How to Build an Appointment Booking Platform for Doctors, Dentists, and Salons with Strapi 5

In this comprehensive tutorial, Paul Bratslavsky guides readers through building an appointment booking platform using Strapi 5, suitable for environments like medical practices, dental offices, and salons. The process involves defining content types for providers, services, and appointments within Strapi 5's content-type system, utilizing the Document Service API, and configuring role-based permissions with the built-in Users & Permissions plugin. The tutorial covers creating custom controllers and services for checking availability and setting up Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for a React frontend client. Additionally, it includes steps for setting up a backend using Node.js and SQLite, implementing lifecycle validation to prevent past-date bookings, and configuring permissions for public and authenticated roles. The frontend is developed as a standalone React application that interacts with the Strapi 5 REST API, featuring components for provider selection, user login, and appointment booking. The guide concludes with suggestions for further enhancements, such as deploying to production, adding email notifications, and integrating with other services.