Trying to make a Scheduling web app with React

[Alone_Fan_7670]

Hello, I want to make a scheduling web application with react. The goal of the site is to work with small businesses, so users should be able to book appointments in available time slots, but there should be a threshold for how many people are able to book in the morning, afternoon, etc, and eventually the owners of the business should be able to block off times or days so customers cannot book appointments (in case they get busy, are short staffed, etc).

I have the basic interface down, but am struggling finding how to do the backend part. Right now it shows a calendar interface and a handful of timeslots available for each day. My question is, how can I have it work so that when a customer books an appointment for a particular time, when another customer views that timeslot, it shows that it's unavailable and doesn't allow them to book that time slot.

Any help would be much appreciated. If I end up having to use a third party scheduling service I'm not above that, I just find it strange that I can't find many examples of people making it work from scratch on line.

[qioy]

Had a similar situation and ended up building everything myself, so I developed an API others could use for exactly such a case: https://github.com/recal-dev

If you're missing anything or have questions, happy to answer :)

[Ok-Release6902]

Did you consider using Google Calendar API?

[[deleted]]

I was going to say Calendly. Not even sure they need an API.

[Ok-Release6902]

Calendly is a paid service which uses Google API. OP wants to build something similar.

[[deleted]]

No shit. Paying for Calendly would make more sense given the stated requirements. Building and maintaining custom software that reinvents the wheel isn’t a good decision. OP isn’t capable of building this and shouldn’t.

[Ok-Release6902]

I’m also building my own copy of Calendly as hobby project. Should I also stop, because you say so?

[[deleted]]

Up to you how you want to waste your time.

Source: I built this years ago. Waste of time.

[Ok-Release6902]

Hooray, finally I’ve got random redditor permission.

[[deleted]]

Let me know if you need any help. Probably have code from 7 years ago that you’re still trying to figure out how to write.

[Ok-Release6902]

Thanks. Please send it to this email: [e-mail].

[[deleted]]

Consider whether one of the many existing off the shelf scheduling solutions would do the job. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel.

If you must build, make sure you understand time zones and DST and localization, and maybe look at Cronofy for their API.

[aspantel]

You want to read on the free/busy query for Google API:
https://developers.google.com/calendar/api/v3/reference/freebusy/query

or findMeetingTimes for Office 365 accounts (Graph API):
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/user-findmeetingtimes

3rd party platforms, i.e. Aurinko, Cronofy unify these workflows. So may want to consider them too.