Business Solutions: 4 Ways to Efficiently Manage Your Facility Court Schedule

Owning or leasing a facility requires club directors to operate on a year-round basis, including lessons, camps, clinics, leagues and team practices. This doesn’t include the off peak times when other programs such as pickleball, senior activities, and dodgeball can utilize court space to generate extra revenue.

Due to growth in participation and offerings, as well as the desire to streamline club operations, what may have worked well for your administrative staff three to five years ago may not work anymore. There are numerous apps and software programs for organizing court schedules.  However, it can be overwhelming to decide which ones to use, and what information to share internally vs externally.

Whether your club utilizes three courts or as many as 12 courts, here are four solutions for organizing and managing your court and facility schedule:

1. Google Calendar

Carolina Union uses Google Calendar since it was the easiest app for them to implement internally, as well as with their coaching staff. Associate Director Abby Hayes feels it’s simple to share and most coaches were already using google calendars on their phone for personal use. The club also uses Google Calendar to block off any club events/practices so everyone has access to view the schedule and see what is happening in the gym.

CUVC has some ground rules that are shared with their coaching staff, for example, lessons end 15 minutes prior to a scheduled practice. Since the facility has six courts, there can never be more than six courts booked at a time. The only duplicate tasks required of the administrative staff are inputting into the calendar and creating events/registrations in the club’s team/event operating system, LeagueApps. CUVC rent their courts to a local adult league for a big source of income. The league organizers do all the scheduling and communication for the league, and rent the courts after 7:30 on Wednesdays, Fridays and some Saturdays. The only thing the club staff need to do is adjust the nets to men’s height.

Since 2008 Triangle Volleyball Club has used Google Calendar when scheduling its eight indoor courts and three sand courts. The club utilizes different calendars (and colors) for different programs/events. For practices, the calendar lists every court occupant, so it is easy to see that the facility is full. For all other events, the club simply indicates the number of courts in the title [i.e. Court rental (2 courts)].

This year, Triangle integrated their…