This repository will serve as the showcase for Matthew Hill's Enterprise Java Individual Project: Salon Solutions... a web-based platform for salon individual owners/hairstylists and their clientele.
Initial Video walkthrough demo (as of Monday, May 11, 2020): https://youtu.be/s-FcfY1Ctl0 Final Video Update (as of Wednesday, May 13, 2020): https://youtu.be/f1spV_ETeCU
For decades, Salon Owners and Stylists have been at the mercy of scheduling and training softwares that often only partially serve their needs. Often, software that would best serve such needs is not affordable from an individual or small-business standpoint. Furthermore, whatever software in this realm that is affordable does not fully account for the nuances of a Salon Owner/Stylist experience, especially in this recent rapid expansion of sole proprietorships (booth/chair rentals) that are taking the place of the traditional "Employer-Employee"/"Salon Owner with Many Stylists" Salon model.
For example, major players in this arena include Envision and Rosy, the desktop versions of which are not priced within reach for many small, one-person Salon operations. Furthermore, the slightly more affordable "Cloud" versions showcase lackluster performance and user experience for Stylists and Salon Owners alike, especially on mobile devices. This is often because such solutions emanate from a "one size fits all" approach that is marketed to not only beauty salons, but spas, yoga studios, fitness centers, massage parlors, and other business that, although similar in structure, are different enough to make the user experience for Salon stakeholders feel "clunky" and under-served.
Furthermore, these softwares, although they may help with scheduling and financial forecasting, are not structured in a way to maximally promote the financial goals of the Salon Owners/Stylists. Ideally, such software would guide would-be Salon Salons to select appointment times that not only are convenient for said salon, but that also serve to strategically benefit the stylists earning potential that day (per preferences/goals specified in the back-end of the application).
For example, if the most lucrative service a stylist offers is a "Foil-Color-Cut" which takes a minimum of 2.5 hours with a 45 minute break in the middle of the service for processing time, then the software should seek to maximize the opportunities to book such services, while suggesting simpler and less time-intensive services (like short-hair cuts) to take place during aforementioned processing windows. By taking financial goals and strategies into account during the scheduling process, instead of defaulting to a "first-come, first-served" model, regardless of the service requested, the Salon Owner and Stylist are empowered to maximize their earnings potential while still making their best efforts to meet all client needs and requests, but at times that make sense for the Salon's schedule as well as the client's schedule.
Stretch Goal: Lastly, Stylists need effective ways to communicate lessons via PDF and Video to their salons, to help keep them looking their best between visits, as well as ways to track what said salons are saying about them on social media/keep tabs on how a salon's look changes between Salon visits via the salon's social media posts, so that a stylist might better advise on what to do about outgrowth, etc before a salon's next appointment. Seems that Facebook/Instagram/Google-YouTube integration of various levels of complexity might be particularly advantageous for this purpose, as well as to make logging-in and booking appointments easier for salons.
I propose to create a web-based, Java 11 application that serves the purposes outlined above.
Existing Examples Named Above: Envision: https://www.envisiongo.com/features.html#Client-Tracking Rosy: https://www.rosysalonsoftware.com/?utm_source=Capterra&utm_medium=Salon&utm_campaign=Rosy_Home_Page&gdmsite=GetApp
Salon Solutions - Wireframe Drafts: https://app.moqups.com/izDhRK8VUK/view/page/aa9df7b72