solutions wanted Loan facility template required

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Hi, I run a small department within a London university and we are looking at trying to make a bespoke system for hiring out our kit.

We've already trialed many systems but all of them fail in one respect or another. For example we just looked at Quick Track Pro and found out from their developers today that there's no way the system can tell what is available from the stock pool to allocate to a potential hirer, something I would have thought fundamental to a hire software system.

What we are essentially after is a model based on the following criteria:

We book out about 100 items of equipment to around 200 people. Mostly the items are booked out in advance, so people come to us and reserve several different items, say a camera a tripod and some lights for say a week. They then return to collect and we hand over the kit. This is then returned (99%) of the time on the due date and is checked and put back into the stock pool.

We need a system that can not only book and reserve multiple items out to people but also to let us know what is available and when, so for instance when I want to book out a camera to someone for 2 days, it just tells me based on the available stock, what can be taken for 2 days. Therefore I just find the hirers details on the database to locate their record, type in the dates and then the items of kit that they want and I'm told what is available and then select said items from the shelf and hand it to the hirer.

Failing that, the other scenario is to have a visual overview of the stock and when it is already booked out or available so we can manually select an item from the stock pool and then assign that to the hirer for the desired period of time.

We are currently running a heaving Excel spreadsheet that is becoming unmanageable and also because we have to type in the same information all the time as the same people continue to hire but of course excel doesn't manage or maintain any data, or at least that will auto complete when I start typing in a cell. We are also constantly scrolling about the spreadsheet seeing what is available for any given date so we ensure we only book items out that are available and don't overlap.

The lending library template free with Filemaker is very near the mark and I've managed to streamline the interface to what we want to see, the only thing missing is the ability to book in advance, book multiple items, have the computer control/suggest what is available and for us to see an overview of what stock is available at any given time for a couple of weeks either side of the current date. I don't see it would be a huge amount of work to add the extra functionality to what is already there. One other point about the existing template is that if you try and book out something that is already on loan it just says it can't be booked. We would need it to say when that item was due back so we could make another booking on the back of it.

A final bit of functionality would be to produce an overdue items report daily so we could chase people who had not returned their items on time.

So if anyone thinks they can help us, we'd be happy to hear from you then we can discuss a fee to either modify what we have or create something new. I've seen a few templates from some other companies who make these templates and 2 are very close to what we need but again, not quite 100% suited to our needs.

I look forward to hearing from someone!

[Ocean West]

I can recommend Linear Blue they are in your neck of the woods (UK)

I am confident these folks can custom develop a solution for you.

http://www.findfilemakerdevelopers.com/profile.php?friendly=linearblue

as well as a few other respected developers:

http://www.findfilemakerdevelopers.com/results.php?headerSearch=UK

[David McQueen]

I have done projects that run on both sides of your problem.

One project included a lending library. All that the standard lending library has to do is know if the item is there now and only show what is available now. Nothing is pre-scheduled. It does however have to produce late reports and capital reports.

The other project was scheduling therapists to autistic children. This included conflict detection for each and dual views of the scheduling - from the therapists perspective and from the client perspective. This is closer to what you are trying to achieve. You would like to define a time slot for the client and then see what equipment is available in each category.

So, from what I can see, your project is doable. The fun part would be the equipment filters coupled with conflict detection.

The other interesting thing in this project is that when a piece of equipment is signed out, if it does not return, subsequent borrowing events of that particular piece of equipment should be flagged so that people know that the scheduled lot is currently incomplete.

Displays needed would depend on how equipment is loaned - per hour, per day, per week. I can see the possibility of day week and month displays being required.

This sounds like a fun project.

If Canada is not too far away, I'd love to discuss it.

Dave McQueen

[email protected]

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Thanks for the replies. I've had many private messages and I'm just going through them. I have contacted a few people about this job and am waiting to hear back. (I advertised on 3 sites and the response has been great)

It's all about budget sadly, so I'm really looking for the cheapest but best performing solution.

I'll be in touch in due course.

K.