I want to incorporate a booking system for a nail salon, I want to exclude the paid subscriptions. Is there a way I can make my own system using Bootstrap Studio?
Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean you want to avoid using a website builder like Shopify or Wix, or using a third-party reservation system that charges a monthly fee?
Creating a booking system necessitates having some kind of backend database (a file that stores the data for the appointments) on the website server. Bootstrap Studio does not have any built-in features like this, as it’s a “front end” website builder. Also, the free hosting that is included with BSS doesn’t allow you direct access to the website server.
There are basically two ways you could do this if you wanted to use Bootstrap Studio to build your website…
-
Use a third-party online booking/reservation system, and simply have a link on your Bootstrap Studio website page that goes to that service. There are a variety of these kinds of services that have free tiers. Typically the free tiers will be limited in features/number of appointments/etc…, but if you only need a modest solution, something like this… https://calendly.com/ or this… https://www.setmore.com or this… https://www.picktime.com/ or this… https://www.reservio.com could work fine. (this would be my preferred solution.)
-
Create a booking/reservation system from scratch using JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, etc. There are tutorials online for such systems, but this would require a reasonable amount of coding experience. It would be entirely free, but you’d need your own hosting, and access to your web server. There is free hosting on the web, but for any kind of business, I would be inclined to use a paid host simply for security and reliability.
Another “almost” free option would be using WordPress and one of the many reservation plug-ins available. WordPress itself is free, but you might need to pay for a decent reservation plug-in, and you’d need to get or create a theme for your website, so familiarity with WordPress would be a requisite. With WordPress, you’d also need hosting.
So if you want to use Bootstrap Studio to build and host your website, the first solution would be the best way to go, IMO.
Thank you for your response
Is there a way I can do this using google calendar?
I have no personal experience with these, but this is what a Google search revealed.
Personally, if this is for a business, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to use one of the dedicated third-party booking services I suggested. Even the paid tiers are reasonably priced. $5-$10 a month is nothing to have a professional booking system. You can make that back with one customer. A couple of my website clients used calendly.com and they were very happy with it. The code is easy to embed in your website.
FYI - The default Google calendar view looks fine on desktop, but it doesn’t look great on mobile. To use Google calendar on a phone, you have to basically set up two different embed codes, one for desktop and one for mobile, then embed two snippets, and use responsive display options to show/hide the different calendars depending on viewport size. I used this technique for a client for awhile, and it worked okay, but I wouldn’t be my first choice.
I’m considering adding a third party, is there a service that would be great for salons. I want a booking system that I could implement in the website, where it wouldn’t redirect to the third party.
As I explained in my first post, a booking system requires some kind of backend database to store the booking information. Bootstrap Studio is a FRONT END website builder.
If you want something entirely self-contained within a Bootstrap Studio website, you would have to build it yourself, and you’d have to host the website on your own server, because the free hosting included with Bootstrap Studio doesn’t allow you access to their servers.
You could purchase a course on how to build a system like this. For example…
https://www.udemy.com/course/create-a-calendar-booking-system-in-php-and-mysql/
Or if you have some programming knowledge, there are plenty of systems available on Github
But whatever you choose, Bootstrap Studio would only be able to serve as the front end portion of system. The backend part of booking system would have to be built separately using a server-side language. If you want the booking self-contained within the website, it’s a complex project.
This is why there are are so many third-party services you can buy. A booking system is not an especially simple thing to add to a static website. It’s also the reason why many people opt for platforms like WordPress when they need things like blogs, booking systems, user accounts with logins and passwords, etc…, and other features that require databases. WordPress was built using PHP and MySQL, so it already has the necessary features to support booking systems via plug-ins.
The same is true for cloud-based website builders like Wix, Webflow, Shopify and others. They have calendar based booking systems available within their platforms. But they also cost more.
While I don’t like to dissuade people from buying Bootstrap Studio, there are cases where this software simply isn’t the right solution for a person’s needs. If you are set on using Bootstrap Studio to build your website, the simplest, least expensive solution (IMO) would be a third-party solution like Calendly (though I can’t personally say if this would be the BEST one for a salon.) Since they have free tiers, you can just sign up and try them out.
Personally, I don’t see there being an issue with the booking redirecting to a third party. Most of these services can function relatively transparently, redirecting the user back to your website after they’ve made their appointment.
I would have to agree with @printninja that calendly on their free plan could be your first thing to try.
Alternatively if you are hosting on your own server with PHP then this is definitely worth a look at:
€65 for a lifetime license but give you so many options such as payments, bookings for different treatments and even choose the member of staff.
Also very easy to integrate with bss, just paste a block of custom code on your booking page.
Thank you for your help, I settled with Microsoft Bookings, as it allows me to integrate it to my website.
Just came across this in and email I get daily from BitsDuJour in case anyone is still looking. This is a free appointment scheduler that integrates with Outlook and Google calendars (maybe others?). Anyways check it out if still looking:
2 Likes
That looks quite a nice interface, I can think of a few of my projects that it might fit in with. Thanks @jo-r