Literature Review

Review of related literature, studies or systems

Foreign System
SimpleSpa
Created by Lasyk Networks Inc. Simple spa software is all about ease of use, add any
appointment to the schedule quickly, or allow clients to book their own appointments online.
When things change, Simple spa can easily modify, reschedule or cancel any appointment (or
multiple appointments) on one screen. It has been designed from the ground up, offering a new
Appointment Manager, Staff, Online Appointment Booking which has been made simple for
your clients to book their appointments, SimpleSpa now offers Multiple Location Management
per Business, Multiple Employee & Staff Support for each location, and Services Intelligently
grouped by Categories, Products with Inventory Control, Gift Certificates & and the ability to
create custom service packages. A straight to the point Dashboard and useful Statistics &
Reports, Intuitive Point of Sale with Integrated Credit Card Processing, Online Booking, and
automatic Appointment Reminders, offering their business more tools to engage and understand
clients better.

Features of Simple Spa:

 Spa scheduling
o Online booking – where their clients select a few options from the Simple
spa wizard and their appointment is scheduled hassle free
o Appointment Management – Simple intuitive calendar, redesigned
allowing more staff, more appointments to fit their screen
o Email notifications – clients get notified with an automated email
confirmation for appointsments booked online
o Reminder – sends email appointment reminders to their clients
o Wizards – simple step by step process with few questions and selections
answers, no long forms or complicated data to enter
o Multiple staff – shows the spa staff all the time, with automatic detection
of staff specialties, booking appointments from their calendar.
 Transactions
o Payment – records transaction data when they are getting paid,
accepts credit card payments from their clients directly from the
system.
o History – Each transaction and receipts are recorded to the specific
appointment is automatically saved to their system.
 Online booking
o Confirmation – Clients will get appointment links for their
calendar automatically receive an email confirmation regarding
their scheduled appointment.
  Daily dashboard
o Appointment stats – Overview all of the appointments for the day.
o Revenue – Gets the summary of all the receipts, transactions and
revenue produced that day.
o Quick view – gets a daily overview of all your appointments, view
expected appointment arrivals and easily track unconfirmed and
canceled appointments.

Based on the proponent’s research, the system mentioned above is the same with their proposed
system in terms of spa scheduling, booking, transactions and email notifications. However, the
difference between the two compared systems is that the proponent’s system has a SMS-
notification function that sends a SMS reminder to a certain customer if he/she missed the
scheduled appointment.

Acuity Scheduling
Founded by Gavin Zuchlinski in the year 2006. It all started where he found his mother
struggling with her massage therapy business. Zuchlinski, an avid developer with a background
in software development, network security and usability decided there had to be a better way.
And so the very first beta version of acuity scheduling was born. Now, small business owners
and big organizations and corporations alike, never have to deal with a deadly email & phone
roulette ever again. their technology takes care of it on the owners behalf, letting clients,
customers, employees and people worldwide book, cancel and even reschedule appointments and
schedule meetings with them automatically without the owner having to lift a finger. Or be on
call 24/7. Or even open their inbox.

Features of Acuity Scheduling:

 Clients can quickly view your real-time availability and self-book their own
appointments—and even pay online, reschedule with a click, and eliminate 100% of the
drudgery.

Organize your schedule

Auto adjust for time zones, let clients easily cancel & reschedule themselves, and automatically
send reminders to keep clients prompt.
Controls availability 24/7
Manage multiple locations and employees, only show your clients the calendar you want them to
see, plus all the flexibility to make scheduling work for you.

Collect everything the owner needs to know about a client as soon as they book.
Ask clients to fill out intake forms when scheduling, and have all of their information neat & tidy
in one place.
Automatically send branded & customized confirmations, reminders & follow-ups—via email or
text message—and even accept payment and tips via Stripe, Square, and PayPal with the click of
a button.

Get notified anytime a new appointment is booked, check your schedule right from your phone,
and even tell Acuity to automatically update the calendars the owner’s already use, like Google,
Outlook, iCloud or Office 365.

Based on the proponent’s research, the system mentioned above is the same with their proposed
system in terms of spa scheduling, booking, transactions and email notifications. However, the
difference between the two compared systems is that the proponent’s system has a SMS-
notification function that sends a SMS reminder to a certain customer if he/she missed the
scheduled appointment.
MioSalon
Founded by Waffor Inc, a retail-focused software product company that is dedicated to
offering enterprise management and workflow solutions to businesses of all sizes and types.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), individual owner manned stores, network stores and
franchise models can leverage the benefits of their product. MioSalon is a software product
curated for hair, nail and beauty salons and spas, and health and wellness centers. It is a cloud-
based software that specialises in customer engagement and retention. The software helps
businesses to flourish and grow by managing important aspects including appointment
scheduling, client data management, inventory management, payment processing and client
marketing. With MioSalon, managing your salon and spa becomes seamless and effortless.

Features of MioSalon:

Online bookings
Seamlessly manage online appointment bookings and have your reception open
24/7Follow up on customer visits, record client history, and add photos and documents within
few minutes.
Built-in POS
Keeping your clients waiting is something of the past. Faster checkouts, automated
invoices and hassle-free retail.
Analytics and reports
The software is incorporated with a powerful and seamless dashboard that shows how
business is tracking overall.
Notification
Notifies an employee or client for their appointment. Automated notifications make sure
your staff stays on time and never keeps a customer waiting.

Based on the proponent’s research, the system mentioned above is the same with their proposed
system in terms of spa scheduling, booking, transactions and email notifications. However, the
difference between the two compared systems is that the proponent’s system has a SMS-
notification function that sends a SMS reminder to a certain customer if he/she missed the
scheduled appointment.
Local Systems

Zensoft Philippines

Founded by Sytian IT Solutions Inc. ZenSoft is a complete all-in-one online software specially
built for any type of salons and spas. It is cloud-based, easy to use, intuitive and robust. Features
of Spa management by Zensoft; Customer database that stores customer data, it also tracks
customers treatments and visit history, tracks preffered therapist of each customer. Identifies new
and returning customer and monitors account balances. It also has employee management that
plots employee’s schedule by day, week, month. It also has automated commission tracking.
Appointment management that plots staff and customer bookings in a calendar view. Auto
checks availability of rooms, staffs, and therapist. It also has book, cancel, delete and edit
appointment details.

Based on the proponent’s research, the system mentioned above is the same with their proposed
system in terms of spa scheduling, booking, transactions and email notifications. However, the
difference between the two compared systems is that the proponent’s system has a SMS-
notification function that sends a SMS reminder to a certain customer if he/she missed the
scheduled appointment.

ClickSend Philippines

Founded by Matthew Larner, In today’s busy modern society, it seems there are an infinite
number of things to remember on a day to day basis. As a business owner or group manager, you
will be more than aware of how frustrating missed appointments can be, costing you both money
and precious time.
SMS Reminder Software is the answer. Sending customers and group members reminders
directly to their mobile phones by text message is fast, easy, and there is no more effective but
unobtrusive way to prompt people to keep appointments (and turn up) than by gently jogging
their memory.

By sending out an SMS appointment reminder between twenty four hours and a week before the
appointment time, your customer is not only reminded of their appointment, but they have plenty
of time to confirm, reschedule, or cancel their appointment. This is not only convenient for them,
but for your business also; you can manage and maximise your appointment bookings system
and avoid no shows.

SMS is more affordable than regular mail, and response rates are extremely high. It is less
obtrusive than a telephone call, and it opened and read far more quickly than an email.

Based on the proponent’s research, the system mentioned above has a similiraties with their
proposed system in terms sms notifications. However, the difference between the two compared
systems is that the proponent’s system has a of scheduling for spa appointments , booking,
transactions.

Foreign Studies

According to Apptcare (2018), Manual scheduling is a more old fashioned approach to keeping
an appointment book. In some cases, these schedules may still be managed with a pen and paper,
making it easy for each employee to jot down the times of their meetings. However, it is much
harder to coordinate schedules between numerous people within the business, requiring
additional checking. In fact, in many manual schedule systems, people rely on a secretary or
administrative aid to keep a comprehensive schedule to make sure appointments do not overlap.

Another reason some business owners keep a manual schedule is control. It can be hard to let a
system handle all of your appointment scheduling. A lot of organizations save between 10-20 in
time by booking a majority of appointments automatically. So why do some businesses stick
with pen and paper. It is a habit of being able to try to think of what is the best schedule. A
computer can do most of that for you and also helps prevent playing favorites. Customers view
online scheduling as more fair because anyone can book that spot and it wasn’t the owner or
scheduler who picked it for them. This helps improve customer retention in the long run.

https://www.appointmentcare.com/strategy/manual-scheduling-vs-online-appointment-
scheduling/

Fernandez, E, & Yuan, E, (1999). An analysis Pattern for reservation and Use of Reusable
Entities. An analysis pattern for Reservation and Used of reusable Entities is an article that
focuses on the pattern for making a reservation for hotel. This article is written by Fernandez and
Yuan. First it goes through the problem then solution, requirements and consequences. The
article is supported with some diagrams that make the understanding more clear. The problem
occurs when the user’s needs to reserve a hotel room or vehicle for that the system needs a table
for hotel rooms and vehicle. In order to avoid duplicated reservation for same room or vehicle
the system needs a table for available rooms and vehicle. Also, the user may needs to review the
reservation so the system has a table for reservation. In the solution part the article first discussed
the used case for re0uirements. The first use case is making reservation, in this case the user
make research for available demand by using date. When the demand which is room or vehicle is
available the user can do reservation. The second use case is use a reserved entity. In this case
when the usage of reservation is done, the room or vehicle is recorded as available again. The
third use case is modifying the reservation. The fourth use case is cancelling the reservation. This
system can be used for other reservation like seats for flight. Also, this system can record the
history of reservation. This system is similar to our system in making reservation and history but
differs in environment. This system is an online system and the guests is the one who is
responsible reservation while our system local system and the reception is one who is responsible
of reservation.

http://hillside.net/plop/plop99/proceedings/Fernandez2/reservAnalysisPattern3.PDF

According to David Younger(2016). When volume, job complexity or unpredictability that

manual scheduling process starts to fail. For instance, a sudden change in job priority during the
day is somehow too difficult to change, let alone recreate, given the number of dependencies,
geographic distances, and demands of each individual piece of work that has to be catered.

Moreover, as the company grows, its need for additional technician also increases, in which a
single dispatcher will not be able to manage effectively any longer. On average, a single
dispatcher can only handle 15 to 20 technician during the day using a manual scheduling system-
and the worst is that the dispatcher has a little or no time to do tasks other than scheduling.

Decision-making process also gets more difficult as the complexity of the process increases. In
B2B environment, the service level agreement can make the decision-making process more
complex as corporate clients are demanding high first-time fix rate and are more decisive to
switch service provider.

Lastly, the time it takes for a newly-hired dispatcher to completely understand the field service
environment and carry out the job fully and effectively is also very lengthy and costly with
manual scheduling. Since the decisions made are not recorded in any enterprise system, the
knowledge sharing only relies on some petty human interactions between the dispatcher and the
technicians. All of these pain-points, along with its varying costs, can all be reduced once a
company decides to move away from manual scheduling and dispatching.

https://www.theservicemanager.com/manual-vs-automatic-scheduling-pros-and-cons/

Local Studies

Bituin Abi (August 2010), 658 Apartelle Online Reservation System .Short term base lodging is
the main reason that a hotel has been established. In the Philippines, wherein many foreign
people go and have a vacation, hotel is always their first destination to have relaxation after long
hours of travel in an airplane. 6ecause of the rapid increase of foreigners visiting the Philippines
for a vacation, a common sight is the establishments ad sophisticated hotels for competitive
advantage. As the result of the competition between different hotels, various business strategies
had been made to attract customers, such as putting discounts, having beautiful and relaxing
environment and above all having a state of the art computer system and facilities. The current
problem observed is the manual guest list records, the manual reservation of

guests, the manual booking of rooms for the guests which takes a long time to accomplish.
According to the manager in the establishment, because they keep on doing their job manually, it
resulted to a very messy office, lots of papers around the desks and sometimes important
documents disappear. $rom the information gathered, the proponents came up with an idea of
proposing a system that is relevant to the needs of the establishment, highly efficient to meet
their needs and most of all simple, easy to use system. The 658 Apartelle Online Reservation
Management System is not only a database for guest list but also an online reservation system,
where potential guest can have online reservation which will automatically be sent to the
database of the 658 Apartelle. Based on the proponent’s observation and interview, they have
found many problems such as time consuming logging of the guest list names to the log book,
difficulties in making reservations and difficulties in retrieving information on their previous
guests because of the papers that are scattered everywhere and misplacing of the guestless
records.

http://www.studymode.com/essays/658-Apartelle-Online-Reservation-System-375787.html

Asupra, (2001), studied an automated system of billing and reservation for “Pearl Manor Pension
House” Incorporated. After a careful study by the researchers it has been found out that the
employees’ encounters problem with their present system, these problems are: a. time
consuming in processing check-in. b. delayed computation of bills and c. time consuming
processing of reservation. After a careful study of the current system of Pearl Manor Pension
House, Incorporated, the group came with a conclusion to; automate their system. The
automation of the system will give advantages to the company because it will make the
computation of bills a lot easier and more accurate. Processing is faster and more convenient for
both the user and clients. The results of interviews and research study that was conducted by the
researchers lead to form a recommendation of automating the billing and reservation system of
the company. The system will be the one responsible to process all the transactions.

Cagalawan, (2003), studied and proposed an online hotel reservation for Bacolod Executive Inn.
The findings of the study stressed that some problems exist in their current system namely: a.
time delay in updating email reservation processing, b. difficulties in confirmation of the
availability of rooms in walk and telephone reservation and c. report generation is time
consuming. As the result of investigation and observation to the existing reservation procedures,
the group came with a conclusion that the Bacolod Executive Inn particularly the reservation
must be developed through an online system for their better service. It will provide advantages in
the part of the establishment because it will increase the number of customers, minimize the
workload of the personnel and the generation of reports on time, and will provide promotion to
the establishment through the website that will highlight the quality of service they offer. After a
detailed study, the researcher’s recommendation is based on the accurate and relevant
information from the data gathered. The proposed online reservation system for the Bacolod
Executive Inn provides better service to the customers. The researcher’s recommendation is
based on the accurate and relevant information from the data gathered. It could improve its
current operation as soon as the proposed systems implementation would take place.

https://www.inettutor.com/source-code/review-of-related-literature-and-studies-of-hotel-reservation-
system/

Synthesis