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Three Ways to Visualize Booking Status

For a booking calendar, you might allow group members to self-book use of shared resources. You can set a booking calendar up so that users can request bookings, and then a staff member can review and approve the bookings. With this setup, there are two booking types on the calendar: tentative and confirmed. It’s helpful to have a visual distinction between these types of bookings. Here are three ways to set up your calendar so it’s easy to see different the booking status at a glance.

Show booking status with emojis


A custom choice field lets you set up predetermined options. For each option, you can assign an emoji and have it show in the event title. When someone makes a booking, they’ll choose from the preset options. The emoji provides an easy visual cue of the status.

  1. Create a custom choice field to indicate booking status.
  2. Add an option for each booking type (tentative, confirmed, etc.).
  3. Assign an emoji to each option.
  4. Set the emoji to show in the event title.

The resulting event blocks on the calendar will have the emoji in the event title, so it’s easy to scan a calendar view and identify which bookings are tentative and which are confirmed. You can make this field required to ensure that bookings cannot be added or modified unless the field is completed.

Show booking status with color blocks


You can use a custom choice field to color-code booking status with unicode color blocks. Copy and paste the needed color blocks into the name field for each option. Then set the name to show in the event title.

  1. Create a custom choice field to indicate booking status.
  2. Add an option for each booking type (tentative, confirmed, etc.).
  3. Paste unicode color blocks (copy from here) in each option name.
  4. Set the name to show in the event title.

The selected option from the custom field will show in the event title. The color blocks make it easy to quickly scan and see if a booking is tentative or confirmed, based on the color blocks showing in the event title. You can make this field required to ensure that bookings cannot be added or modified unless the field is completed.

Show booking status with striping


You can assign an event to multiple sub-calendars. When you do, the event will be striped with the assigned calendar colors. This is a great method to create a strong visual cue for the status of each booking. For example, all approved bookings can be assigned to a specific calendar along with the resource calendar, so they will have colorful striping.

  1. Along with the sub-calendars for bookable spaces or resources, create a sub-calendar for approved bookings.
  2. Make sure it is set to allow overlapping events.
  3. When a booking is confirmed, the schedule coordinator can assign it to the Approved Bookings sub-calendar along with the resource sub-calendar.

The colorful striping caused when a booking is assigned to multiple calendars makes it very obvious which bookings are confirmed.

What to consider

Which method will work best? It depends on how you want to handle calendar access and customized permissions for users. To use the custom fields method, you can give users the Modify my events permission for the bookable resource sub-calendars. If they add a booking to the calendar, they can update the status by changing the custom field. Use the Add only permission if you do not want users to change the status themselves. To use sub-calendars for color-coded striping, give users Modify my events or Add only permission for the bookable resource sub-calendars. They can have read-only access to the Approved Bookings sub-calendar, so they can see if their booking is approved but won’t be able to change approved bookings.The schedule coordinator would have Modify access to all sub-calendars so they can update the status as they review each requested booking.

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Client projects rarely stay within one team. A single delivery often spans multiple departments, each using its own tools and processes. Design creates concepts and assets in their design tools, development tracks build work in a sprint board, QA manages testing in their own environment, and customer success coordinates onboarding on a separate timeline.

Each team is doing solid work. But no one sees the whole project as it moves forward. As a result, project managers spend time chasing updates from every department and trying to piece together what’s happening. With Teamup, project managers can create a unified calendar structure to coordinate complex, multi-department client projects with full transparency, fewer surprises, and smoother delivery.

Why cross-team visibility matters

When every department tracks its work in its own system, the overall project timeline becomes fragmented. This leads to issues such as:

Work stalling because a dependent task hasn’t started yet
Shared people or resources getting double-booked
Milestones drifting without early warning

Project managers constantly need to update status between teams just to keep everyone aligned. But with a shared timeline, everyone can easily see: Who is doing what, when their part starts, which tasks depend on others, when handoffs occur, which deadlines are at risk. With one shared calendar, the full delivery timeline is visible at a glance, improving coordination and efficiency across all teams.

A combined project calendar with departmental sub-calendars

In Teamup, you can build a unified project calendar that keeps everything visible while giving each department the appropriate access permissions. Each department works in its own sub-calendar and manages its own updates, while the full project rolls up into one timeline for the project manager.

Click to enlarge: A Teamup project calendar showing color-coded sub-calendars per department

For a closer look at how access levels and information visibility across internal teams, see how to Get Cross-Team Visibility with the Right Amount of Information Sharing.

The benefits of a unified project calendar
For project managers
Gain the oversight they need without chasing updates.
Easily spot delays, conflicts, or bottlenecks.
Share filtered, read-only views with clients and stakeholders.
For departments
See how their own schedule fits into the bigger project timeline.
Improve collaboration across teams with clearer, shared context.
Facilitate handoffs by having visibility into upstream and downstream work.
For leadership
Gain a high-level view of how the project is progressing across departments.
Spot broader risks and capacity constraints earlier.
Enable clearer, more reliable long-range planning.
Example: A cross-department project timeline in a shared calendar

Many client projects follow a sequence such as Design, Development, QA, Customer handoff, and Launch. In a unified shared calendar, the entire sequence becomes visible in one place.

For example: Design can schedule concepts, wireframes, and approval cycles. Development can block time for implementation and internal reviews. QA can add testing windows and verification steps. At the end, Customer Success can schedule onboarding or handoff activities.

With all of these phases shown together in a single timeline, it becomes much easier to understand dependencies, spot risks early, and ensure each team is ready for the next handoff —  keeping the entire project moving forward smoothly.

Click to enlarge: Design team Scheduler view. The lock icon next to the other department sub-calendars shows that events in other departments’ calendars are visible, but Read-Only

Ready to try a unified project calendar for your own team? Explore our live demos or create your own Teamup calendar.

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