Assigning and changing work stations

Step by step

1. 1

   Create your work stations

   First you need the stations themselves — your beds, chairs, or rooms. You add these in Settings → Work Stations: each gets a name, a color, an optional room, and a Suitable for setting that controls which disciplines (and which artists) can use it. This is a one-time setup; everything else below is about putting people on them.

2. 2

   Give residents a default station

   Still in Settings, the Assign practitioners list lets you give each resident a default station and pick the weekdays they use it — so they land on the same spot automatically without you assigning it each time.

   Artists whose clients pick the slot — piercers, laser, PMU — especially need a default, for two reasons. First, they usually keep one fixed station anyway: their gear is bulky and they'd rather not haul it from spot to spot. Second, and more importantly, their clients book straight into open agenda slots, which don't go through any work-station check — the client only sees free time, assumes a station will be waiting, and nothing warns anyone if there isn't one. A standing default station is what guarantees these artists are always covered. (Project-based artists are different: they propose the appointment time themselves, so they're warned up front if their chosen slot would leave them without a station.) The list nudges you with a one-tap fix whenever one of these artists is missing a default.

   Does giving someone a default bed take it away from the rest of the team? No — like guest-priority, a default is a preference, not a lock:

   • It only decides where that artist lands when nothing more specific is set. It sits at the bottom of the priority order, so a per-booking or whole-day assignment — yours or auto-assign's — always overrides it.
   • A default can be limited to certain weekdays. When you set it you choose which days the artist uses that station, so the same bed can be, say, Mara's default on Mondays and Tuesdays but a plain regular seat anyone can take the rest of the week. It's only reserved on the days you picked — the system checks the weekday, so on every other day it's free for the team. (The app also stops two artists from claiming the same default bed on the same weekday.)
   • The bed is still shared across the day. Because conflicts are time-aware, another artist can use someone's default bed at hours the owner isn't on it; auto-assign will even hand it out to fill a gap. It just won't put two people on it at overlapping times.
   • Auto-assign avoids borrowing a default while other space is free, so owners usually keep their spot — but on a packed day it can still seat someone there rather than leave a bed empty.
   • *Only the studio re-assigns other people's reserved beds. An artist keeps their own default automatically, and if they've been moved off it they can pick it back themselves (as long as it's free for their slot). What they can never do is put themselves — or anyone else — onto a colleague's default or a guest-priority bed; those show as reserved in their picker. So an artist can choose their own seat plus any regular* seat (a free bed that isn't someone else's default and isn't guest-priority). Moving someone on or off another person's reserved bed is always your call as the studio.
   • Defaults are never permanent. Change or remove them anytime in Settings, and override them per booking whenever a day calls for it.

   So a default just gives an artist a reliable home base — it doesn't fence the bed off from everyone else.

3. 3

   Set up beds for visiting guests

   For guest artists, mark some stations Guest priority in Settings so confirmed guests are seated on them automatically. You can also assign a guest a station by hand from your Guests screen — for their whole stay or day by day — once their spot is confirmed; a banner flags any guest still without one. The full guest-hosting flow (terms, capacity, accepting requests) lives in Welcoming guest artists.

   Does a guest-priority bed lock your team out of it? No — it's a reservation by preference, not a hard block, so nothing goes to waste:

   • Auto-assign keeps your residents off guest-priority beds while other space is free, so visitors have somewhere to land. But if the day is full and nothing else fits, a resident can still be placed there — an empty bed helps no one.
   • Artists can't grab a guest-priority bed themselves. It shows greyed in their picker, marked "studio assigns this."
   • You can always override. From the calendar you can put any artist on any bed, guest-priority included.

   So marking a bed guest-priority gives visiting guests first claim on it without permanently taking it away from the team.

   What if all your guest-priority beds are taken? Guests can still apply and still be accepted — how many visitors you can host is set by your guest capacity number in Settings, which is a separate thing from how many beds you've marked guest-priority. Running out of guest-priority beds never turns a guest away on its own. When a guest is confirmed and no guest-priority bed is free, they simply land on any other free bed, or show up in the "needs a station" banner for you to place by hand. Guest-priority beds decide where guests get seated first — your guest capacity decides how many guests you take.

4. 4

   Assign a station from a booking

   This is your tool as the studio — full control over who sits where (artists assigning their own station is step 6). From your dashboard calendar, open a day and tap a booking's station pill (it reads Assign station when nothing's set yet). A picker opens, titled Assign work station or Change work station.

   Each station shows its whole day at a glance — every booking on that bed, in order, with the artist's name (the booking you're working on is highlighted as this booking) — so you can see who's where before deciding. At the top you choose the scope:

   • This booking only (the default) — the station is held for just that booking's time slot. Stations are time-aware, so the same bed can go to one artist in the morning and another in the afternoon, and you can fix a single clash without touching the rest of the day.
   • Whole day — the station covers everything that artist does that day. It's greyed out for a bed someone else already uses that day (it would collide) — assign per booking instead.

   Tap the bed you want; a one-line summary tells you exactly what Save will do, and nothing changes until you press it. If the bed is busy during this booking's time, the app resolves it cleanly: if the artist's current bed is free for the other person it swaps them (both keep a bed); otherwise it takes over — the other artist loses that bed and drops into the "needs a station" list to be re-seated. The summary names who's affected before you commit. To clear a station entirely, use Remove.

5. 5

   Let the studio auto-assign

   On a day's screen, an Auto-assign button appears when some bookings still need a station. It's time-aware: it leaves seated artists alone, reuses a bed across the day once its earlier booking ends, prefers a truly free, unowned spot before borrowing someone's default, and tries to keep one artist on one bed all day. It reports how many bookings it placed and how many it couldn't. To do this for every new booking automatically, turn on Auto-assign on confirmation in Settings.

6. 6

   Let artists pick their own

   While a booking is still being arranged, nobody can claim a station — the spot isn't held, because the plan can still change; the artist just sees whether a station is free for the time they're proposing. Once it's confirmed, the artist gets a Choose / Change work station option on their booking, but only for a station that's free, unowned, and set up for their discipline — not anyone's default, not a guest-priority bed, and not a bed marked for a different discipline. Reserved or wrong-discipline stations simply don't appear as choices for them. You keep full control: from the calendar you can place anyone on any station — including a bed set up for another discipline — which is why moving an artist onto a colleague's bed (the swap/take-over in step 4) is something only the studio can do.

• Turning work-station management on or off

  The whole layer is controlled by one switch — Manage work stations, at the top of Settings → Work Stations. On, you get everything above: station pills, the Auto-assign button, the picker, and conflict warnings. Off, all of it disappears and artists just use any free spot — handy for big studios that don't micromanage beds. Your stations and defaults are never deleted, so you can flip it back on anytime. The full behaviour (and why new studios start off) is in Capacity, colors, and work stations.

• Fixing work-station issues

  When something needs sorting out, a banner appears under the Month grid: work station issues to resolve. Tap it to open the Workstation Issues page, which splits problems into Conflicts (two artists on the same station at overlapping times) and Unassigned (bookings, and visiting guests, with no station yet). In normal use the calendar blocks overlapping placements when you assign beds — this page is the backup when something still slips through. On a conflict, each side gets three choices: Keep, Move, or Unassign. For a guest with no station, you can keep one for their whole stay or just a single day. A work-station conflict is not the same as a capacity conflict — see Capacity vs work-station conflicts.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I actually create a work station?

In Settings → Work Stations. This article is about putting artists on stations once they exist; that article is about creating them and setting defaults.

Can the same bed be used by two different artists on the same day?

Yes. Stations are time-aware — two bookings only clash if their times actually overlap. So one bed can go to a morning artist and another in the afternoon. A station only shows a conflict when two artists are on it at genuinely overlapping times.

I want to change just one of an artist's bookings, not their whole day. How?

When you tap a station pill, pick This booking only (the default) — it sets the station for just that booking's time slot. Choose Whole day instead if you want it to cover everything that artist does that day.

Can I move an artist onto a bed someone else is already using?

Yes. Pick that bed and Save. If the artist's current bed is free for the other person, they're swapped onto it so nobody loses a spot; otherwise the other artist is bumped off that bed and lands in the "needs a station" list for you to re-seat. The summary line tells you which will happen before you Save.

How do I remove a station from a booking?

Open the picker and tap Remove. The bed becomes free for that booking — or, if you've chosen the "Whole day" scope, for the whole day.

A station I want isn't in the list. Why?

As the studio, every station appears in your picker — there's nothing to hide. A bed whose "Suitable for" setting is a different discipline still shows, marked "Not set up for this discipline", and you can assign it anyway (you have the final say on who sits where). Busy beds show too — pick one and the picker will swap or take over (and tell you who's affected) when you Save. The only place the "suitable for" setting actually blocks a choice is the artist's own picker: artists can only self-pick a bed set up for their discipline. So if a bed seems missing, you're probably looking at the artist-side picker, not the studio calendar one.

A visiting guest artist has no station. How do I give them one?

Assign one from the Confirmed subtab of your Guests screen (for the whole stay or a single day), or from the Unassigned tab of the Workstation Issues page. Marking stations guest priority in Settings seats confirmed guests automatically.