Terminology

Reservations organizes your equipment on three levels: Categories, Equipment Models, and Equipment Items.

Categories provide organization to your catalog, making it easy for people to find what they need. Your categories might be “Video Cameras”, “Digital SLRs”, or “Laptops”.

Equipment Models represent a more-specific type of equipment, such as a Nikon D90. Equipment Models have a name and general description, as well as a photo for the catalog. You can also upload documents related to an Equipment Model (e.g. a user’s guide) and set limits on the length of time and number of items a person can check out of this model.

Equipment Items represent real, physical instances of an Equipment Model. These are used to determine how many are available for checkout on the catalog. Reservations tracks them by identifiers, so that you know who checked out a specific item. You can also store item-level information on Equipment Items, such as serial numbers.

Getting Started

To get started, you will create your first category by choosing Equipment -> Categories from the top menu bar. When creating a category, Reservations provides options for things like how many a person can check out at a time. These are used as the default for all Equipment Models in this category, but can be over-ridden for a specific model when you create it.

Once you’ve added your first Category, you can create your first Equipment Model by clicking the ‘Add Model’ button on the category page and entering the details. Finally, create at least one Equipment Item for that model by clicking the ‘Create New Item’ button on the Equipment Model page.