AmeliaExtension - Smart Waitlist Pro

Turn cancelled appointment spaces into confirmed bookings—without notifying your entire waiting list at once.

AmeliaExtension - Smart Waitlist Pro is a premium appointment waitlist and cancellation-recovery extension for Amelia Booking. It works with Amelia’s native waiting booking status and adds a controlled private-offer workflow, automatic queue advancement, secure customer claim pages, operational tools and recovery analytics.

When a place becomes available, Smart Waitlist Pro selects the next eligible customer and sends a private, time-limited offer. The customer opens a secure landing page and explicitly confirms that they want the appointment. Amelia then performs the final capacity check and completes its normal booking status and integration workflow.

Why Smart Waitlist Pro?

Amelia 9.7 can notify every waiting customer simultaneously when an appointment space becomes available. This can create a race between customers and gives administrators limited control over who receives the opportunity first. Smart Waitlist Pro adds a professional queue layer designed for controlled offers, better customer communication and measurable recovery.

Core features

• One-customer-at-a-time offers: send a private opportunity to the next customer instead of broadcasting the available place to everyone.
• Automatic queue advancement: if an offer expires, the system safely advances to the next eligible waiting customer.
• Configurable offer time: choose how long a customer has to respond, from a short urgent window to a longer private invitation.
• Secure claim landing page: customers review the appointment before confirming. A deliberate confirmation step helps prevent automated email-link scanners from accidentally claiming a booking.
• Amelia-native final validation: the final claim is passed to Amelia’s own approval endpoint, where capacity is checked again to prevent overbooking.
• Automatic Amelia synchronisation: documented Amelia booking hooks capture new waiting bookings, while scheduled reconciliation imports and verifies the current queue.
• Modern Amelia dashboard: manage waiters from a dedicated Smart Waitlist menu inside Amelia’s WordPress administration area.
• Queue controls: search, filter, promote, pause, resume, remove or manually offer a place from one operational view.
• Customer information: see the waiting customer, email, Amelia booking ID, service, appointment date, queue priority, current state and latest offer status.
• Notification templates: edit the offer email subject and message using customer, service, date, duration and private claim-link placeholders.
• SMTP/API compatible delivery: messages use WordPress WordPress mail delivery, allowing delivery through an existing SMTP or API mail plugin such as Brevo.
• Customer tracking portal: add the [smart_waitlist_pro_portal] shortcode to a protected page so signed-in customers can see waitlist requests matched to their account email.
• Operational audit trail: review recent offer creation, expiry and queue completion events.

Revenue and performance dashboard

The dashboard provides at-a-glance widgets for:

• Active waiting customers
• Offers awaiting a response
• Appointments filled this month
• Offer-to-booking conversion rate
• Average time required to fill an available place
• Recovered appointment value
• Installed and available extension versions

Example workflow

1. An Amelia appointment is full and a customer joins its native waiting list.
2. A confirmed customer cancels or a booking is rejected.
3. Smart Waitlist Pro identifies the next eligible waiting customer.
4. A private expiring offer is emailed to that customer.
5. The customer opens the secure offer page and chooses whether to claim the appointment.
6. Amelia verifies the remaining capacity and approves the waiting booking.
7. The dashboard records the successful recovery and updates the analytics.
8. If the offer expires, the queue automatically advances to the next customer.

Built for safe Amelia integration

• Separate, independently installable WordPress plugin
• No modifications to Amelia core files
• No changes to Amelia’s database schema
• Compatibility guard for Amelia 9.7 and required database contracts
• Automatic pause when compatibility or licensing requirements are not satisfied
• Own queue, offer and audit tables with idempotent booking references
• Single-use 256-bit private offer tokens stored only as SHA-256 hashes
• Rotating, secret-aware operational logging
• Queue data preserved safely during normal uninstall

Private licensing and WordPress updates

Each purchase includes a unique licence for one production website. Licence validation is protected by signed server responses and a pinned public key. A staging activation is supported where permitted by the issued licence.

With an active licence, new versions can appear in the standard WordPress Plugins and Updates screens. Administrators can also use the built-in Check for Updates Now button from the Smart Waitlist Pro dashboard.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.2 or newer
• PHP 7.4 or newer
• Amelia Booking 9.7
• An Amelia edition that includes native appointment waiting lists (currently Pro or Elite)
• Waiting lists enabled for the services where Smart Waitlist Pro will be used
• Working WordPress email delivery, preferably configured through SMTP or an email API provider

Important setup note

For controlled one-customer-at-a-time offers, Amelia’s customer “Waiting list availability” notification must be disabled. Amelia’s waiting-list confirmation notification can remain enabled. Smart Waitlist Pro displays this requirement during setup and will not begin automatic controlled offers until an administrator confirms it.

Version 1.0 scope

This release controls appointment waiting lists. Event waiting lists are not included in version 1.0. Offers are private at the communication layer and do not create a hard calendar lock; Amelia remains the authoritative system and performs the final capacity check when the customer confirms.

Support and free installation

The extension includes a direct support link to hello@freygabor.com. A professional free installation and integration request can also be submitted through the FreyGabor Amelia Extensions website. An active, correctly configured Amelia Booking installation is required.

Developed by Frey Gabor — FreyGabor.com