Reservation Rules & Settings

Overview

Each Club can configure how Customers book Reservations through a set of back-end settings that control booking windows, duration limits, court selection, future-booking caps, and edit cut-off times.

Notifications

Staff can track all Customer purchases and Reservations on the Dashboard's Purchase page, which lists every Customer interaction with the App in chronological order.

Attendee List Icons

The icons under the invitee's names show if the invitees are paying for their spot or if they are covered by the Reservation holder.

• If the Customer is paying for themselves, the icon is

• If the Customer is covered by the Reservation holder, the icon is

Booking Horizon

The Booking Horizon is the number of days in advance from today that a Customer can book a private Reservation. A Booking Horizon of 7 days means a Customer can book a Reservation up to one week from today. The current Booking Horizon is shown at the top of the booking flow. Non-members, Members, and individual Membership tiers can each have their own Booking Horizon.

For example:

• Non-members: 5 days in advance
• Membership A: 7 days in advance
• Membership B: 14 days in advance

New Reservation slots open to the Customer at 12 am (midnight) local to the Club.

A Member with a 14-day Booking Horizon will see day 14 become available at 12 am. This differs from the Events Booking Horizon, which publishes new days at 12 pm (noon) local to the Club. Customers cannot book past their Booking Horizon. Admins can book private Reservations from the Dashboard as far into the future as needed, regardless of the Customer's Booking Horizon.

Court Locking

Court Locking lets a Customer pick a specific court during the booking flow instead of letting the PodPlay algorithm assign one.

When a court is locked, the algorithm has to work around it when placing other Reservations. Auto-select is the most efficient option because the algorithm can move Reservations as needed to maximize court utilization and minimize court switching.

We track how often Customers want to lock down courts, and on average, 11% of all Reservations used Court Locking. We recommend charging a fee for Court Locking to incentivize Customers to use auto-select and preserve optimal court utilization.

Court selection options can also be turned off on the Venue page of the Dashboard by updating a booking Experience from Multi-court to Private. By updating an Experience to Private, the court selection for the Customer during the booking flow is removed.

More information is at the bottom of this article for Table/Court Locking Icons.

Enforce 1-hour Minimum

This restriction requires all Customers (Members and Non-members) to book private Reservations of at least 1 hour. If Show 1-hour Bookings is off, this setting still enforces a 1-hour minimum, and the Customer can extend by 30 minutes for a total of 90 minutes on the Reservation, forcing the first click of the Customer to select two 30-minute slots.

Show 1-hour Bookings

This restriction limits the booking grid to whole-hour slots. Customers will see options at 1:00 pm, 2:00 pm, 3:00 pm, and so on, instead of 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, etc.

If Show 1-hour Bookings is enabled, Enforce 1-hour Minimum must also be turned on.

Max Hours per Reservation

This setting caps the length of a single Reservation. A value of 2 means each Reservation can be at most 2 hours long.

If the Max Hours per Reservation is set to 1, then each Customer can book Reservations for a maximum length of 1 hour. This does not prevent a Customer from booking two 1-hour Reservations back-to-back. In this example, when the Customer goes to select more than 1 hour for a single Reservation, they will receive an error message.

Max Future Reservations per Customer

This setting limits how many Reservations a Customer can have on the calendar at one time. If set to 5, a Customer can hold 5 future Reservations and cannot book a 6th until one of the existing Reservations has been attended. The limit can be configured per Membership tier. For example, Membership A might allow 4 future Reservations while Membership B allows 8.

Why These Restrictions Exist

Each of these settings lives in the back-end configuration of the Club's environment, giving every Club room to be creative about how it limits Customer Reservations. The PodPlay team are Club owners ourselves, so we know that some Customers will hog or hoard play time on time-bound inventory. These controls are how Clubs handle that.

Reservation Edit Cut-off Times

The system enforces cut-off times for when an Admin or Customer can no longer adjust a Reservation. This keeps the record of Customer engagement and bookings accurate. These cut-off times apply to both Reservations and Events.

Admin Cut-offs

• Booking: Cannot book a Reservation 20 minutes or more past its start time. Booking 19 minutes past the start is allowed. Example: at 8:20 am, an Admin cannot book an 8:00 am start. At 8:19 am, they can.
• Canceling: Cannot cancel a Reservation 25 minutes or more after its start. Example: an 8:00–8:30 am Reservation can be canceled at 8:24 am, not at 8:25 am.
• Rescheduling: Cannot reschedule a Reservation after it has ended. An 8:00–8:30 am Reservation can be rescheduled at any point before 8:30 am to a later time the same day or another day. At 8:30 am or later, rescheduling is no longer allowed. See the Rescheduling Reservations article for details.

Customer Cut-offs

• Booking: Cannot book on the Book tab of the App 20 minutes or more past the start time. Booking 19 minutes past the start is allowed. Example: at 8:20 am, a Customer cannot book an 8:00 am start. At 8:19 am, they can.
• Canceling: Cannot cancel a Reservation 25 minutes or more after its start. An 8:00–8:30 am Reservation can be canceled at 8:24 am, not at 8:25 am.

Quick Reference

• Admins cannot book 20 minutes into the past.
• Admins can reschedule up to 25 minutes into the past.

Table/Court Locking Icons

A Reservation has a Settings tab in the side panel; within this Settings tab is the Table Assignment. A Table Assignment can have different Status icons, each icon indicates a different situation.

Status icons when the Reservation is upcoming

• Clock icon: The Customer did not pick a court when booking their Reservation. There is an algorithm running in the background and it will pick the Customer's court 15 minutes before the Reservation begins.

• Shield + Lock icon: The Customer picked a court when booking their Reservation (court locked by Customer).

• Silhouette + Lock icon: Someone in the Dashboard booked or adjusted the Reservation for the Customer (court assigned/moved by staff in the Dashboard).

• Clock icon with Lock: The algorithm assigns the court 15 minutes before the Reservation and has now locked the court/table down.

Once the Reservation is 15 minutes away, any Reservation that is not yet locked to a specific court will receive a Lock icon next to the Status, signifying the court selection has now been locked in place (including Reservations where the algorithm decided the court).

Icons that remain the same after the Reservation passes

Courts or tables adjusted by an Admin keep the Silhouette + Lock icon both when upcoming and after the Reservation. Courts or tables locked by the Customer (Customer-selected court) keep the Shield + Lock icon both when upcoming and after the Reservation.