Practical guide

Shared resource pool or separate location inventory?

Last materially reviewed 2026-09-23

Quick answerPool resources only when they are genuinely interchangeable and available at the location where the appointment occurs.
What to know

Ownership is not interchangeability

Two branches may belong to one business without sharing usable capacity at a particular moment. A machine at the other location cannot serve a customer arriving now unless it can actually be moved in time. Begin with a location-specific inventory and identify which assets can travel. The model should describe the physical operation rather than the organization chart. A single pooled number can otherwise make both branches appear to have the same last available item.

What to know

Write a transfer rule

For any movable asset, record who transfers it, how much time is needed and when its availability changes. These are operational planning questions, not claims that a scheduler supports automatic transfers. If the process is unpredictable, separate location inventories may be safer than a shared pool. Do not treat travel time as zero simply because the locations are close. Include packing or setup when those activities make the asset unavailable for the next appointment.

What to know

Check a cross-location collision

Use two fictional appointments at different branches that require the same last movable resource. Their occupied intervals should include the transfer constraint you have defined. State whether both can be accepted before testing. Then try two appointments using genuinely separate assets at separate branches; unnecessary blocking would reveal an overly broad pool. Trafft’s documentation distinguishes sharing scope, but the intended result still depends on the quantities and assignments you choose.

What to know

Keep the inventory maintainable

Assign responsibility for changing a resource’s availability when it moves, breaks or returns. A sophisticated pool that nobody updates is less useful than a simple inventory with clear ownership. Review the rule when adding a location or a new service. Do not copy another branch’s settings without checking its actual equipment and staffing. If a transfer cannot be represented reliably, treat that booking as an assisted request rather than exposing an automatically confirmed slot.

Continue when useful

Next: Account for travel between appointments

An employee or asset cannot be in two locations merely because the appointment times do not overlap. Include the transition interval.

Open Account for travel between appointments →

Sources used for this page

These records support the facts and comparisons above. Merchant-controlled records are labelled so you can separate product claims from independent evidence.

  1. Trafft resource allocation — Merchant documentation · trafft.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-23
  2. Trafft employee configuration — Merchant documentation · trafft.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-23