Three ways to book a shared room
An analog board. A grid of time slots and lockable tags. Cheap, sturdy and obvious to everyone: you book by locking your tag onto a slot. The trade-off is that booking only happens on site, and the board only knows about the one room it hangs in.
A booking terminal. A screen by the door, often wired to access control so the same tag books the slot and opens it. Neat when booking and the lock should be one act, but it is hardware: purchase, installation, servicing, and usually a formal decision before anything happens.
Booking on the web. The bookings live in a calendar everyone reaches from their phone, and there is nothing to mount anywhere. That is what Tiddel is — and the same calendar holds the sauna, the guest suite, the party room and the chargers, not just one room.
Can you run both at once?
For the same room, no — and it is worth being blunt about why. Tiddel does not sync with a physical board or an access-control system, so two booking places for one resource give you two versions of the truth, which puts you back where you started: double bookings and arguments.
Splitting by resource is perfectly reasonable, though. Let the board keep the laundry room and let Tiddel take the rest. The sauna, the guest suite, the party room and the chargers usually have no board at all — they run on notes, a binder and email to one person — and they can move into a calendar while the laundry room stays exactly as it is.
What it costs
A board costs money once: purchase and installation, plus upkeep as tags go missing or the hardware needs servicing. Booking on the web costs a monthly amount instead, and nothing to install. Which works out cheaper depends on how many resources you have and how long the hardware lasts.
The point of a trial is that you can work that out with your own group in the system rather than on paper: see the plans.