Use our developer API to create your own booking interface. You can design any solution you want varying from simpliest widget to multifunctional application with functionality customized according to your business specific.

Simplybook Application Programming Interface uses JSON-RPC 2.0 protocol.

See an example of API-based booking interface, and also read the source code of this solution.

Before you start creating your widget please register a new Simplybook account. Then configure your account at admin interface. You can add more services, employees, locations etc. After your Simplybook account is configured you can use it for your app.

Authorization

Using Simplybook API methods require an authentification. To authorize in Simplybook API you need to get an access key — access-token. In order to get this access-token you should call the JSON-RPC method getToken on http://user-api.simplybook.me/login service passing your personal API-key. You can copy your API-key at admin interface: go to the 'Custom Features' link and select API custom feature 'Settings'. Then you have to init remote access to Simplybook API. Your request should contain the following headers: 'X-Company-Login', 'X-Token'.

Getting the access-token can be implemented either from client side or from your server which is the more secure solution.

You may use javascript JSON-RPC-client library and php JSON-RPC-client library from our examples for your own solution development.

Client API (Company public service) authorization

Authorization from client side code

var loginClient = new JSONRpcClient({
	'url': 'http://user-api.simplybook.me' + '/login',
	'onerror': function (error) {},
});
var token = loginClient.getToken(YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN, YOUR_API_KEY);

this.client = new JSONRpcClient({
	'url': 'http://user-api.simplybook.me',
	'headers': {
		'X-Company-Login': YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN,
		'X-Token': token
	},
	'onerror': function (error) {}
});

Authorization from server side code

$loginClient = new JsonRpcClient('http://user-api.simplybook.me' . '/login/');
$token = $loginClient->getToken(YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN, YOUR_API_KEY);

$client = new JsonRpcClient('http://user-api.simplybook.me' . '/', array(
    'headers' => array(
        'X-Company-Login: ' . YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN,
        'X-Token: ' . $token
    )
));

User/Admin API (Company administration service) authorization

Authorization from client side code

var loginClient = new JSONRpcClient({
'url': 'http://user-api.simplybook.me' + '/login',
'onerror': function (error) {},
});
var token = loginClient.getUserToken(YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN, YOUR_USER_LOGIN, YOUR_USER_PASSWORD);

this.client = new JSONRpcClient({
'url': 'http://user-api.simplybook.me' + '/admin/',
'headers': {
'X-Company-Login': YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN,
'X-User-Token': token
},
'onerror': function (error) {}
});

Authorization from server side code

$loginClient = new JsonRpcClient('http://user-api.simplybook.me' . '/login/');
$token = $loginClient->getUserToken(YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN, YOUR_USER_LOGIN, YOUR_USER_PASSWORD);

$client = new JsonRpcClient('http://user-api.simplybook.me' . '/admin/', array(
'headers' => array(
'X-Company-Login: ' . YOUR_COMPANY_LOGIN,
'X-User-Token: ' . $token
)
));

Getting data from Simplybook server

A booking page usually is a page where clients choose service they need, an employee and a time of their meeting. Then a client enters some contact info and confirms the booking. The more complex solutions may include filling different intake form fields, making some group or multy-times booking and so on. Lets describe the workflow of creation the simpliest booking page. Then if you need to add some extra functionality to your page, see here the full list of Simplybook API methods.

So the first thing you should display is the list of services and the list of employes. Get this data by getEventList and getUnitList methods. They both return a list with complete information about each item in it, so you have many possibilities how to display services and employees at your page. To make employee filtration use unit_map property of the service list, it contains the info about employees who can provide the selected service.

$services = $client->getEventList();
// returns array(array(
//     'id' => 1, - service id
//     'name' => 'Service 1', - service's name
//     'description' => 'Describe your service...', - service description
//     'duration' => 60, - service duration
//     'hide_duration' => 0, - Hide duration to clients flag,
//     'picture' => null, - file name of picture or null
//     'picture_path' => '/uploads/apidemo/event__picture/small/', - full path to picture,
//     'position' => 1 - service position
//     'is_active' => 1, - the service is activated
//     'is_public' => 1, - the service is allowed to book by clients
// ), ...)

$services = $client->getUnitList();
// returns array(array(
//    'id' => 1, - performer id
//    'name' => 'Provider 1', - performer name
//    'phone' => '111111111', - perfomer phone number
//    'description' => 'Describe your performer...', - performer description
//    'email' => 'test@gmail.com', - perfomer email,
//    'is_active' => 1, - the performer is activated
//    'is_visible' => 1, - the perfomer is visible for clients,
//    'picture' => null, - file name of picture or null,
//    'picure_path' => '/uploads/apidemo/unit_group__picture/small/', - full path to picture
//    'position' => 1, - performer position
//    'qty' => 1, performer quantity
// ), ...)

The next step to a client is to pick a date and time of his service. We've used a Bootstrap date-picker in API-usage example, you can also use this or any other calendar. To set your calendar first date use getFirstWorkingDay method. It can take employee id as a parameter and returns the next date when the selected employee (or any employee in the company by default) is avaiable for booking. To show time slots inside a selected date you need getWorkCalendar and getStartTimeMatrix methods. The first method give you an information about working day start and end time, and about day-offs. And the second one returns the list of time-slots which can be booked for a certain date.

$year = 2015;
$month = 3; // March
$performerId = 1; // Can be null 
$workDaysInfo = $client->getWorkCalendar($year, $month, $performerId);				
// returns array(
//     '2015-03-01' => array('from' => '09:00:00', 'to' => '18:00:00', 'is_day_off' => 0),
//     '2015-03-02' => array('from' => '09:00:00', 'to' => '18:00:00', 'is_day_off' => 0),
//     ...
//);

$dateFrom = '2015-03-03';
$dateTo = '2015-03-04';
$serviceId = 1;
$performerId = 1;
$qty = 1;
$availableTime = $client->getStartTimeMatrix($dateFrom, $dateTo, $serviceId, $performerId, $qty);
// returns array(
//     '2015-03-03' => array('09:00:00', '09:30:00', '10:00:00', ....),
//     '2015-03-04' => array('09:00:00', '09:30:00', '10:00:00', ....),
//);

Another usefull method you may need is calculateEndTime. Each service can have its own duration, also your company's employees possible have different work schedule form day to day. So using this method you can show to a client an end date and time of the service he've booked in a correct way.

$startDateTime = '2015-03-03 09:00:00';
$serviceId = 1;
$performerId = 1;
$availableTime = $client->calculateEndTime($startDateTime, $serviceId, $performerId);
// returns '2015-03-03 10:00:00'

When a client clicks confirm booking button you have to call book method. This is the main function which performs all necessary validations and registers a new booking in Simplybook system. It takes information about booking, client data like name and phone and some additional params. See all params descriptions of this method in API functions list. The book method responce contains an uniqe code and other details of the new booking or the list of errors if some problems occured, so you can use this information to show booking result to a client in convinient and intuitive way

Using of API secret key

$additionalFields = array(
	'6740d3bce747107ddb9a789cbb78abf3' => 'value1', 
	'b0657bafaec7a2c9800b923f959f8163' => 'value2'
);
$clientData = array(
	'name' => 'Client name',
	'email' => 'client@email.com',
	'phone' => '+13152108338'
);
		
$bookingsInfo = $client->book($eventId, $unitId, $date, $time, $clientData, $additionalFields);

if ($bookingsInfo->require_confirm) {
   foreach ($bookingsInfo->bookings as $booking) {
	   $sign = md5($booking->id . $booking->hash . YOUR_API_SECRET_KEY);
	   $result = $client->confirmBooking($booking->id, $sign);
	   echo '
Confirm result
';
	   var_dump($result);
    }
}

$fields = $client->getAdditionalFields($eventId);
// returns - array(array(
//		'name' => 'b0657bafaec7a2c9800b923f959f8163', - field name
//		'title' => 'Test digits', - field title
//		'type' => 'digits', - field type
//		'values' => null, - available values for select field type
//		'default' => null, - default value for field
//		'is_null' => null, - is filed nullable
//		'on_main_page' => 1, 
//		'pos' => 1, - field position
//		'value' => null
// )), ...)

Simplybook Custom Features

If your company specific requires some additional functionality you can activate some of our additional custom features. The complete custom feature list with detailed description is avaiable in your admin interface under the 'Custom Features' link. After the necessary custom feature is enabled the corresponding API methods will be activated so you can use them in your code.

Booking functionality codeflow

Authorize in Simplybook API using loginClient.getToken(companyLogin, apiKey); function

Check if Service categories plugin is activated by isPluginActivated('event_category') if yes then display list of categories getCategoriesList()

Get list of services (events) and performers (units) using getEventList() and getUnitList() functions. If 'unit_map' array is available for service it means this service can be provided by given performers only.

If Any Employee selector plugin is activated isPluginActivated('any_unit') and no special duration is set for service-performer pair in 'unit_map' array then user should be allowed to select Any provider option or choose provider manually. But manual selection of performers should not be possible if getCompanyParam('any_unit__hide_other_units') is enabled

Use getStartTimeMatrix ($from as current date, $to as current date , $eventId, $unitId, $count as selected participants value ) to get available timeslots for given date. $unitId should be null if Any employee option is selected.

If Any Employee selector is active and Any employee was selected call getAvailableUnits($eventId, $dateTime, $count) to get available $unitId

If Additional fields plugin is activated isPluginActivated('event_field') call getAdditionalFields($eventId) function to get list of fields for client to fill

Call book($eventId, $unitId, $date, $time, $clientData, $additional, $count, $batchId) to make a booking.