Resources protect limited capacity that several appointments may need, such as a counseling room, ultrasound machine, or shared provider pool.

Use a resource when:

Resources track physical rooms or equipment used by specific appointment types, not individual people. Use positions and staffing for people and their schedules. See Your login, People record, positions, and schedule views for how staffing works.

Open Scheduler > Scheduler Settings > Resources, or go to Settings > Scheduler Settings > Resources. A note at the top of each resource's settings page repeats the rules above and links to staffing help. The Resources settings page shows a reminder of this Resources vs Staffing distinction right above the resource's details.

1. Give the resource a clear name. If your organization has more than one location, include the location in the name, since a single resource cannot be shared across locations.

2. Keep it active.

3. Assign it to the correct location.

4. Set the available capacity at that location.

5. Link every appointment type that consumes that capacity.

The Resources list shows each resource's assigned location in its own Location column, so you can scan the list and confirm every resource is tied to the right location.

Capacity is shared across the linked appointment types. A capacity of 1 means only one linked appointment can use the resource at a time.

A resource's capacity is how many interchangeable rooms or devices it stands for, so how many appointments can use it at the same time. Each appointment uses one. It never means an appointment needs that many rooms.

For example, a resource named Counseling Room with capacity 3 means your center has 3 counseling rooms. On an appointment type's How many at once tab, it shows as Counseling Room — 3 at once · also used by …, and up to 3 appointments can overlap across every service that uses it. Create one resource with a count (for example "Medical Rooms" with 2), not one resource per room.

Where to change the number: capacity belongs to the resource itself, not to the appointment type. Open Resources, select the resource, and change the number under Location & how many at once. On the appointment type you can only link or unlink the resource.

If an appointment type is held to fewer at once than its rooms allow, the room is not the cause. Check the other lines on the appointment type's How many at once tab, usually Hours or Staff. See Appointment Types and Booking Rules.

Buffers on appointments also consume the protected time, so back-to-back slots may disappear when buffer time is configured.

Each resource can be assigned to only one location. The Resources list now shows a Location column so you can see that assignment at a glance without opening each resource. The column displays the center currently assigned to the resource; for older resources created before center assignments existed, it falls back to whatever location text was recorded at the time.

Because a resource belongs to a single location, include the location in the resource's name when your organization runs more than one location, for example "Main Center Conference Room 1" rather than just "Conference Room 1". This keeps resources easy to tell apart in lists and dropdowns once you have several locations set up.

Linked rooms and equipment are alternatives: a booking takes any one that has room. Their capacities add up, so an appointment type linked to three rooms that each allow 1 at once can have 3 appointments at the same time. The How many at once tab shows this as Each appointment uses any one of these.

Staff pools work the other way: every linked staff pool is needed for every appointment, and the tightest one decides. When an appointment type links both, the limit is the smaller of the rooms combined and the tightest staff pool.

Online booking applies availability and capacity rules to protect clients from choosing an unavailable time. Staff may still be warned and allowed to override a conflict when creating an appointment. Train staff to treat conflict warnings as intentional exceptions, not routine booking.

Create a test scenario using two appointment types linked to the same capacity-1 resource. Book the first type, then confirm the overlapping time is no longer offered for the second type.

Marking a resource inactive stops it from being offered for new bookings. It does not affect appointments already booked against that resource: those keep showing on the Calendar tab exactly as before, including in views grouped by resource. If a group-by-resource column would otherwise be missing because the resource is no longer active, CoolFocus still shows a column for it so the existing appointments have somewhere to land.

A resource's settings page shows a Delete action when your user group grants delete permission for resources. This shows up alongside the usual Make inactive option, not instead of it.

You can delete a resource once nothing has been booked against it. If an appointment has ever used the resource, CoolFocus refuses the delete and tells you how many appointments are still linked, so you know to make the resource inactive instead.

Deleting a resource also clears its location assignments and its links to appointment types. This is a soft delete: the record and its history stay intact behind the scenes, so an administrator can recover it if it was removed by mistake.

If you build resources while testing scheduler settings, delete the unused ones instead of leaving them inactive forever. That keeps the Resources list from filling up with entries nobody will ever use.