- Managing Equipment

Managing Equipment Records

Editing an Equipment Record

Once an equipment record has been created it is possible to adjust any field in the equipment record. Any field with a pencil (edit) icon to the right of it can be edited (assuming the user has appropriate permissions). Simply click the pencil icon to open the editable field.

All changes are user, date and time stamped in the Changelog tab.

Changing the OU

The OU field doesn’t have a pencil (edit) icon. The storage and usage locations are also linked to OUs so some of these might become invalid when the equipment’s OU is changed.

Changing OU requires a different process and it’s triggered from the Actions menu:

  1. Click the Actions field
  2. Select the option, Change OU and click Go
  3. Click the ‘radio’ button next to the new OU in the search filter provided to select it
  4. Click Save
  • The permission, “Equipment:Change Organizational Unit” is required in the record’s OU to have visibility of the Change OU action.
  • Only the OUs where the user has the permission, Equipment:Create Equipment will appear listed.
  • The equipment can be in any physical location but the equipment record must have an OU as a home.

Warranty Cover

The Warranty End Date is monitored by the system when one is entered. One month ahead of it lapsing, a notification is sent to the User Responsible for the equipment to remind them the warranty is about to expire.
Reports can be produced, based on searches within specified date ranges of equipment Warranty End dates. Also, the equipment listings in the Search Equipment tab show expired warranty dates in red.

Equipment Usage tab

The Usage tab is where equipment can be checked in and out or retired to some storage location. Information about the current usage (whether it’s checked in or out) is also displayed with the title of the equipment record.

Storage and Usage Locations

More than one storage and usage location can be declared for a piece of equipment.

Locations are only available within an equipment record if they are set up accordingly in the Administration area. Please find information about managing them in the previous article (Managing Locations).
For a location to be available as a ‘usage location’ it requires the tag, General.
For a location to be available as a ‘storage location’ it requires the tag, Storage.

To add or remove Storage Location(s) or Usage Location(s):

  1. Click the corresponding pencil (edit) icon
  2. Select/deselect locations in the search filter that opens out
  3. Click Save

Once one location is added, it’s not possible to deselect them all and return to “No items selected”; it will require at least one location from there on.

Check In/Out

Static equipment can still be checked out in the sense it can be booked by someone for use; the location can remain the same but a person can take over it for a given period of time.

The locations available to check equipment in/out are governed by the storage and usage locations above.

  • If only one location is declared (say, as a storage location), only that location will be visible as a check in/out option.
  • If no locations are declared, any location in the account with a General or Storage tag will be available in the ‘Check In/Out’ Location filter.

The Check In/Out section has an Action field which can be toggled between Check In and Check Out. Before this tab is used, the default option will be, Check Out. Once the equipment starts being used, the option will default to the alternate action from the previous one (e.g., if a piece of equipment is checked out, the action will be set to Check In). The action can be manually toggled if required. For example, someone who has equipment checked out might wish to extend their hold of it.

To check equipment in or out:

  1. Confirm if the Action is Check In or Check Out
  2. Select the Responsible Person from the corresponding search filter
  3. Select a Location from the select tool provided
  4. If checking out, an Estimated Return Date can be selected from the pop-up calendar
  5. Comments can be added
  6. Click Check In or Check Out as applies
  • The responsible person and location can’t be left blank when checking out. There is an option to choose “No Selection” if needed.
  • Equipment can be checked in without selecting a person or location.

A Log of all check in/out actions is kept at the bottom of the page.

Equipment Delivery Tab

The Delivery tab collects information about the date, condition and cost of a piece of equipment when it’s received and the people who received it. It also includes information about the lifespan of the equipment and its estimated replacement date and cost.
Details about the fields and ‘received condition’ options in this tab are covered in the previous article (Step 3 - Delivery).

The Estimated Replacement Date field is useful as it can be searched within date ranges in the Search Equipment tab. Reports can then be exported, including the estimated date and Estimated Replacement Cost for departmental purchases planning.

Equipment Install tab

This tab collects information about the installation of the equipment. A different company from the manufacturer or the supplier might be involved in the installation. The Installed By Company field doesn’t accept free text and a company record must be created in the Companies section under Laboratory Management before it becomes available in the search-as-you-type tool.
Additional information on the fields in this tab can be found in the previous article’s corresponding section, Step 4 - Installation.

Equipment Maintenance and Log tabs

These tabs are discussed in the next article (Equipment Maintenance and Breakdowns).

Equipment Skilled tab

Staff members can be skilled on equipment as on controlled documents. They can be added as already trained or they can be tasked to confirm they are skilled on the equipment. Details can be found in the article, ADDING SKILLED STAFF TO A DOCUMENT, EQUIPMENT, MATERIALS AND REAGENTS.


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The previous article covers Creating New Equipment Records.