Contents
App manager - Plugixa Car Rental
The plugin is built from apps: one for the booking form, one for coupons, one for the customer portal, and so on. The App manager is where you switch the optional ones on and off, so the admin shows only what your business uses.
Open it from Configuration -> App manager in the app’s sidebar. Only
administrators can change it: switching an app needs the WordPress
manage_options capability.
The note at the top sums up what switching an app off does: it hides the app everywhere, stops its endpoints answering and stops its background work, and keeps all of its data, so you can switch it back on and pick up where you left off.
Core apps
The first row, headed Core · always on, is the part of the plugin everything else is built on. Each card says Always on and has no button. These cannot be switched off.
| App | What it is |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Today’s pickups, returns and fleet status at a glance. See Dashboard. |
| Bookings | Reservations, availability and the rental lifecycle from pickup to return. See Bookings. |
| Fleet | Vehicle categories, the models customers book, and the cars behind them. See Fleet. |
| Locations | Pickup and return points with their opening hours. See Locations. |
| Pricing | Daily rates per vehicle model, with cheaper days for longer rentals. See Rates. |
| Payments | How customers pay: at the desk, by bank transfer, or online with a card gateway. See Payments. |
| App manager | This screen. |
| Settings | Global configuration: formatting, currency and each app’s own options. See Settings. |
Optional apps
Below the core row, tabs sort the optional apps: All apps, Operations, Insight, Configuration and Tools. A tab with nothing in it says “Nothing here yet.”
Every optional app is switched on when the plugin is installed. Each card shows Active with a green dot, or Inactive, and a button to change it: Deactivate or Activate.
| App | Tab | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking form | Operations | The online booking wizard for your site: the [plugixa_car_rental_booking] shortcode and the Car rental booking block. See The booking form. |
|
| Extras | Operations | Add-ons customers choose with their car: child seats, GPS, an additional driver. See Extras. | |
| Coupons | Operations | Discount codes: a percentage or an amount off, with dates, a usage limit and a shortest rental. See Coupons. | |
| Customer portal | Operations | Customers view and cancel their own bookings from the link in their email, under your cancellation policy. See Customer portal. | |
| Pricing rules PRO | Operations | Seasons, weekend prices, long-rental and early-booking discounts, applied day by day, with a pricing calendar. See Pricing rules. | Pricing |
| Driver age PRO | Operations | Asks the driver’s age, keeps each car to drivers old enough for it, and adds young or senior driver surcharges. See Driver age. | Booking form |
| Delivery and collection PRO | Operations | Brings the car to the customer’s address and fetches it back, priced by road distance from the desk. See Delivery. | |
| Map PRO | Operations | Shows your rental desks on a Google map: a locator page with the [plugixa_car_rental_map] shortcode, and a map to choose the pickup desk on in the booking form. See Map. |
|
| Invoices | Operations | Numbered invoices for completed rentals, printable by your desk and by the customer. See Invoices. | |
| Stripe PRO | Operations | Card payments on Stripe’s secure checkout, with refunds from the booking screen. See Stripe. | Payments |
| PayPal PRO | Operations | Payments through PayPal’s checkout, with refunds from the booking screen. See PayPal. | Payments |
| Pay part now PRO | Operations | Customers paying online can pay a share now and the rest at pickup. See Pay part now. | Payments |
| Notifications | Operations | Emails to customers when a booking is confirmed or cancelled, and to your desk for every new booking. See Emails. | |
| Inspections PRO | Operations | Records the car at pickup and return, with a signed agreement as a PDF. See Inspections. | Bookings |
| Text messages PRO | Operations | Texts the customer when their booking is confirmed or cancelled, through Twilio or Vonage. See SMS and Telegram. | Notifications |
| PDF invoices PRO | Operations | Invoices as PDF files, downloaded from the booking, offered on the customer’s booking page and emailed when issued. See Invoices. | Invoices |
| Telegram alerts PRO | Operations | Posts each new, cancelled, picked-up or returned booking to your team’s Telegram chat. See SMS and Telegram. | Notifications |
| Calendar sync PRO | Operations | Your rentals in other calendars, and other booking sites’ bookings read back in. See Calendar sync. | |
| Reports PRO | Insight | Revenue, bookings and fleet utilisation over any period. See Reports. | |
| Tax PRO | Configuration | Tax rates per pickup location, added to the price or included in it. See Tax rates. | Pricing |
| Currencies PRO | Configuration | Lets customers book and pay in other currencies, at exchange rates you set. See Currencies. | Booking form |
| Custom fields | Configuration | Extra questions on the booking form, such as a flight number or a driving licence number. See Custom fields. | |
| Export | Tools | The Export CSV button on every list, which writes what you are looking at to a CSV file. See Bookings. |
The free edition shows only the apps without the PRO mark. The Pro apps are part of the Pro build, and their cards are not shown at all in the free one. See Free vs Pro.
A card can carry a line of figures about what the app holds. Pricing rules says how many rules are in use, and Tax how many tax rates apply everywhere, for example “1 tax rate applies everywhere.”
Switching an app on or off
Click Deactivate or Activate on its card. There is no confirmation step. The change is saved at once, and the page reloads so that the sidebar, the screens and the settings match what is now running.
What switching off does
- The app’s screens leave the sidebar, the search and the settings.
- Its part of the Dashboard is no longer drawn.
- Its REST endpoints stop answering. For an app with a front end, such as the Booking form or the Customer portal, the shortcode and the block stop working, so take them off your pages or switch the app back on.
- Its scheduled background work is stopped.
What it does not do
“Nothing here deletes anything. An app you switch off keeps its records and its settings, and finds them again when you switch it back on.” Coupons, extras, custom fields, invoices and every setting stay in the database while their app is off.
To remove the plugin’s data for good, see Privacy and uninstall.
Apps that need another app
Some Pro apps are built on another app, shown in the Needs column above. Text messages and Telegram alerts send on the booking events that Notifications handles, so they need it running.
- Switch the app it needs off, and the dependent app stops too. Its card shows Inactive and “Off because something it needs is off.” Its button still reads Deactivate, because you did not switch it off yourself. Switch the needed app back on and it starts again by itself.
- Try to switch on an app whose need is off, and the change is refused with a message at the bottom of the screen: “That could not be changed: Switch these on first:” followed by what to switch on.
When a change is refused
The same message bar explains any other refusal. A core app answers “This app is part of the core and cannot be switched off.”
Tips
- Not taking coupons? Switching Coupons off removes the coupon field from the booking form as well as the Coupons screen.
- A desk that only takes bookings by phone can switch the Booking form and Customer portal off and keep working from Bookings.
- If your customer list must not leave the site in a file, switch Export off. The Export CSV button disappears from every list, for every user.
- An app’s settings live in Settings while the app is on. See Settings.