Dink test guide

Welcome, and thank you for helping test Dink. Dink is an app for pickleball venues in the Philippines: players find a venue, book a court or join open play, and pay; venue owners and their staff run the day from a console.

This page tells you what you can try today, how to try it, what isn't ready yet, and the questions we'd love your opinion on. It is updated every time a new feature is finished.

Test site: https://dev.dink.pepperlab.space

You can always find this page on the test site: choose Test guide at the top of the home page, or go to /testers.

Last updated: 7 November 2026

Good to know before you start

• Nothing here is real. No real money moves, and bookings don't reserve a real court. Use made-up venue names and prices if you like.
• The test site changes often. New features appear as soon as they are finished, so something may look different from one day to the next. Test data may occasionally be cleared.
• The first visit can be slow. If the site has been quiet for a while it takes a few seconds to wake up. Refresh if a page hangs.
• Phones and computers both work. Players mostly use a phone; the venue console is easier on a bigger screen, but works on a phone too.
• Tell us everything. Confusing wording, a button you couldn't find, something that felt slow, or a rule that seems wrong for a real venue are all useful. See How to send feedback.

What's new

Newest first. Each line is a feature you can now try on the test site.

• 7 Nov 2026: Online payment by GCash, Maya or card is built, but not switched on for the test site yet (see Not available yet).
• 7 Nov 2026: Players can pay for a booking with their venue tokens. Venue owners can see the online payments page.
• 6 Nov 2026: Venue staff can add tokens to a player's wallet when they pay cash, and owners can undo a mistake.
• 6 Nov 2026: Owners and staff can add venue members, who get the member price.
• 6 Nov 2026: Owners can invite staff and choose what each person may do.
• 6 Nov 2026: The Today view at the desk: check players in, mark no-shows, and book walk-ins paid in cash.
• 5 Nov 2026: My bookings, cancelling a booking, and open play sessions.
• 5 Nov 2026: Court booking, venue prices, the public venue list, venue registration and approval, and accounts.

Who does what

You can be more than one of these at once, for example a player at one venue and staff at another.

A good way to test is in pairs: one person sets up a venue as the owner, the other books as a player. You can also do both yourself with two accounts (use a private browser window for the second one).

Your account

1. Open the test site and choose Sign up. Enter your name, email and a password.
2. Open the email from Dink and click the link to confirm your address. You can't sign in until you do.
3. Sign in with your email and password, or choose Email me a sign-in link instead to sign in without a password.
4. Forgot your password? Choose Forgot your password? on the sign-in page and follow the email.

If the confirmation email doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam folder, then tell Nes.

As a player

Find a venue

1. Choose Find a venue on the home page (or go to /venues on the test site).
2. Search by name or pick a city. Only venues the Dink team has approved appear.
3. Open a venue to see its courts, opening hours, amenities, prices, contact details, open play sessions, and links to get directions.

Book a court

1. On a venue's page, choose Book a court. You'll see a grid of courts and hours for the day; you can look up to 14 days ahead.
2. Pick a free hour. Choose how many hours you want and confirm. The court is now held for you for 15 minutes.
3. Pay within the 15 minutes (see below), or the hold ends and the court is free again.
4. Changed your mind? Use Release this hold on the booking page to free the court straight away.

Things to notice: you can have at most 2 unpaid holds at a time, and members of the venue see their member price.

Pay for a booking

• With tokens: if you have tokens at that venue (staff add them when you pay cash at the desk), the booking page shows a Pay with tokens button with the amount and your balance before and after. One press pays and confirms the booking.
• Cash at the desk: staff can book you in as a walk-in and take cash (see As staff).
• Online (GCash, Maya, card): not on the test site yet.

Join open play

1. On a venue's page, find Open play and pick a session.
2. Choose how many spots you want (up to 8, for you and friends; friends don't need an account).
3. Your spots are held for 15 minutes; pay as above.

My bookings and cancelling

• Open Book in the menu, then See your bookings, to see your upcoming and past bookings.
• You can cancel a booking up to 24 hours before it starts. The booking page shows the deadline.
• An unpaid hold can always be released.
• A booking you already paid for can't be cancelled in the app yet: the page asks you to contact the venue.

Your profile

• Open Profile to see your token balance at each venue.

As a venue owner

Register your venue

1. Signed in, open Profile and choose Register your venue (or go to /venues/new).
2. Fill in the venue's name, address, city, contact details and amenities. You can register up to 3 venues a day.
3. Your venue now waits for the Dink team to approve it. Until then it doesn't appear in the public venue list. Tell Nes you registered a venue so it can be approved.
4. Meanwhile you can set everything up in the console (the owner's side of the app, at /admin).

Set up the venue (console)

• Venue settings: name, description, contact details, amenities, opening hours for each day, and a note about your cancellation policy.
• Courts: add courts, rename them, or take one out of service.
• Pricing & sessions: set the court rental price per hour, the open play price for mornings and for afternoons and evenings, and the member discount. Until you save your own, Dink's suggested prices apply (₱500 an hour, open play ₱150 / ₱250, 10% off for members).
• Open play: under Pricing & sessions, schedule a session (date, time, courts and how many players), or cancel one.

Run the venue

• Today: the desk view for the day. See every court's bookings, check players in, mark no-shows, and book walk-ins paid in cash. (Details under As staff.)
• Tokens: add tokens to a player's wallet when they pay cash, look up a player's wallet, and undo a top-up made by mistake (owners only, with a reason the player sees).
• Players: make a player a member of your venue (by their email or @handle), with a first day and an optional last day. End a membership at any time.
• Staff: invite people by email and tick what each person may do: Bookings and desk, Tokens, Pricing, Staff, and others. Change or remove their permissions later.
• Online payments: see whether online payments are on for your venue. Connecting a payment account isn't available on the test site yet.

If you own or work at more than one venue, use the venue switcher at the top of the console.

As staff

1. Your venue's owner invites you from Staff. You get an email; open the link while signed in to the account with that same email address, and accept. The link works for 7 days.
2. Open the console (/admin). What you can do depends on the permissions the owner gave you; everyone can see the day's bookings.

At the desk (Today)

Needs the Bookings and desk permission.

• Check in a player from 60 minutes before their booking until it ends. Only paid bookings can be checked in.
• No-show: once a booking has started and the player hasn't come, mark it as a no-show. A rented court is freed for walk-ins. There's no undo, so the app asks you to confirm.
• Walk-in paid in cash: book a court for the hour under way or later today, or spots in today's open play. Either look the player up by the email of their Dink account (members get their price, and the booking shows in their app) or just type their name. Check the total, take the cash, and confirm.

Tokens

Needs the Tokens permission.

1. Open Tokens, look the player up by email or @handle.
2. Enter the cash amount (₱1 to ₱20,000) and, if you like, a receipt number. Review, then confirm.
3. The player sees the tokens straight away. If you made a mistake, ask the owner to undo it. You can't add tokens to your own wallet.

Members

Needs the Pricing permission. Same as the owner's Players page, except you can't make yourself a member.

As the Dink team

Only for testers Nes has given this role.

• Open Platform (/platform) to see venues waiting for review.
• Approve a venue to make it public and bookable.
• Reject a pending venue (final; the owner can register again) or suspend an approved one (it disappears from the public list until reinstated). Both need a reason the owner sees.

Suggested things to try

1. Full booking day. Owner: register a venue, add two courts, set hours and prices; get it approved. Player: find it, book an hour, release it, book again. Staff: add ₱1,000 of tokens for the player. Player: pay with tokens. Staff: check the player in.
2. Open play. Owner: schedule a morning session for 8 players. Two players each join, one with 3 spots. Check the spots left go down. Owner: try to cancel the session.
3. Walk-in. Staff: book a walk-in for "Juan" with no account and take cash; then one for a player's account and check it shows in their My bookings.
4. Members. Owner: make a player a member. Player: check the member price on the booking grid.
5. Staff permissions. Owner: invite a staff member with only Tokens. Staff: check what you can and can't do.
6. Holds running out. Player: hold a court and wait 15 minutes without paying. Is it clear what happened?

Not available yet

These are planned. Some pages for them exist but are empty or say "coming soon".

• Paying online with GCash, Maya or card (built, switched on later for testing).
• Refunds: cancelling a paid booking, or a venue cancelling a session people paid for. Both will refund as tokens.
• Daily cash report for staff and owners.
• Matches, win rate, ranking and badges (the Log match and Matches tabs).
• The feed, following players, kudos and comments.
• Avatars and profile pictures.
• Venue photos.
• A map of venues and "near me" (venue pages link out to maps for directions).
• Analytics for owners (revenue, court use, busy hours).
• Sign in with Google (may appear later).
• Later still: staff payroll and time tracking, online membership sales, tournaments, Filipino language.

Questions we'd love your opinion on

These are the rules we picked for now. Tell us if any feels wrong for how a real venue or player works. The small code at the end of each question helps us match your answer to our notes; include it when you reply.

Accounts

1. You must confirm your email before you can sign in at all. Is that fine, or should you be able to look around first and confirm only before you book? (Q17)
2. Staff and owners need to have signed in within the last 12 hours to use the console. Too strict, too loose, or about right for a shift? (Q18)
3. Email me a sign-in link instead only works for existing accounts; new players use Sign up. Did that ever confuse you? (Q19)

Booking and prices

4. You can book up to 14 days ahead. Should venues be able to choose this? (Q37)
5. You can hold at most 2 courts at a time, and each hold lasts 15 minutes. Is 15 minutes enough to pay? (Q38, Q79)
6. If you release a hold, it still counts towards your 2 for the rest of its 15 minutes. Did that surprise you? (Q40)
7. Courts are booked by the whole hour (1 to 12 hours). Do venues need half-hour bookings? (Q32)
8. Every venue uses the same rule: cancel up to 24 hours before. Should venues set their own deadline? (Q47)
9. A new venue starts with Dink's suggested prices until the owner sets their own. Helpful, or should prices be empty until set? (Q31)
10. Prices must be at least ₱1, so free open play isn't possible. Do venues run free sessions? (Q35)
11. The biggest member discount is 50%. Enough? (Q36)
12. Players can't see who booked a court, only whether it's free. Is that right? (Q39)

Open play

13. One player can buy up to 8 spots for friends, who don't need an account. Is 8 right? (Q44)
14. Players can join a session online right up until it starts. Should there be a cut-off? (Q45)
15. To change a session's time, courts or size, staff cancel it and schedule a new one. Is that workable? (Q46)
16. Staff with Bookings and desk can schedule and cancel open play. Or should it be Pricing? (Q42)
17. Sessions can be scheduled up to 60 days ahead, last 1 to 12 hours, and have 2 to 100 players. Do those limits fit? (Q41)

At the desk

18. Check-in opens 60 minutes before a booking. Is that the right window? (Q50)
19. A no-show isn't refunded, and a rented court is freed straight away for walk-ins. Fair? (Q51)
20. Walk-ins can only be booked for today. Do desks take phone bookings for later days that they'd want to enter too? (Q52)
21. Check-ins and no-shows can't be undone. Will staff need an undo? (Q53)
22. Staff can attach a walk-in to any player's account by email, so members get their price. Is that OK, or should the player be asked first? (Q54)

Staff, members and tokens

23. Staff with the Staff permission can only give others permissions they have themselves. Does that match how venues work? (Q56)
24. There's no way to add a second owner or hand a venue over in the app. Will venues need that? (Q57)
25. Adding and ending memberships needs the Pricing permission. Or should desk staff have a separate Members permission? (Q59)
26. Memberships can start today or up to a year ahead, never in the past, and last up to 5 years. Do those limits fit? (Q61)
27. A token balance can never go below zero. Would venues want to let regulars play now and pay later? (Q64)
28. One cash top-up is ₱1 to ₱20,000. Is that the right range? (Q68)
29. Only the owner can undo a top-up made by mistake. Should senior staff be able to? (Q70)
30. A booking must be paid in full with tokens, or fully another way. Would you want to split, for example half tokens, half cash? (Q72)
31. Paying with tokens takes one press, with no "are you sure?" step. Comfortable with that? (Q73)

Venues

32. A venue closes at midnight at the latest. Do venues near you stay open past midnight? (Q21)
33. Only owners can change venue details, courts and hours; staff can only look. Should staff be able to? (Q22)
34. Courts can't be deleted, only taken out of service. Is that clear? (Q24)
35. An approved venue's name and description changes go live straight away, without review. Fine? (Q25)
36. A rejected venue can't be fixed and sent again; the owner registers again. Fine? (Q26)

How to send feedback

Send your notes to Nes in whatever way you usually talk (chat or email). For each one, a quick line helps:

• What you were doing (for example "booking a court as a player on my phone")
• What happened, and what you expected
• A screenshot, if you can

For the questions above, just reply with the question code and your answer, for example "Q37: venues near me let you book a month ahead".