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Gym schedule online without buying booking software

For your trade 6 min read

A class schedule is a table on a page somebody at the desk can edit, not a PDF and not a reason to buy booking software. Here is what each row has to say.

It is twenty to seven and somebody is sitting in a car outside your building, on a phone, trying to work out whether there is a class at seven and whether they can just walk in.

That is nearly all the traffic a gym schedule gets: people deciding about the next twenty minutes, not people planning a month.

What every row has to say

A time and a class name is not enough to decide on. Six things are, and they fit on one line.

The start time. What the class is called. How long it runs, because forty-five minutes and ninety minutes are different evenings. Who is teaching it, because half your members choose by instructor. Which room or floor, if you have more than one. And whether it needs booking or whether somebody can turn up.

That last one is the field most schedules leave out, and it is the one the person in the car needs. One word does it. Book, or drop in.

A grid on a wall is not a grid on a phone

The schedule on your wall is seven columns wide and it works, because a wall is wide and a person is standing still in front of it.

The same grid on a phone is a postage stamp. People pinch, zoom, lose their place, and give up somewhere around Wednesday. It is worse when the grid is a picture, because then the text cannot even reflow.

Stack it instead. One block per day, days as headings, classes as rows underneath, today's block at the top. It looks less impressive than a grid and it is read far more often. If you want the wall version too, print it from the same page rather than keeping a second file.

Date it, and say when it changes next

Put a line above the table saying what it is. Schedule for the week of the eighth. Or, in effect from the second of March until further notice.

Without that line, a visitor cannot tell whether they are looking at this week or at something left over from last winter, and the safe assumption they make is the one that keeps them at home. A date costs you six words and answers it.

If you run a fixed schedule that changes twice a year, say that too. Same schedule every week, next change in September, is a useful sentence.

This week's changes go above the table, not inside it

Somebody is off sick, the hall is booked for an exam, the holiday Monday has no evening classes. The instinct is to edit the grid, and the grid then has to be edited back on Monday, which is the edit that never happens.

Keep a short notice line above the table instead. Thursday's seven o'clock is canceled this week. Friday's spin is covered by Dan. Closed on the twenty-fifth, back on the twenty-sixth.

Two rules make it work. Every notice carries a date, and old notices come off. A stale cancellation from three weeks ago teaches people to stop reading the notices, which is worse than not having them.

You do not need booking software to publish a schedule

If all you want is for people to see what is on and when, a page with a table on it is the whole answer. Booking software is a different purchase for a different problem.

The problems it actually solves are capacity limits, waiting lists, taking payment for a drop-in, and knowing who is in the room before the class starts. If classes are filling up and you are turning people away at the door, that is when it earns its monthly cost.

And if you already pay for a system that publishes a decent public schedule page, use that one. Keeping a second copy on your website by hand guarantees that one of the two is wrong.

When a class does need booking, say how in the row

Where booking is required, the word in the row is not enough on its own. Add one line under the table saying how, and how far ahead.

Booking opens the Friday before. Call the desk. Members only until Monday. Whatever the rule is, in the plainest sentence you can write.

Say what happens when a class is full, too. A waiting list people can get onto is worth more than a fully booked label that ends the conversation, and it also tells you which class to run twice.

Whoever is on the desk has to be able to change it

If changing the schedule means emailing somebody who built the site, the schedule will be wrong by the spring. Not because anybody is careless, but because the person who can change it is not in the building at half past six when the instructor calls in sick. Sites go stale for exactly this reason, and it is much easier to prevent than to fix once the person who built it has stopped replying.

So the test for any schedule setup is whether the person on the desk can change a line and see it live in two minutes, from a phone, without calling anyone. If the answer is no, that is the thing to fix, before the design and before the software.

A short checklist

Questions people ask

How do I show a wide schedule on a phone

Do not show a grid. Break it into one block per day with the classes listed underneath, and put today's block first.

Should the instructor's name be on the schedule

Yes. A good share of members pick a class by who is taking it, and the name also makes a cover notice make sense.

What is the fastest way to cancel a single class online

A dated line above the table saying the class is off this week. Leave the schedule itself alone so nobody has to remember to put it back.

Should I use the public schedule page from my booking system

If it is clear and readable on a phone, yes, and link to it from your site. Two copies maintained by hand is the arrangement that goes wrong.

Where do class descriptions go

On a separate page, one short paragraph each, linked from the class name. The schedule is for deciding about tonight, not for explaining what a kettlebell is.

Do I need to show how full a class is

Only if you can do it accurately. A live count that is wrong is worse than no count, and for most gyms a note saying which classes fill early does the same job.

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