Room and chair booking for Canadian salons and spas
A spa with two RMTs and one massage room has a capacity of one massage at a time, however many therapists are on shift. Most booking systems only count people, so they will happily sell both therapists the same hour and leave you to apologize at the door. Slotora counts the room too.
Add your rooms and chairsOne Thursday afternoon, followed through
A day spa with one treatment room, two pedicure chairs and two registered massage therapists, both working until seven. Here is where the second booking is stopped, and why.
Before
You describe the space once
On the rooms screen you add “Treatment room”, kind room, count one; and “Pedicure chairs”, kind chair, count two. Then you attach the room to the massage and facial services and the chairs to the pedicures.
2:00
The first massage is booked online
A client books a sixty-minute massage at two with the first therapist. The room is now taken from two until three.
2:05
The second client looks at the same hour
She wants a massage at two with the other therapist, who is free. The booking page does not offer two o'clock: the therapist has the time, the room does not. She sees three o'clock instead.
2:10
Reception tries to squeeze one in
At the front desk, the booking is refused with the sentence the product prints: “Your rooms or chairs for this treatment are all in use then. The diary is free — the space is not.” Nobody has to remember there is only one room.
2:15
Two pedicures at once are fine
Two clients book pedicures for the same hour with two different estheticians. Two chairs, two bookings, both accepted. A third at that hour is not offered.
What you can describe
Five kinds, each with a count. The kind is for you; the count is what Slotora checks.
Rooms
Massage rooms, a facial room, the waxing room. Usually a count of one, because each is a named space.
Chairs
Pedicure thrones, lash beds, a row of three identical styling chairs. A count of three means any three at once.
Basins
Backwash basins in a hair salon, where the colour rinse and the cut-and-finish compete for the same two sinks.
Machines
A laser, a microdermabrasion unit, an infrared sauna pod. The thing you own one of and cannot double-book.
Anything else
A treatment that needs two chairs at once can ask for two. A service that needs nothing extra is left alone and books on the person alone.
Where it stops
Slotora counts space. It does not manage it for you.
- It never picks which chair
- Three chairs means three bookings at once. Which client sits in which chair is decided in the salon, not on the screen.
- There is no floor plan
- Rooms are a list with counts, not a map. You cannot drag a client from room A to room B in a picture.
- It cannot see what you have not told it
- A service with no room attached books on the person alone. If the facial room is also used for brow lamination, attach it to both or the brow bookings will not count against it.
- Clients still get email, not texts
- Confirmations and reminders for room-based bookings go by email. Texts are not sent to Canadian numbers yet.
With a second address
If you run two premises on one account, each room belongs to the premises it is in. The Mississauga massage room does not make a two o'clock appear at the Oakville location, and a client choosing Oakville is only offered times when an Oakville room is free.
Rooms are checked on every path a booking can take: the client's booking page, reception's new-appointment form, a reschedule dragged across the calendar, and the app. A rule that only held on the booking page would be broken by the first busy Saturday at the desk.
How other salon software handles this
This is not unique to Slotora, and it is worth knowing where it sits in each product's price. Square's Canadian pricing page lists assigning rooms, chairs, stations and other resources as part of Appointments Premium, its highest plan.[1] Phorest's Canadian pricing page lists linking rooms and equipment to services among its plan features.[2] Mangomint's scheduling page describes assigning rooms, equipment and other limited resources to services.[3]
In Slotora it is part of every salon account from the first day, free, with no plan above it to move up to.
Questions about rooms and chairs
Will my clients see the room on the booking page?
No. They see the times that are really available. A time disappears when either the person or the space is taken; the client is never asked to choose a room.
Can one treatment need a room and a machine?
Yes. Attach both to the service, and a time is only offered when both are free alongside the therapist.
What if two RMTs share one room on different days?
That works without any extra setting. On a day only one of them works, the room never limits anything; on a day both work, it does.
Does adding rooms change what I pay?
No. Slotora is free in Canada, so a fourth room or a second laser costs nothing, and neither does another therapist.
Can I try it with my own rooms first?
Yes. Add them on your free account and book a few test appointments at the desk to see a time refused; there is no trial clock running while you do.
Sources
Each competitor's page, read on the date shown.
- Square — Appointments pricing (Canada) — https://squareup.com/ca/en/appointments/pricing · read
- Phorest — pricing (Canada) — https://www.phorest.com/ca/pricing/ · read
- Mangomint — scheduling — https://www.mangomint.com/features/scheduling/ · read
Tell it about the room you have one of
Add the rooms, chairs and machines that run out first, attach them to the services that use them, and let the calendar stop the double-booking before it happens.