Helping Businesses Focus on What's important: Sports Pitch Management Platform to Manage Bookings and Reporting
Our client, based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), manages a platform that allows owners of sports pitches—such as football, tennis, and more—to streamline their operations. The website enables pitch owners to manage bookings efficiently, automating much of the manual work that typically accompanies pitch management. With the growing popularity of sports in the region, the client sought to build a system that would ease the burden on pitch owners while maintaining a secure, reliable booking process.
Challenges
The client faced several challenges in creating a booking platform that could cater exclusively to pitch owners and manage various types of sports facilities:
1. Comprehensive Pitch Management: The client needed a platform that allowed pitch owners to fully manage their facilities, from availability scheduling to handling multiple booking types, all within one intuitive system.
2. User-Friendly Interface for Owners: Since the platform was intended solely for pitch owners, it had to offer a seamless user experience that allowed for quick and easy management of booking requests, pricing, and availability.
3. Role-Based Management: As pitch businesses grew, the owners needed the ability to delegate responsibilities, such as managing bookings, overseeing pitch availability, or handling financial records, while ensuring appropriate permissions for each user.
4. Scalability and Security: As the client planned to expand across the UAE, the platform needed to be scalable while ensuring robust security, particularly with regard to owner accounts and sensitive data.
5. Comprehensive Reporting: To help pitch owners track their business performance, the platform needed to offer detailed reports on pitch availability, profits, and overall facility status.
Objectives and Goals
The client’s primary goals were:
1. Automated Pitch Management: To create a system that could automate scheduling and booking management, reducing the need for manual intervention by the pitch owners.
2. Role-Based Access Control: Allow pitch owners to assign multiple roles (e.g., booking manager, pitches manager, accounting manager) to their staff, with the flexibility to create custom roles based on specific business needs.
3. Enhanced Security and User Access: A secure system for pitch owners to manage their accounts and bookings, with a focus on simplifying the login and authentication process.
4. Comprehensive Reporting System: Provide detailed reports for pitch owners, including pitch availability, booking status, profits, accounting data, and general information about their facilities.
5. Testing and Reliability: Ensuring the platform was fully tested with comprehensive unit, integration, and end-to-end tests to guarantee reliability and performance.
6. Seamless User Experience: A platform that allowed pitch owners to manage multiple aspects of their business without any technical complexities, improving overall operational efficiency.
Project Scope and Timeline
The project involved creating a user-friendly website for pitch owners, enabling them to manage all aspects of their bookings and facility availability, while also introducing role-based access controls and a comprehensive reporting system. The development process was completed in four months, allowing for the platform to be fully operational ahead of the peak sports season in the UAE.
Tools and Technologies
The following tools and technologies were used in the development of this project:
• Next.js for building a fast, responsive website that could handle high traffic and deliver a smooth user experience.
• AWS SES for automated email notifications, including booking confirmations and accountrelated updates.
• Auth0 for secure user authentication, ensuring that only verified pitch owners and their team members could access the platform with defined roles.
• Automated Testing: Unit, integration, and end-to-end (E2E) tests were implemented to ensure the platform’s reliability and smooth operation. Approach and Strategy
1. Owner Dashboard for Full Facility and Role-Based Control
o We developed a comprehensive dashboard for pitch owners, allowing them to manage multiple aspects of their facilities. Owners could:
▪ Set up availability schedules for each pitch.
▪ Adjust pricing dynamically based on time slots and demand.
▪ View and manage booking requests in real-time, accepting or rejecting them with a single click.
▪ Define and assign user roles such as Booking Manager, Pitches Manager, or Accounting Manager to allow staff to assist with the business.
▪ Create custom roles with tailored permissions for specialized tasks.
▪ Receive automated notifications through AWS SES, providing immediate feedback when a booking was confirmed, modified, or canceled.
2. Seamless Authentication with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) via Auth0 o Auth0 was integrated into the platform to ensure a secure login experience for pitch owners and their staff. Using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), pitch owners could assign predefined roles or create custom roles with specific permissions, allowing staff to handle booking management, pitch maintenance, or accounting tasks as needed.
o This system ensured that only authorized personnel could access specific sections of the platform based on their role, improving both security and delegation of tasks.
3. Automated Email Notifications
o Using AWS SES, the platform automatically sent email notifications to pitch owners and their managers whenever a new booking was made, modified, or canceled. This automation reduced the need for manual follow-ups, ensuring that everyone involved was always up to date on bookings and facility changes.
4. Comprehensive Reporting System
o We implemented a reporting system that provides pitch owners with detailed insights into their facilities:
▪ Pitch Availability Reports: Track the availability and utilization of each pitch, helping owners identify high-demand times and optimize scheduling.
▪ Profit and Accounting Reports: Generate real-time financial reports, including profits from bookings, outstanding payments, and overall financial performance.
▪ General Facility Information: Offer an overview of all pitches, including status updates, maintenance schedules, and future bookings, ensuring owners have full visibility into their operations.
5. Thorough Automated Testing
o To ensure the platform was reliable, we implemented a complete suite of automated tests:
▪ Unit Tests: Verified the correctness of individual components.
▪ Integration Tests: Ensured that different parts of the system worked together seamlessly.
▪ End-to-End (E2E) Tests: Simulated real user scenarios to guarantee the platform’s overall stability, ensuring that bookings, payments, notifications, and reports functioned correctly.
Implementation Details
• Phase 1: Development of Owner Dashboard and Role Management: We focused on building an intuitive dashboard for pitch owners, ensuring that they could manage bookings, pricing, availability, user roles, and reporting with ease.
• Phase 2: Authentication and Security: The integration of Auth0 provided a secure authentication flow with role-based access control, while AWS SES enabled real-time automated notifications for important updates.
• Phase 3: Reporting System: Developed a detailed reporting system, giving pitch owners insights into pitch availability, financial performance, and facility status.
• Phase 4: Testing and Optimization: Extensive automated testing was performed to validate that the platform functioned smoothly under all conditions, minimizing the likelihood of bugs or failures after launch. Results and Impact
• 70% Reduction in Manual Work for Pitch Owners: The automation of scheduling, rolebased access, and bookings led to a significant reduction in the time pitch owners and their staff spent manually managing their facilities.
• Enhanced Security with Role-Based Access Control: With Auth0’s role-based access control, pitch owners could assign permissions to their team, improving both security and efficiency. Custom roles allowed for flexible, secure management.
• Increased Booking Efficiency: The platform’s automated notifications and real-time updates ensured that pitch owners and their managers could manage bookings effectively, leading to better facility utilization.
• Comprehensive Reporting for Better Decision Making: The detailed reporting system provided pitch owners with valuable insights into their business operations, including profits, availability, and overall facility status, enabling data-driven decision-making.
• Highly Reliable Platform: The comprehensive automated testing suite, including unit, integration, and E2E tests, ensured the platform performed smoothly even under heavy traffic, reducing the risk of downtime or booking errors.
Conclusion
This project successfully delivered a robust, automated platform for managing sports pitch bookings across the UAE. By automating scheduling, booking, notifications, role-based access control, and reporting, we significantly reduced the workload for pitch owners, allowing them to delegate tasks more effectively. The platform’s secure authentication, detailed reporting, and rigorous automated testing further ensured a reliable, scalable, and user-friendly experience.
Through the use of Next.js, AWS SES, Auth0, and comprehensive testing, the platform is now wellpositioned to scale across the UAE, meeting the growing demand for sports facilities and offering an intuitive solution for pitch owners and their staff.
