The equipment availability is calculated based on the planning period of the equipment. However, when you book equipment in the Warehouse module, the status of the equipment is taken into consideration for its availability.
In this article, we will explain what happens when equipment is booked back earlier than the planning period, or it's delayed and does not come back by the end of the planning period.
Early returns
If you book back some equipment in your warehouse before the end of its planning period, the quantity returned will be un-reserved from that project.
This operation changes the quantity reserved, not the quantity planned. So you will see the number changing in the 'Warehouse stock' line of the equipment timeline, not in the line for the planning (the first line).
You can now reserve that quantity of equipment on another project.
Note: at the moment, the number in the 'Warehouse stock' line is updated also in the past, so it will look like the reserved quantity never changed. This is something we want to fix in the future.
For example, if you booked out 10 laptops for a project and 3 laptops come back before the end of the planning period, the quantity reserved for that project will become 7. This means the 3 laptops are available to be reserved on other projects. See example below:
Delayed returns
If you haven't booked back the equipment by the end of its planning period, the project will appear in the 'Delayed' column of the Warehouse module.
When this happens, the planning period of the equipment is not automatically updated, but you can manually do it from the Warehouse module. Here's how:
- Start booking the equipment for the delayed project.
- Click on more_vert in the middle of the screen.
- Click on 'Mark equipment groups as delayed'
- Select an expected return date and time
- Select the equipment groups you want to delay.
- Optional: add a remark
Now the planning period of all the equipment still in the 'In location' status will be updated to the expected return date. At the end of this new planning period, the equipment will become available again. You can always repeat this operation if the equipment is still delayed at the end of the new expected return date.
If you want to mark only some individual items as delayed, you can mark the whole equipment group as delayed and return the items that did come back.
Shortages in existing projects
Extending the planning period of delayed equipment might result in invalidly reserving items on other projects, and this will cause shortages in these projects. This reflects the true state of things, as the equipment you had reserved for another project might not yet be available.
These shortages will be displayed in the project and in the Shortages tab of the Shortages module. You can solve the shortage by manually changing the reservations (and then, if you need, subrent some more equipment).
Booking out un-reserved equipment
If you book out some equipment that was reserved on another project (for example, if the project you are working on is more important) the equipment is now reserved on the new project.
Example: a microphone is reserved on project A, but you decide to book it out for project B. The microphone will now be reserved on project B.
As a consequence, you might now have an invalid reservation on project A. This overbooking will be shown as a shortage in the project and in the Shortages tab of the Shortages module. You can solve the shortage by manually changing the reservations (and then, if you need, subrent some more equipment).
What we did not fix (yet)
Here are a couple of aspects we want to change in the future.
Charging the clients automatically for delayed equipment
This is not possible at the moment, because marking equipment as delayed only changes the planning period but not the usage period of the equipment.
To charge your customer for the delay, you have to:
- Edit the project.
- Either change the usage period for that equipment group or add an additional cost.
Booking equipment early (before the planning period)
It is not possible at the moment to book equipment before the start of its planning period. The only workaround for this is to edit the planning period inside the project.