A slot-booking app for a multi-court sports facility.

SBSC is a sports facility with multiple courts. Players who want to use the courts need to book slots in advance, and the facility needs to manage the booking calendar across all the courts without overbooking or double-booking. The brief was focused: a booking app that players can install on their phones and that the facility can run from a single admin view.

The situation

A multi-court sports facility operates on a tight schedule. Each court has a finite number of slots per day. Players want to know in advance that a court will be available when they arrive. The facility wants to maximise utilisation, which depends on players being able to book ahead with confidence.

The pre-system workflow was a phone-based booking process. Players phoned the facility, asked about availability, and reserved a slot. The facility staff held the booking calendar in a paper diary or a spreadsheet. Overbookings and double-bookings happened occasionally, which was expensive in customer goodwill.

The brief was to put the booking calendar online, let players book for themselves, and give the facility a single source of truth for the day's bookings.

What we built

A web application for slot booking, wrapped in an Android app so players could install it on their phones and have it behave like a native application.

Player-facing booking

Players see the available slots across all courts in a clean calendar view. They select a slot, confirm, and receive a booking confirmation. The slot becomes unavailable to other players the moment it is booked.

Multi-court coordination

The booking calendar shows availability across all the courts at the facility. A player who is flexible about which court they play on can see the wider availability at a glance.

Admin view

The facility staff see the booking calendar in their admin view. They can override, cancel, or manually book slots when needed. The single source of truth eliminates the overbooking risk that the phone-based process produced.

Android app wrapper

The web application is wrapped in an Android app so players can install it on their phones. The native install gives the booking flow the convenience and presence of an app without the cost of a fully native mobile build.

How it works in practice

A player decides to play. They open the app, find a slot, book it. They arrive at the facility at their booked time. The facility staff see the booking. The court is available. The player plays.

For the facility, the operational change is the elimination of the phone-based booking workflow. The single calendar view, accurate and real-time, removes the coordination cost that the manual process required.

What changed

The overbooking risk that the manual process produced occasionally disappeared. The phone time the staff spent on booking calls became available for other work. Players got a more convenient booking experience.

The system is focused, well-scoped, and reliable, which are the qualities the brief asked for.