Automated Reminders via SMS

This is one of the pre-installed Cron Jobs in the VikBooking plugin. By choosing the Class File 'sms_reminder.php' when adding a new Cron Job, you will be able to configure the parameters for setting up this recurring action.

This type of Cron Job can be used only if your SMS Gateway has been properly configured in advance. Once configured, the system will automatically send SMS to the customers with a custom text to remind certain actions. Every Cron Job supports translations into various languages. Even the custom text can be translated from the page 'Global - Translations'.

The parameters required are pretty simple:
- Reminder Type: Check-in Reminder, Remaining Balance Payment Reminder, After Check-out Message.
- Days in Advance for the notifications or days after the check-out.
- Message to be sent with the SMS. This text accepts special tags that will be replaced with the corresponding values such as {checkin_date}. All the available tags are the ones below the text-area field for the message. No other special tags could be used unless you decided to modify the PHP code of this Cron Job or, better, to create a new Cron Job Class File by following the Developers section of the Documentation.

If the Reminder Type is set to Check-in Reminder, the system will fetch all the bookings with a check-in date in x days from the execution date. The x days value is defined with the parameter Days in Advance.

The Reminder Type Remaining Balance Payment Reminder will read all the bookings with a booking total greater than zero and with an amount paid less than the booking total.

Lastly, the Reminder Type After Check-out Message, will take all the bookings with a check-out date that is x days in the past from the execution date. The number of days in the past are taken from the parameter Days in Advance.

This Cron Job stores in the database all the bookings that get notified via SMS successfully. This means that the cron job will never notify the same customer twice.