How It Works: Technical Details

How bookings stay in sync, what happens through each step of a booking, how events are named, and the guardrails that protect your schedules.

This page is for facilities and IT staff who want the detail. For what we need from you, what gets installed, and the rollout plan, see Setup, Security & Rollout.

Keeping in Sync

Every 15 minutes. We check your calendar and pick up only what changed since the last check: new bookings, edits, and cancellations. They show up in your building schedule within about 15 minutes.
Nightly full check. Once a night we compare every booking from yesterday through the next 12 months against both the calendar and your building schedules, and fix anything that drifted, such as a missed update.

Booking Lifecycle

What happens to a booking from the moment it is added to the calendar until after it ends.

When a booking is created

Staff add the booking to the reservations calendar.
We pick it up at the next check, within about 15 minutes.
We confirm the booking is for one of your approved spaces.
We create a one-time event on that space's schedule in your building automation system.
We read the schedule back to confirm the event is there and correct.
The booking is recorded as confirmed.

When a booking is changed

If the date, time, or title changes, we update the same scheduled event. A renamed booking keeps the same event under its new name, so there are no duplicates. The event is confirmed again after the change.

When a booking moves to another space

We remove the event from the old space's schedule and add it to the new space's schedule. If the location is removed, or changed to a space that isn't approved, the event is removed from the building schedule.

When a booking is cancelled

The scheduled event is removed and the space follows its normal schedule. If only one date of a repeating booking is cancelled, only that date is removed. We confirm the removal.

When a booking is for a space that isn't approved

Nothing is scheduled. We record the booking so we can review it with you, for example to add the space. The calendar itself is never changed.

If the connection is down

Your building keeps running its normal schedule. When the connection is back, bookings catch up at the next check, and the nightly full check picks up anything missed. A booking that fully ended while the connection was down is not created late. A booking that is still in progress is applied. Our team is alerted if a booking can't be scheduled.

After the event ends

The space returns to its normal schedule. No action is needed. The past event is cleaned up afterwards.

Event Naming

Each event in your building schedule is named after the booking title, followed by a short tag such as (cal 3k9f2a7q). The tag links the event to its booking. It stays the same for the life of the booking, even if the title changes.

Calendar bookingBasketball Practice Building scheduleBasketball Practice (cal 3k9f2a7q)
Calendar booking🏀 Basketball Practice Building scheduleBasketball Practice (cal 3k9f2a7q)

Emoji are left out of the name, because the building automation system can't accept them.
Very long titles are shortened to fit. The tag is always kept.
A booking with no title is named Reservation, followed by its tag.

Guardrails

Approved spaces only. Only spaces we set up together are ever scheduled.
Your entries are left alone. Holidays, overrides, and events your staff create are never changed or removed. We manage only the bookings we add.
Weekly schedules unchanged. Bookings are added as separate one-time events. Your regular weekly schedules stay as they are.
Events end on their own. Each one-time event ends with its booking.
Local override still works. Your staff can still adjust or override equipment locally.
Every change confirmed. After every change we read the schedule back to confirm it, and we keep a record.
Errors never remove bookings. If we can't read your calendar correctly, we leave your building schedules as they are.
Mass-removal protection. If a check would remove an unusually large number of bookings at once, it stops without removing anything and our team is alerted.
Alerts. Our team is alerted if a booking fails to schedule or if the regular checks stop running.

Editing Bookings

Edit the booking in the calendar, not in the building system. The calendar is the source for these events. If an event we created is edited or deleted in the building system, the nightly check puts it back to match the calendar.

Overlapping Bookings

If two bookings for the same space overlap, both are scheduled. If one is cancelled, the other stays in place.