A parking facility represents a physical parking location within your organization. It's the foundational element of your parking management system, defining the actual places where vehicles can be parked.

Want to create a facility? In this video, you'll learn how to do it:

Facilities define where parking happens, not what users can book. To make a facility available for reservations, you'll later link it to products. This allows flexible configuration across multiple locations.

This guide walks through creating and managing facilities, from initial setup through ongoing maintenance.

Creating a New Facility

Organizations typically manage multiple facilities across different buildings, sites, or cities. Each facility operates independently with its own configuration.

Navigation: Management Dashboard → Parking → Facilities

To create a new facility, click the plus icon in the upper left corner on the Facilities page. You'll be guided through a series of configuration fields that define the facility's characteristics and operational parameters.

The following sections explain each configuration field in detail, helping you set up facilities that accurately reflect your real-world parking infrastructure.

Name and Description

Facility Name

The facility name should clearly identify the location in a way that's immediately recognizable to users. Choose names that are:

• Location-specific — "North Campus Garage," "Building 7 Parking," "Main Street Lot"
• Concise — Keep names short enough to display well on mobile devices
• Consistent — Use a naming convention across all facilities (e.g., all start with building names or site codes)

Capacity

Facility capacity represents the maximum number of vehicles that can physically park at this location. This is one of the most critical settings because it establishes real-world constraints that the system respects.

Tags

Add tags to enhance discoverability and make it easier for users to search for this location. This field is optional.

Description

The description field provides additional context that helps users understand the facility. Include information such as:

• Who typically uses this facility — "Reserved for staff with building access badges"
• Special characteristics — "Covered parking with elevator access" or "Outdoor lot with security lighting"
• Specific rules or requirements — "Compact cars only" 
• Parking type indicators — "All EV charging stations" 

Well-written descriptions reduce confusion and help users select the most appropriate parking location for their needs.
 

Location

Accurate location information ensures users can find the facility without difficulty. This becomes especially important for organizations with multiple buildings. Enter the complete street address of the facility. 
 

Opening Hours

Opening hours define when the facility is accessible to users. These settings help align parking availability with building access times and operational schedules.

To begin, select the applicable days for your parking policy by clicking on the days (typically Monday through Friday). For each selected day, you can define the access window: use the 'Full Day' toggle for 24-hour access, or specify a custom timeframe. If using custom hours, simply adjust the Start and End Time widgets to define exactly when users are permitted to park at the facility.

☝️If your facility has occasional schedule changes (holidays, special events), you can update opening hours temporarily and then return them to normal. Keep the information current to avoid user confusion.
 

Images

Visual imagery significantly improves the user experience by helping people recognize the facility, find entrances, and understand the parking environment before they arrive.

Some tips for the images:

• Upload a JPG, PNG, or JPEG (Max: 500 KB). For best results, use a 785 x 423 px image
• Exterior views: Show what the facility looks like from the street or approach road
• Entrance locations: Clear photos of entry points help users find where to enter
• Interior layout: Overview of the parking area to help users orient themselves
• Special features: EV charging stations, elevators, pedestrian walkways, or other notable features
   

Hardware and Integrations

Some facilities can be connected to physical access control systems and hardware. The availability of these integration options depends on your organization's technical infrastructure and configured capabilities.

☝️If you require hardware integration capabilities, contact our support team to discuss your options.

Final step: Click the blue 'Create' button in the bottom-right corner to complete the process. 

Next Steps: After configuring facilities, you'll create products and establish facility offerings. See the Products article for detailed instructions on these next steps.

Archiving Facilities

If a parking location is no longer in use, it can be archived. Archiving a facility removes it from active use without permanently deleting its historical data. This helps keep your facility list organized while preserving past configurations and records. If a product is only offered in this facility, archiving it will make that product unavailable for purchase.

 

Managing Multiple Facilities

When you click Facilities in the left sidebar, you’ll see the full list of everything you’ve created so far. Just click on any facility to dive in!

From there, you can easily update any of the facility's details or jump over to the Product Offerings tab to see which products are currently linked. Finally, the History tab is your go-to spot to see a clear log of every change made, including who made the update and exactly when it happened.

Most organizations maintain multiple parking facilities to serve different locations or purposes. Creating distinct facilities for different locations or purposes provides several advantages:

• Independent capacity management — Each facility tracks its own availability without conflicting with others
• Location-specific rules — Different opening hours, access requirements, or operational procedures per location
• Clearer reporting — Track usage and patterns for each facility individually
• Better user experience — Users can select facilities closest to their destination

When you create products and link them to facilities later, you'll be able to customize how each product behaves at each facility, providing precise control over your entire parking ecosystem.

 

How Facilities Work with Products

Understanding the relationship between facilities and products is crucial for successful parking management. This section clarifies how these elements connect and why both are necessary.

Key Principle: Facilities Are Not Directly Bookable

⚠️Disclaimer: For organizations offering free parking, you can create a facility without associated products. This allows for real-time occupancy tracking (e.g., via cameras) but removes the ability to book spaces. Note that without a product, you cannot categorize or offer specific options like hourly, daily, monthly, or EV parking.

Creating a facility alone does not make it bookable for users. A facility is infrastructure—it defines physical parking spaces and their characteristics. To make those spaces bookable, you must:

1. Create a product (defining what users can book)

2. Link that product to one or more facilities

This connection is called a facility offering.

Why Separate Facilities and Products?

• Reusable products — Create a "Daily Employee Parking" product once, then offer it at multiple facilities
• Location-specific customization — The same product can have different prices, capacity, or descriptions at different facilities
• Simplified expansion — Add a new facility and immediately make existing products available there

If you have questions about your specific configuration, need assistance with hardware integrations, or want guidance on optimizing your facility setup, our support team is here to help.