Feature Request: Single Treatment Room Booking Conflict Prevention

Background

Case example: two clinicians working in the same treatment room use the same booking system. However, the system allows overlapping appointments because it treats each clinician's schedule independently without accounting for shared room usage.

Problem

• Both clinicians can book appointments at the same time.

• Resulting overlapping bookings cause double-booking of the only available treatment room.

• This causes scheduling conflicts and inefficiencies.

Current Workarounds

• Manually dividing the day into fixed time blocks assigned to each clinician (e.g., Clinician A from 8-10 am, Clinician B from 10-12 pm).

• Relying on first-come, first-served booking managed by the clinicians themselves from the Diary.

• No automated system-level control to prevent overlaps.

User Impact

• Risk of double bookings leading to client dissatisfaction and operational challenges.

• Lack of flexibility if both clinicians are available simultaneously but want to avoid overlap.

• Increased manual coordination required between clinicians.

Proposed Feature

Implement a shared resource booking system for treatment rooms with the following capabilities:

1. Resource Definition

   • Ability to define treatment rooms as shared resources in the booking system.

   • Assign multiple clinicians to the same treatment room resource.

2. Conflict Prevention

   • Prevent overlapping bookings tied to the same resource (treatment room).

   • If Clinician A books the room at 9:00–9:30, Clinician B cannot book any appointment overlapping that time.

3. Booking Interface

   • Real-time availability showing shared treatment room occupancy.

   • System-generated alerts or blocks on conflicting bookings.

4. Flexible Scheduling

   • Allow simultaneous clinician availability but enforce single-room occupancy rules.

   • Optionally allow manual override with warnings (for exceptional cases).

5. Notification System

   • Notify both clinicians if a booking attempt conflicts with existing appointments.

Benefits

• Eliminates double bookings for shared treatment rooms.

• Improves operational efficiency and client experience.

• Reduces need for manual coordination between clinicians.

• Supports flexible and dynamic scheduling based on actual availability of the treatment room.

Additional Notes

• This feature would require significant development work, and currently is not a highly requested feature - this post is to gauge user interest before considering implementation.