectly is a common mistake, so double-check before entering it in the field, just to make sure!

 

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The next step is to generate the shortcode which is added to your Joomla web page.

If you have any experience with the Checkfront Booking Widget, then you recognize that the process involved now is more or less the same.

Once you generate the code, however, you are presented with one basic line of code. The more complicated code is handled by the plugin you just installed.

Now, if you like, you can simply go ahead and add the shortcode [checkfront] to your web page. When published, this shows the booking portal as configured in your Checkfront backend. You can, however, manipulate the shortcode to create a more refined look for the portal.

Those more familiar with coding can also manipulate the default shortcode to create a more refined look for the portal by adding certain codes or arguments to the default code. 

 

From the Checkfront URL screen, look for the Description tab at the top.

Click on this and then click on the Shortcode Generator button below.

Alternatively, you can access the same Shortcode Generator through your Checkfront backend. 

 

To do this, go to the Website Integration area (Manage > Integrations > Website Integration). Hover your mouse over and click the Joomla tile.

This brings you directly to the Joomla Shortcode Generator within your Checkfront account.

 

At the bottom of the page, just above the Generate Code button, there’s a link to Show more options. These are slightly more advanced features and we look at those shortly.

 

For now, though, let’s take a look at the basic set of configurable options available.

 

 

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Configuring basic options for the Joomla plugin >

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