Playground's drop-in care allows families to book extra care based on a classroom's capacity and availability. This feature automatically collects payments and schedules kids based on classroom capacity and availability.
Benefits of Drop-in Care
Automate your entire drop-in care process and provide a valuable convenience to families. Stay within ratio and boost enrollment and revenue without additional staffing costs. Many programs even charge a premium for flexible care due to its unpredictable nature, further enhancing profitability.
💡 Make sure your classrooms have capacities set before following the instructions below.
Set up Your Availability
Playground allows you to configure times when you are available for drop-in bookings
Create New Availability
Go to Drop-in by clicking the global search bar or typing
ctrl/cmd+kand selecting Drop-in care.
Click Availability and then click + New Availability.
Click the pencil icon next to Untitled to name this availability.
Using a standard naming convention makes it easier to find this availability when applying it to drop-in options. You can name it something like Drop-in | Default or Drop-in | Infant.
Select the days and times you're generally available for this drop-in option.
You can add multiple time slots in a day by clicking + to the right of the clock input and drop-in care time range.
Optionally add start and end dates to set the date range for this availability.
Keeping this toggle deselected will enable this availability to be booked at any time in the future.
Add closure dates by selecting a date in the date input and clicking + Add closed day.
You can add date overrides to block some of your slots on a particular day, or mark drop-in as unavailable for the entire day.
Delete closure dates by clicking on the red 🗑️ icon.
Click the blue Save & Exit button in the top right corner of the page.
Edit Availability
Availabilities can be edited anytime to update when families are available to book.
From the Drop-in screen, click Availability.
Click the ✏️ icon to edit the existing availability.
Follow the instructions above to change the current availability settings.
When ready, click the Save & Exit button.
Or, click Cancel to return without saving changes.
Delete Availability
Availabilities can be deleted at any time. Once an availability has been deleted, it cannot be restored.
From the Drop-in screen, click Availability.
Click the 🗑️ icon to delete the existing availability.
Click Continue on the deletion confirmation pop-up.
Drop-in Options
Once you've created an availability, add a drop-in option for families to select their flexible care.
🚨 Students will need schedules in the Scheduling > Schedules > Student schedules tab to effectively use the Drop-in Options. For a guide on creating schedules, review our article on Student Schedules.
Create New Drop-in Option
From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to to Drop-in by clicking the global search bar or typing
ctrl/cmd+kand typing Drop-in care.
Click Drop-in options.
Click the white + New drop-in option button.
Click the pencil icon next to Untitled to name this drop-in option.
This is family-facing, so the best practice is to use a standard naming convention for your drop-in options. Make sure the drop-in option is described as clearly as possible for your families.
Select your pricing from the Pricing dropdown. See below for the different pricing options:
No pricing
Paid ahead of care
Flat rate per day
Bills the family a flat amount per day in advance of care - regardless of how much time they schedule or attend on each day.
Flat rate per hour
Bills the family a flat amount per hour in advance of care. This amount will change based on the number of hours booked on each day. A minimum hours per booking can also be set.
Attendance-based billing after care is provided
💡 For attendance-based billing billed & collected after care is provided, set the pricing to none and bill families after the drop-in is complete.
Select which classrooms will have open drop-in spots.
This will restrict drop-ins to only be allowed for students who are within the age range for the classroom and if there is availability in the classroom based on capacity and number of currently scheduled students.
Only classrooms with age settings and capacities can be selected
Select which availability to use for this booking option
The selected availability will define the days and times families can select if there is open capacity in the respective classrooms.
Set the Minimum Booking Notice and How Far in Advance Can Bookings be Scheduled:
To avoid last-minute bookings, you can set a minimum booking notice period. This specifies the amount of time in advance that bookings must be made before a drop-in care session.
You can prevent drop-in care from being booked too far in advance by setting a maximum booking window. This determines the farthest date in the future that drop-in care can be scheduled.
If you would like to approve each drop in booking that you receive, toggle Requires Approval Before Booking.
When ready, toggle the switch at the top to Active. Once marked active, this drop-in care will be live and applicable slots will be available to families for booking. You can always turn the toggle off to deactivate the drop-in care option.
Click Save & Exit.
That's it! Now, you'll want to let your families know they can now book drop-in care and let Playground do the rest for you!
Edit Drop-in Option
Drop-in options can be edited at any time to update the settings and configuration.
From the Drop-in screen, click Drop-in options.
Click the ✏️ icon to edit the existing drop-in option.
Follow the instructions above to change the current drop-in option settings.
When ready, click Save & Exit button.
Or, click Cancel to return without saving changes.
Delete Drop-in Option
Availabilities can be deleted at any time. Once an availability has been deleted, it cannot be restored.
🚨 If you want to keep your data but prevent families from booking drop-in care, you can make the drop-in option inactive instead of deleting it.
From the Drop-in screen, click Drop-in options.
To inactivate the drop-in care option, click the ✏️ icon to edit the existing drop-in option.
Switch the toggle at the top of the screen off.
Click Save & Exit.
To delete a drop-in care option, click the 🗑️ icon to delete the existing drop-in option.
Click Continue on the deletion confirmation pop-up.
Duplicate Drop-in Option
If you would like to duplicate a premade drop-in option, follow the steps below:
From the Drop-in screen, click Drop-in options.
Next to your already created Drop-in option, select the Duplicate icon.
Enter a new Drop-in option name and click the blue Save button.
Drop-in Bookings
You'll be able to see the date and time of the scheduled drop-in care, the child, the booking type, the price, and when it was booked.
Bookings are filtered by week. Click Week Of to change weeks. Total bookings for the selected week will appear under the green check mark at the top of the screen. Total drop-in care revenue will appear under the purple page icon at the top of the screen.
If your Drop-in Booking requires approval, you can edit the booking information before approving the request. Bookings that require admin approval will show up as Pending. To edit these bookings before approval:
Select the ellipsis (...) next to the booking and click View.
You will then be able to edit the classroom, date, time, and price of the booking by clicking the Pencil icon next to each field.
Once you have made the necessary edits, click the blue Save Changes button.
