ARTIO Booking 
- Yes
The extension can be easily setuped to be used in different type of industries that have need for booking/reservation applications, such as car (or other) rentals, accomodation booking, facility (sport, recreation) reservation, conference room reservations, etc. To adapt it, no extra coding is needed, all can be configured from back-end.
* multi-level structure for bookable objects organization
(e.g. city → hotel → room or facility → hall → playfield)
* booking views: monthly / weekly / daily
* several booking methods (full day, hour-based, predefined time-range)
* configurable prices (different prices in different times / dates)
* object descriptions and properties, image gallery
* bookable extras and options
(e.g. navigation for car rental or set of rackets for tennis court booking)
* new! Google Maps integration
* PDF Invoices with customizable template/layout (requires add-on installed)
After upgrade to the commercial version (49 EUR [or 99 EUR with premium support] it's really worth for one year update) we had some minor problem and support helped within less than 24 hrs.
The component is useful as is, but I'd love to see it more flexible with designs and colours.
People who are only a little bit experienced with css can adapt it very easy.
I wasted six hours trying to make it work in test, thinking I would buy it later.
The admin interface is confusing and disjointed. There seems to be no flow in how it works. The documentation does not match the current version - it must be for an older version.
I finally got to the point of creating "objects", and every time I did the second built object, when saved, renamed the first so the both object names matched. Weird things going on with this component.
Hello, it looks like you were playing with some old version? As the new 2.x for Joomla 2.5/3.0 does not use the "Object" term anymore and the GUI has been changed significantly.
We are currently migrating some of these new 2.x features to 1.6 version, that will be the last support Joomla 1.5 version, as this Joomla version is no longer supported by community.
So, please, maybe you want to give a try to version 2.x.
CONs:
- There is a limitation for 2 apartments in FREE version. Not HOTELS - but rooms, apartments, villas.
- They are not BOOKABLE - you don't have the payment methods activated in the free version, but its fine, because it is stated beforehand for the FREE version.
GREAT CONs - any version:
- You cannot declare CHILDREN's age, not prices for them, nor prices for 2 AD + 1 CH , 2 AD + 2 CH + 1 INF, other than a currency discout. Who works this way? No percentages? No straight package price for such people?
- No differentiation of prices for different tourist groups at same time periods. Let's say, booking price for 2+2 during LOW SEASON is very hard to be made different to 3 AD in the same LOW SEASON.
Many people think it's easy to make a hotel booking component, and ask money for it. Not so!!! And just to mention - this FREE component has the full functionality of the PAID versions, but just for 2 objects. Well, as a PRO, I wouldn't pay for it.
And b the way - awful English language in the component, not friendly at all, cannot understand easily what the options are for...
Hello,
thanks for your feedback. I have to agree with most what you wrote.
The issue here is, that the component is meant for general bookings -- it is not specialized for hotel industry, so of course, it is not full-featured from this point of view.
It is primarily meant for what you mentioned - apartments, villas, small boarding houses, etc. where they do not need to have so detailed requirements about configuration of packages and others.
Big companies and hotels usually either use custom-made systems or specialized commercial software.
Booking component is not aimed on these.
Anyway, we certainly plan to keep enhancing the functionality, to allow even more options and possibly also packages in future.
As regards English - you are right and we are already working on improving that.
This is simply not true. It is FREE. Yes, there is a limitation for 2 bookable objects in FREE version and it is clearly stated. But 2 objects are well satisfactory for many users.
I installed it and got it up and running then i hit a wall. I can only make two objects. If i want to have more than two objects i have to pay.
Why then write that it can allow booking of one or more objects.
The payment doesnt work either.
- free version
- appealing gui
- expected functionality / without payment stuff (in my case: for day based booking of vacation home)
- the source code is reasonably structured and with a certain amount of programming skills many of the below mentioned issues can be fixed easily (e.g. improving message texts, removing unnecessary buttons/links, etc)
cons:
- portability issues (e.g. does not properly work when hosted on WinXP)
- functional bugs (overlapping booking is not detected; non-bookable days are not consistently displayed in certain calendar views: one view does handle it correctly the next one does not; depending on the dialog flow certain pages are displayed incorrectly - e.g. when returning from a successful booking; a customer can send an empty reservation - i.e. system allows to remove all booking items and still send the reservation, etc..)
- usability glitches: status messages displayed to user/customer are poor / much too technical; over-designed reservation forms unnecessarily confuse the user: extra buttons to cover some 5% special case (multi-reservation) are difficult to understand for 95% of the users who just want to make a reservation for one thing); modal-dialogs contain links which allow to completely mess up the reservation flow, etc..
- user support seems to be non existant for this free version (which raises the question if the commercial product has less bugs or better support...)
Summary: Recommended for programmers who can deal with the existing issues themselves.. for all the others this would likely be a frustrating experience.
First of all, we had to wait long before getting response on our service request.
Second, 'all was difficult and tailored work'.
Third, now we want to build the site further but are limited because of the functionality of this component. So the claims about the qualities of this component are not that great as promised.
Several people have made complaint about the level of service. This is indeed no unique selling point of the company. Also handling feedback is a point of improvement.
Noticed al the other complaints are answered with a "you know nothing" attitude from the providers? They've never heard of ANY customer being right, will argure black's white, bring in non-relative points...should be politicians the way they twist & turn.
Service? NON-existent. I posted on the forum, waited, posted again, used the site email function twice (probably about as effective as the book-it extension itself), no answer.
The calendars are a day out, the extension intrusive & conflicted terribly with the rest of my site, HALF the site went down until I gave up with it through sheer exasperation, didn't just unpublish it, deleted the unholy creation altogether...and had a shower wishing I could do the same for our poor site after it being violated in such a fashion!
The best thing about this extension? The DELETE button! These guys should be strung up for the abysmal practices & mis-direction used in their advertising.
LUCKILY we've stopped the credit-card payment. Even after a list of complaints 10x this was presented to them all replies were naught but senseless rambling argument without direction.
Their product will be fine for your website if you don't care whether you receive business or frighten your potential customers away with unbelievably convoluted direction.
I've NEVER in my 45years been conned/berated and altogether screwed over in such disgraceful fashion.
Hello,
there is not much to say... we have emailed you back 2 times asking about what specific error you have... you never answer that question. Your so-called list of complaints was just a general-talk about I do not like this, I do not like that. You have not reported a single bug or error or any deviation from the functionality we say the component has.
So I see no reason in continuing communication, where one party is ignoring the questions of the other.
Ok, the component seems complex to you. It might be right, as there is a lot of possible settings, because it can be used in many ways.
You had a full chance to go with the free version for a test.
But you asked no specific question and you are complaining about not getting an answer.
Other problem is not possible change the domain regitered in license,
But the trade ARTIO the components , and all joomla is very quality.
I am sorry to hear that. We try to help as our capacity allows.
Generaly, we manage to answer the questions of customers within 1-3 business! days. (does not apply to free version)
I have not found your username in our database (maybe you are using a different one) so I cannot check this closer.
Hello, I have to disagree with you.
First, the paid version does not have 2 days guaranteed feedback time - it is Pro version.
Second, you made more than 40 posts on our support forums. Most of them have been answered in timely matter. There may be a few that took longer, but our capacity is limited.
Third, as I reviewed what you were dealing with, it were 2 most often problems, however, neither of them being a direct Booking problem: 1. JavaScript libraries (JQuery vs Mootools) conflict problem, 2. PayPal problem - caused by recent changes at PayPal side. Not mentioning, that the #1 problem is covered in our FAQs: http://www.artio.net/faqs/booking/troubles
Actually i m looking for Rental system I have Rental items which should be given to customers according to No. of Days and set Price accordingly.
Please let me know if any functionality didn't work, it is possible that I go for charge back.
ARTIO team, thanks! You're the best!
JP
But then i found out it takes a lot of time to configure the extension.
And there were still so much problems within the extension, that i decided to stop. I hope other people have more luck with this extension than me.
Emails sent and thread created on the support page of Artio about how to get or set-up a search-by-date module. No responce from the Artio team.
I quess after got the money they don't care about their client. Very very poor supprt. If you plan buy it don't expect any support or answer or your questions.
Hello, did you post to paying customers support thread? As that is followed regurarily and answered within at most a few days usually.
Hello,
we respect your opinion and we already took some steps to improve the level of support and we are still improving it.
We understand this is quite complex booking component with many options, so it may be confusion for users who start to use it.
The customer support requests are usually reponded within a day in our support forums.
Hello,
we are really sorry you have this experience. Sometimes, we quite many support inquiries and it takes longer to answer them. Currently we took steps to be able to handle these better and be able to reply faster.
As regards the way of switching between 12h and 24h that is well possible through language settings.
