Hey there!
You’re on the right track with using Monday.com for equipment booking, but managing multiple bookings per item and blocking out unavailable dates can be tricky. Here’s how you can structure your system to handle these challenges effectively.
One of the main issues is tracking equipment availability across multiple bookings. Each item needs to allow multiple reservations but also indicate when it’s unavailable. The best way to do this is by using a subitems structure where each main equipment item has subitems for individual bookings with start and end dates.
Another challenge is preventing double bookings or showing unavailable dates. You can solve this by using automations, conditional formatting, and mirror columns to check availability.
To set this up, you should have a main equipment inventory board where each row represents one piece of equipment. Key columns should include Equipment Name, Total Units Available, Booked Units (mirrored from the booking board), Available Units (calculated by subtracting booked from total units), Status (Available/Unavailable), and a Connect Column linking to the booking board.
On the booking board, each row represents one booking for a piece of equipment. You’ll want columns for Equipment (linked to the inventory board), Start Date, End Date, Customer Name, Quantity Booked, and Booking Status (Confirmed/Pending/Canceled).
To prevent double bookings, you can create a formula column that checks whether today’s date falls between a booking’s start and end date, returning “Booked” or “Available.” Automations can then be set up to notify the team if a booking conflicts with an existing one or to change an equipment status to unavailable when no more units are left.
If Monday.com’s built-in tools don’t fully meet your needs, you could use VLOOKUP in Google Sheets, syncing data via Zapier or Make.com. You could also integrate with Google Calendar to display equipment availability dynamically.