The challenge
Booking data existed across ACF fields and WooCommerce orders, but there was no single live view of chair availability. Any reporting tool that wrote to those records risked corrupting a working booking system.
Objectives
- Give operators one live view of chair status
- Read existing data without modifying it
- Make the feature safe to switch off
- Avoid a rebuild of the booking system
What we built
A passive monitoring plugin that reads the existing ACF and WooCommerce data and renders a live dashboard, with every write path deliberately absent and the whole feature gated behind configuration so it can be disabled instantly.
Technology
ACF · PHP · WooCommerce · WordPress
How it was delivered
- Read-only data layer over existing ACF and WooCommerce records
- Zero writes to any existing booking data, by design
- Config-gated activation so the feature can be turned off cleanly
- Live dashboard view of chair status and upcoming bookings
- Built to sit alongside the existing system rather than replace it
Outcomes
- Operators see live chair status in one place
- The underlying booking system was left completely untouched
- The feature can be disabled without side effects
- No migration or rebuild was required