Your first run
A realistic first path through planni, from a location to your first automatic email.
What this run covers
The recommended path
This article walks you once through the path most new companies take in planni: a location, a product, an event created from it, checkout on your website, and finally a connected mailbox with a workflow that replies automatically. The core concepts behind this are explained briefly in What is planni?. Here it is about the actual clicks.
Every step links to the article that covers it in full. This run shows how the steps fit together, not every single field.
The easiest way to try planni is with a single event far in the future: create a product, create an event from it, add yourself as an attendee, publish. That way you experience the whole path from start to finish once, before creating many real events.
What you will have at the end
A published, bookable offer on your website, a connected mailbox, and a confirmation email that sends automatically as soon as someone books.
Before you start
You need a role with access to locations, products, events, checkout and email, so at least Backoffice-Manager (details in Roles and permissions).
Step 1: Create a location
Where your modules take place
A location is created once, centrally, and is then available for any number of events. Open Locations under Event Management and click Add location. For a physical place, enter name, street, postal code, city and country; for an online meeting, enter a title, platform, link and, if needed, an access code.
The full guide is under Locations.
Step 2: Create a product
What a product is
A product is the template for what you sell: a name, a price and, for an event product, the module structure. The event with actual dates is created from this template later.
The short version
Open "Products" under Commerce and click Create product. Choose the type Event product when you are selling a bookable date or a series of dates.
Fill in the product name, net price, tax rate and the maximum number of attendees. For a multi-part offering, such as a training running over several days, the Modules step is where you set how many modules there are and what they are called. The actual dates come in the next step.
In the Checkout step, set which information attendees and the person ordering should provide when purchasing, and finish in the Other step with a calendar color and, if you want, a checklist assignment.
The full guide with every field is under Products and categories.
A product only appears in checkout once it is Active and has at least one published event in the future. You check both at the end of this run.
Step 3: Create an event
The event wizard
An event always comes from a product, through a multi-step wizard. Open Events under Event Management, click Create event and choose Single event. In the Details step you pick your new product, planni copies over the price and attendee count automatically. In the Modules step you schedule either with the wizard (a start date and a rhythm, such as consecutive weekdays) or manually, and use Location for all and Trainer for all to set defaults for every module at once, overridable per module. The Review step shows the full overview before creating.
Draft or publish directly
As long as you still want to change something, for instance because a trainer is missing, save with Save as draft. Only Publish event makes it appear in checkout on your website. The full guide with every field is under Create an event.
Step 4: Embed checkout
Two building blocks, one code snippet
A published event is bookable in the system but not visible anywhere yet. There are two building blocks for that under Commerce → Checkout:
- An event table, a widget you embed in your website as a code snippet, showing your published dates as a table with price and a book button per row. It updates itself automatically, so you do not have to maintain dates on your website by hand.
- A cart, which appears when someone clicks book, and can optionally be opened through your own element.
You embed both through Embedding guide, a step-by-step walkthrough with code to copy.
What you need for this run
One event table, filtered to your new product, is enough for a first test. How to create an event table and configure the cart is described under Configure checkout.
Step 5: Connect a mailbox and set up a workflow
So bookings get answered automatically
For orders to trigger a confirmation email automatically, first connect a mailbox under Settings → Email (Microsoft 365 or IMAP/SMTP). Only then can a workflow send an email through that mailbox. Then set up a workflow under Automation → Workflows with the trigger Order created, and pick an email template for it, for example an order confirmation.
The guides for this are under Email, Workflows and Email templates.
Tracing the first order
What is created automatically at checkout
When someone books through the event table, an order, a registration for the attendee on the event and, if the email address is not yet known, a new contact are all created automatically. Open Orders under Commerce, the new order sits at the top of the list. More on this in Understanding an order.
When something does not work
The event does not appear in the widget
Check three things: is the product Active? Is the event published? And does at least one module lie in the future? If any of these is missing, planni does not show the event.
The confirmation email does not arrive
Check whether the mailbox under Settings → Email is connected successfully and whether the workflow is switched active. Without a connected mailbox, no workflow can send an email.