Frequently Asked Questions

RoomShepherd is a room-booking and scheduling platform built for churches and schools. It lets you manage every bookable space, prevent double-bookings, share a public calendar, and let members — or even the public — request rooms, all from one place.

Start a free 14-day trial from the sign-up page. You’ll choose a web address for your organization, add your rooms, and can be taking bookings within minutes. No software to install.

No. RoomShepherd runs entirely in your web browser and works on phones, tablets, and computers. There’s nothing to download or maintain.

Each organization gets its own subdomain — for example yourchurch.roomshepherd.com — chosen when you sign up. Visiting that address shows your public calendar, so it’s a safe link to share with your congregation; your team signs in using the Admin Login button on that page. (Subdomains can’t be changed after registration, so pick carefully.)

From New Booking, pick one or more rooms, set the date and time, add a title and any details, and submit. If a room is set to require approval, your request goes to an admin or staff member for review; otherwise it’s confirmed instantly.

Yes. Select multiple rooms on the New Booking page to reserve them all for the same date and time. It’s all-or-nothing — if any one of them is already taken, none are booked, so you never end up with a half-booked event.

Yes, for a single room. Choose weekly, every two weeks, monthly on the same date, or monthly on the same weekday (e.g. the 2nd Tuesday of each month), and set a “repeat until” date. You can later bulk-edit or bulk-delete the whole series at once.

Yes. Every booking is checked against existing reservations, and RoomShepherd won’t allow two bookings to overlap in the same room. If there’s a conflict, you’ll see a clear message naming exactly what’s already booked and when.

A room setup can reserve extra minutes before and/or after an event for setup and teardown. The room is held free during that buffer time so nothing gets booked on top of it — without changing the event’s public start and end times.

Any room can be marked “requires approval.” Bookings for those rooms arrive as Pending and collect in the Approvals queue, where an admin or staff member can approve or decline them. Admins and staff booking that room themselves are approved automatically — the queue is for members’ bookings and public requests. Everyone is kept in the loop by email along the way.

Yes. Admins can edit any reservation; members can cancel their own. Recurring events can be edited or removed as an entire series in one step.

Yes. When an admin creates or edits a booking, they can mark it staff only. The room still shows as busy on your public calendar and in calendar subscriptions — so nobody can request that slot by mistake — but visitors see only “Reserved,” with no title or description. Everyone signed in to your organization still sees the booking in full.

Yes. Every organization has a public calendar link you can share freely. Anyone with the link can view your schedule — in month or agenda view — without needing an account or password.

Yes. Copy the embed code from Settings and paste it into any page on your existing website. The embedded calendar automatically resizes to fit the space.

Optionally. Turn on public reservation requests in Settings and you’ll get a shareable request form. Anyone can submit a request without an account, and every request arrives as Pending for an admin or staff member to review before it’s confirmed.

Yes. On your public calendar page, open Subscribe to this calendar. On an iPhone, iPad or Mac, tap Add to Apple Calendar and it’s added in one step. In Outlook or Google Calendar, copy the web address shown and use that app’s Subscribe from web or From URL option — don’t simply open the link in a browser, as that downloads a one-time snapshot instead of a calendar that keeps itself up to date. You can subscribe to your whole schedule or to a single room.

Calendar apps check for changes on their own schedule — typically a few times a day rather than instantly — so a booking made this morning may take a few hours to appear on someone’s phone. This is controlled by Apple, Google and Microsoft, not by RoomShepherd. Your public calendar page and embedded calendar are always current.

For each room you can set a name, capacity, location, color, amenities, whether it requires approval to book, and whether it’s active or inactive. Inactive rooms stay on record but can’t be booked.

Room setups are reusable layout options — like “Rows,” “Banquet,” or “U-Shape” — that people can choose when booking. Each setup can also carry its own setup/cleanup buffer time.

Use Blackout Dates to close specific days so no bookings can be made, and Calendar Events to add non-booking items — like “Office Closed” or “VBS Week” — directly to your public calendar. Calendar events can repeat, too.

Admins manage everything — rooms, approvals, users, settings, and billing. Staff can manage rooms and approvals and update their own profile and calendar links. Members can book rooms and manage their own reservations.

Admins add and manage user accounts from the Users page, up to your plan’s user limit.

Use the “Forgot password” link on the sign-in page to reset it by email.

There are three simple plans: Starter — $29/mo (up to 10 rooms, 5 users), Church — $39/mo (up to 25 rooms, 10 users), and Campus — $49/mo (up to 100 rooms, 30 users). Every plan includes approval workflows, email notifications, recurring bookings, and multi-campus support.

Yes — a 14-day free trial, so you can set up your rooms and take real bookings before deciding. No credit card is needed to start.

The account pauses until you subscribe. Your team won’t be able to sign in to manage bookings, and your public calendar and request form go offline for visitors. Nothing is deleted — every room, user and booking stays exactly as you left it and comes straight back the moment you subscribe. We email your administrators before the trial ends and again when it does, and if you simply need more time to evaluate, reply to any of those emails and we’ll extend it.

Credit card or ACH bank transfer — ACH has lower fees but takes 3–5 business days to process — both set up on the Billing page. If your church prefers to pay annually by check, choose that option on the same page and we’ll take it from there.

Yes. Upgrade anytime from the Billing page as your ministry grows.

You set your timezone in Settings, and all reservation times are displayed in that zone — so pick the location of your rooms, not your visitors.

Data is kept private and completely separate from every other organization on RoomShepherd. Only the people you invite can see or manage your bookings.