Common questions about the Gift Certificates feature
You will discover information about common use cases for the Gift Certificates feature. You will also learn how to better utilize its features and settings.
Select a question to see its answer
- Are the gift certificate numbers secure?
- Why are my gift certficates only generated when the order is marked Completed? They should be generated when the order is in Processing status.
- Do the Gift Certficates work with WooCommerce Coupons?
- How can I prevent the same gift certificate from being used twice?
- My customer ordered more than one quantity of a gift certificate product, so why can they only download one gift certficate? How do I generate one gift certficate for each quantity purchased?
- Can customers enter their own gift certficate values?
- Is the Gift Certficates feature compatible with WooCommerce Bookings?
- What does this error mean – “PDF error: Image file has no extension and no type was specified”?
- Does the Gift Certficates feature support PHP 8?
Are the gift certificate numbers secure?
Every gift certificate uses a unique, random 8-character alphanumeric string as the gift certificate number.
For gift certificates ordered from your store, the gift certificate number also includes the WooCommerce order number as a suffix to provide an additional check on your gift certificate numbers.
Why are my gift certficates only generated when the order is marked Completed? They should be generated when the order is in Processing status.
Gift Certficate generation timing is dictated by your WooCommerce download settings.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Downloadable Products and check the Grant access to downloadable products after payment setting to trigger the gift certficate generation when an order is in Processing status.
Do the Gift Certficates work with WooCommerce Coupons?
If your single-purpose gift certificate template or multi-purpose gift certificate template allows online redemptions, gift certificates can be redeemed online via the Coupon input field in the cart/checkout process.
Gift certificates are managed separately from coupons (i.e. in the WooCommerce > Gift Certificates page instead of the WooCommerce > Coupons page). Redeeming gift certificates online requires WooCommerce 3.2 or newer.
How can I prevent the same gift certificate from being used twice?
To prevent gift certificates from being reused, ensure that your single-purpose gift certificate template or multi-purpose gift certificate template includes the Gift Certificate Number field.
This number is unique and random, so it can’t be forged or reproduced. This field is required if your template allows online redemptions.
My customer ordered more than one quantity of a gift certificate product, so why can they only download one gift certficate? How do I generate one gift certficate for each quantity purchased?
The gift certificate template’s Product Quantity field determines how the gift certficate will behave when more than one quantity of the gift certificate product are purchased.
To generate separate gift certificates for each quantity, remove the Product Quantity field from the gift certificate. This will create separate gift certificates, but all gift certificate details (e.g. Recipient Name) will be identical. Increasing product quantity does not add additional fields (e.g. Recipient Name 1, Recipient Name 2, etc.) The gift certificate number, however, will be unique.
To let customers enter unique values for each gift certificate product purchased, you must force customers to purchase gift certificate products one at a time. You can do this by going to the product’s Inventory tab and enabling the Sold Individually setting. This won’t prevent the customer from purchasing more than one gift certificates, but will require them to be added to their cart separately. This lets the customer add multiple gift certificate products with different gift certificate field inputs. Each gift certificate will show as a separate line item, even if the field inputs are identical.
If you want to only let customers purchase one gift certificate per order, this would require some custom code since WooCommerce core doesn’t behave this way (product meta, such as gift certificate details, make each product unique). View a sample code snippet to disable adding more than one of a particular product gift certificate to the cart. This code can be modified as needed.
Can customers enter their own gift certificate values?
You can use the Name Your Price extension to let customers enter their own gift certificate values. Be sure to enable the Product Price field in the single-purpose gift certificate template or multi-purpose gift certificate template so the gift certificate's value is clear!
Is the Gift Certficates feature compatible with WooCommerce Bookings?
Bookings fields aren’t supported on gift certificates, but this is on our roadmap.
If this feature is important to you, please add your vote.
Please note that gift certificates can still be redeemed toward bookable products!
What does this error mean – “PDF error: Image file has no extension and no type was specified”?
You must upload an actual image file (e.g. JPG or PNG) to your single-purpose gift certificate template or multi-purpose gift certificate template. Gift Certificates will convert this image into a PDF when it generates the gift certificate.
Does the Gift Certificates feature support PHP 8?
To support PHP 8, a code library that the plugin relies on needs to be updated first to be PHP 8 compatible. The maintainers are working to complete compatibility and should be ready late 2020 or early 2021, at which time the Gift Certificates feature will be updated to support PHP 8 as well.
