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Build an online booking app
Let customers pick a court, room or rental, see only the times they are allowed to book, and confirm without calling. Each booking gets a reference, a status and a cancel-by time.
Built around a purpose
From a phone-in court sheet to bookings customers make themselves.
For businesses whose customers reserve a thing or a fixed slot rather than a person's time: courts, studios, meeting rooms, rental gear, a tour with set departures. It fits when phone calls and a paper sheet can't keep up. If people book time with one professional, the appointment scheduling guide below fits better.
For illustration: a racquet club in Long Beach, California with six pickleball courts, two tennis courts and one ball machine that can be added to a tennis booking. Courts book by the hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Members may book seven days ahead and guests three. Anyone can cancel until 12 hours before the start, and tennis court 2 closes October 12 to 14 for resurfacing. Today every booking is a phone call to the front desk and a line on a paper court sheet.
A booking page where members and guests choose a court, see only the hours they may book, and leave with a reference and a cancel-by time. The front desk runs the day from the same list of bookings, phone and walk-in bookings included.
Saving bookings, member sign-in and confirmation emails are backend capabilities, so the booking itself is an app with data. A page with the club's rates and the desk's number would be a one-page site. Build and preview it on any plan. Putting it live needs Go or Pro. See pricing
Decide what a customer reserves
Make each court a record with its type, its hours and the days it is closed, and add the ball machine as an extra with a quantity of one. Then choose whether people book a specific court or any free pickleball court. With the second, the booking still has to name a court, so the desk knows where to send people.
Write the booking window and notice rules
Tell Studio how far ahead each kind of customer may look: seven days for members, three for guests. Add a two-hour minimum notice, inside which the page shows the desk's phone number instead, and enter the resurfacing dates. State the club's time zone and ask for it beside every time a customer sees.
Lay out the path from court to confirmation
Plan four screens: court type and date, the open hours, the customer's details, then a confirmation. Offer the ball machine on the second screen, before anyone types their details. Guests give a name, email address and phone number; members sign in. Ask for the hour to be checked again when the customer presses confirm, not only when they picked it.
Set statuses and the cancel-by rule
Give each booking one status: confirmed, canceled by the customer, canceled by the club or no-show. Give the customer's booking page a cancel button until 12 hours before the start, and the desk's number after that. Keep the record of a canceled booking and put its hour back on the list.
Run the day from a desk sheet
Give the front desk today's bookings by court and hour, with check-in and no-show buttons. Enter phone and walk-in bookings on the same sheet under the same rules. Then book an hour from the desk and check that it leaves the public page.
Scope the first version
What a first version includes.
Courts and extras
One record per court with its type, opening hours and closed dates, plus the ball machine as an extra that only one booking can hold in any hour.
Booking rules
The booking window for members and for guests, the two-hour minimum notice, the 12-hour cancel-by time and the club's time zone, kept where the desk can read and change them.
Public booking page
Court type and date, the open hours, the customer's details and a confirmation, laid out to work in a phone's browser.
Booking record
A reference, the court, start and end, the customer, whether they are a member or a guest, how the booking arrived (online, phone or walk-in) and its status.
Manage-your-booking page
Opened from the link in the confirmation or by signing in. It shows the booking, the cancel-by time and, until that time passes, a cancel button.
Desk day sheet
Today's bookings by court and hour with check-in and no-show buttons, and a short form for phone and walk-in bookings.
Test it in the preview
Before you share it.
- Open the last free 6 p.m. pickleball court in two browsers and press confirm in both. One booking should go through. The other person should land back on the hour list with 6 p.m. gone, not on an error page or a second confirmation.
- As a guest, look four days ahead; as a member, look eight. Neither should offer hours. Then try an hour that starts in 90 minutes. You should see the desk's number, not a confirm button.
- Add the ball machine to a 5 p.m. tennis booking, then start a 5 p.m. booking on the other tennis court. The machine should show as taken before you reach the details screen.
- Make a test booking on tennis court 2 for October 13, then enter the resurfacing closure. Check that October 12 to 14 offers no hours on that court, and find where the existing booking shows up so the desk can call the customer.
- Cancel one test booking 13 hours before its start and another 11 hours before. The first should put the hour back on the list. The second should show the desk's number instead of a cancel button.
- Read the confirmation screen and the confirmation email, sent to your own address. Both need the court, the date, the start time marked Pacific, the reference and the cancel-by time. An email can arrive late, so the screen should carry everything the customer needs.
- Open your guest confirmation link in a private window, then change one character of the reference. You should see nothing of anyone else's booking.
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- Put the cancel-by time and the no-show rule on the details screen, beside the confirm button, and repeat them on the confirmation. A rule customers first meet in an email reads as a surprise.
- The public hour list should show that a court is taken, never who took it. Names, phone numbers and member numbers belong on the desk sheet, behind the access you describe for each collection. Sign in as a member and confirm you can't open anyone else's booking.
- Before you publish the address, enter every future booking from the paper court sheet and retire the sheet that day. While both are in use, the page and the phone can promise the same hour to two people.
- If customers book any free pickleball court, write down how a court is chosen, such as the lowest-numbered free one, and whether the desk may move people between courts on the day. Tell customers the court number can change.
A little more context
Good questions.
Can customers change a booking?
You can let them, within rules you set. Guests would open the link in their confirmation, and members would sign in. Let them move to another open hour or cancel until the cancel-by time, and send anything later to the desk. Ask for a move to update the same booking record rather than create a second one, then check that the old hour reopens.
Is this online booking or appointment scheduling?
Online booking fits when customers reserve a thing or a fixed slot: a court, a room, rental gear or a seat on a tour. When they book time with one particular professional, whose working day, preparation and rescheduling set the rules, the appointment scheduling guide below fits better.
How do guests pay a court fee?
Through the payment link or desk you already use. Decide who pays, such as guests only, whether it is the full court fee or a deposit, and what happens to the money after a late cancellation. Then give each booking a paid status and run a test booking and a test cancellation before the page goes public.
Do customers need an account to book?
Not necessarily. Guests can book with a name, email address and phone number, and manage the booking through the link in their confirmation. Members sign in, which gives them the longer booking window and a list of their own bookings. Either way, saved bookings and sign-in make it an app with data.
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