Quotas limit an individual, or a group of individuals, to a certain booking count or time-usage threshold that's highly customizable via various filters.
Learn more about special workarounds and more in the FAQs section!
What is a quota and how does it work?
By default, users will be able to create an unlimited number of bookings across all spaces; create Quotas to limit this. You have the option to limit the total amount of time users book, or the number of individual bookings.
Quotas can additionally be defined based on:
Individual or group basis
User tag
Time usage or booking count
Space
Timeframe/period (calendar day, week, or month)
Time of the day/week
The limit of how many Quota rules you can create depends on the subscription plan you are on. Check out our different plans and limits here.
Quotas take a conservative/strict interpretation – meaning, if you have 2 different quota rules that apply to the same user (with two user tags that are assigned to two different quotas), Skedda will go with the stricter (smallest) quota rule. They will not be added together to have a cumulative time.
Multi-space bookings are accounted for. If someone makes a booking with 3 spaces for 1 hour, this will count 3 hours towards their time-usage quota or 3 bookings towards their booking-count quota.
System Users are able to break the quota rules when creating/editing bookings. To test out your quota rules with the instructions here. Change the test-login user tags accordingly to test out quotas across your user tags.
Time-Usage Maximum
Time-usage maximum quotas make sure that all of the time booked within the quota timeframe and considered days/times is within a defined limit.
In the second line of a quota rule choose the time-usage maximum.
Examples:
Limit all individuals to a per-user maximum of 4 hours per day across all spaces.
Limit individuals with the user tag Monthly Member or Yearly Member to a per-user maximum of 10 hours per week across the gym spaces.
Limit the group of users with the tag Coach to a total group maximum of 50 hours per calendar month across the badminton courts.
Booking-Count Maximum
Booking-count maximum quotas ensure that the number of total bookings made within the quota timeframe and considered days/times is restricted.
In the second line of a quota rule select 'booking-count maximum'.
Choosing the 'at any given moment' timeframe will restrict users to a certain number of bookings at one time. This is perfect if you don't want your users to book multiple spaces at once.
Examples:
Limit all individuals to 1 booking per day in the gym spaces
Limit the group of Coaches to 2 bookings at any given moment in the courts
Consider only specific times/days
Choose to count bookings towards a quota only if they are within a certain time window on specific days. This works well if you just want to enforce a quota for certain days or during peak hours.
In the 4th section of a quota rule choose 'only the specific time's' option from the drop-down menu.
If a booking spans inside and outside of this time, the part of the booking that is inside of quota hours will count towards the quota, and anything outside won’t count. For example, if the quota is a maximum of 3 hours between 12 pm - 4 pm, then a booking from 11 am - 3 pm is ok! Only the 3 hours between 12 pm - 3 pm are considered.
Examples:
Limit individuals with the user tag Monthly Member or Yearly Member to a per-user maximum of 10 hours per week across the gym spaces during peak hours (M-F 7 am - 8 pm).
Limit the group of Coaches to 1 booking at any given moment in the courts on weekends.
Alternatively, my spaces are very busy before and after the traditional work day. I would limit individuals to 1 hour per day M-F between 6 am - 9 am and in another rule limit individuals to 1 hour per day M-F between 3 pm - 7 pm.
How users will see their quota
Once quota rules have been configured, non-admin users will see an informative error message if they attempt to make a booking that goes over an applicable quota rule.
Non-admin users can see their usage for a selected date range under 'My bookings' in the 'List view':
FAQs
I have reached the limit and still need to create more quota rules. What do I do?
If you need more quota rules, there may be workarounds to solve this! For example, you manage an office building with a shared conference room that 30 different teams can use. Each team can have up to 5, 10, or 20 hours of bookings per week in this space. It would not be possible to set up individual tagged users and have 30 different group quotas.
All users with the Marketing tag get 5 hours total to use amongst the team, Operations 10 hours, Accounts 5 hours, Finance 20 hours. Instead give each team one user account (marketingbooking@email.com, operationsbooking@email.com, etc.) and use an individual quota. Individuals with the tag Marketing and Accounts get 5 hours, Operations 10 hours, and Finance 20 hours.
This decreases the total number of quotas from 30 (number of teams) to 3 (number of unique time limits).
Restrict booking this space to the company-wide accounts with a user tag and booking condition. For all other spaces, regular user accounts can be used.
If a user has 2 tags with 2 different quotas, what happens?
Skedda will enforce the more strict/smaller quota.
Can I limit the number of spaces a user can book at one time?
Yes! Choose the booking-count maximum option with a limit of 1 and the timeframe option at any given moment.
How do quota time frames work? Ex. for one week is it from Monday to Monday or is it one week from the booking date?
The quota periods (day/week/month) are based on calendar units. If you choose a week, it will start on the day that you've specified as the beginning of your week under Settings > Basics.
I need the quotas to be cumulative for multiple rules, is there a workaround?
You could create a new user tag and quota for this situation (ex. Tag 1 +2) and remove the individual tags (Tag 1, Tag 2) from the user. Just remember to update any other rules you have in place for these tags (ex. space visibility, booking conditions, etc.)