Welcome to the course! In this intro episode, we kick things off by talking about what we're going to build together: a complete booking system from scratch using Laravel, Inertia, and Vue. You'll see that the booking system is pretty feature-rich — it has an availability calendar, lets you pick time slots, make and cancel bookings, and even handles more advanced stuff like making sure slots don't get double-booked.
We start with a guided demo of the finished app, showing both the user flow and some of the logic behind it. You’ll see how users can book with a specific employee or let the system pick the next available professional, and how the available time slots update in real time as people book. The calendar blanks out unavailable days (like weekends or holidays), shows how many slots are left, and is super quick to navigate even far into the future (no slow loading!).
We also take a quick look at the database structure — for example, how employee working schedules and "exclusions" (like days off or holidays) are managed. The system is designed so all this can be changed easily, either directly or through an admin panel.
Finally, we finish up by talking about what's next: setting up our project and getting PEST set up for testing, which is important for keeping our code solid as we build the main functionality.
So by the end of this episode, you’ll know exactly what we’re building and how it works, and you’ll be ready to jump into the hands-on setup in the next part!