Meeting Spot

🔹 Project Overview

Meeting Spot is a full-featured hotel and meeting room booking management system designed to handle time-based room availability, secure online payments, and role-based dashboards for users and administrators.

The platform allows users to explore meeting rooms using advanced search and filtering options, select available time slots for specific dates, and complete bookings through the AMARPAY payment gateway. Instead of real-time sockets, the system ensures booking accuracy by performing backend availability validation at booking time, preventing double-booking scenarios.

The application is built with a modern TypeScript-based stack on both frontend and backend, following a modular backend architecture for scalability and maintainability.

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🔹 Key Features

🔍 Room Discovery & Search

• Browse meeting rooms via scrolling or direct search

• Search by:

  • Room name

  • Amenities

• Debounced search to reduce unnecessary API calls

• Advanced filtering options:

  • Price range

  • Room capacity

• Sorting functionality:

  • Sort rooms by price (ascending / descending)

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🧑‍💼 Authentication & Security

• User registration and login system

• Secure authentication using:

  • JWT-based access tokens

  • Password hashing with bcrypt

• Token-based route protection for:

  • Booking flow

  • User dashboard

  • Admin dashboard

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📅 Booking & Availability Management

• Users can book meeting rooms for:

  • Specific date

  • Specific time slots

• Backend-driven availability checking:

  • Validates selected slots before confirming booking

  • Prevents booking if any slot is already reserved

• Real-time conflict prevention without WebSockets, ensuring simpler architecture with reliable consistency

• Immediate user feedback via toast notifications if a slot becomes unavailable

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💳 Payment Integration

• Integrated AMARPAY payment gateway

• Secure payment flow:

  • Booking details created before payment

  • Payment confirmation updates booking status

• Ensures bookings are finalized only after successful payment

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📊 Dashboards

👤 User Dashboard

• View booking history

• Track booking status

• Manage personal profile

🛠️ Admin Dashboard

• Manage rooms

• Monitor bookings

• Oversee platform usage and availability

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🔹 Tech Stack

Frontend

• React.js

• Redux

• TypeScript

• Search debouncing

• Toast notifications

• Netlify deployment

Backend

• Node.js

• Express.js

• TypeScript

• MongoDB

• Mongoose

• JWT authentication

• bcrypt for password hashing

• Modular backend architecture

• RESTful API design

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🔹 Challenges & Solutions

🔴 Challenge 1: Preventing Double Booking Without Real-Time Sockets

Problem:
Multiple users could attempt to book the same room and time slot simultaneously, leading to potential conflicts.

Solution:

• Implemented strict backend validation during booking creation

• Checked all requested time slots against existing bookings in the database

• Blocked booking if any overlap was detected

• Displayed instant feedback via toast notifications
  This approach ensured data consistency without adding the complexity of WebSockets.

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🔴 Challenge 2: Optimizing Search Performance

Problem:
Continuous API calls during user typing caused unnecessary load and degraded performance.

Solution:

• Implemented debounced search on the frontend

• Triggered API requests only after user input stabilized
  This significantly improved performance and user experience.

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🔴 Challenge 3: Secure Authentication & Authorization

Problem:
Sensitive booking and admin data needed protection from unauthorized access.

Solution:

• Used bcrypt to securely hash passwords

• Implemented JWT-based authentication

• Protected critical routes using middleware

• Created role-based access for admin and user dashboards
  This ensured strong security and controlled data access.

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🔴 Challenge 4: Building a Scalable Backend Architecture

Problem:
As features grew, maintaining a monolithic backend became difficult.

Solution:

• Adopted a modular backend architecture

• Separated concerns into controllers, services, routes, and models

• Used TypeScript for type safety and long-term maintainability
  This made the backend easier to extend and debug.

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🔴 Challenge 5: Reliable Payment Flow

Problem:
Ensuring bookings were confirmed only after successful payment.

Solution:

• Integrated AMARPAY payment gateway

• Updated booking status only after payment confirmation

• Handled failed or canceled payments gracefully
  This ensured booking accuracy and user trust.

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🔹 Learning Outcomes

• Deep understanding of time-slot–based booking systems

• Practical experience with payment gateway integration (AMARPAY)

• Improved backend architecture using modular patterns

• Advanced filtering, sorting, and debounced search implementation

• Strengthened full-stack TypeScript development skills