Use product availability features and calendar views in ServiceCore to ensure you have enough inventory available for future rentals. Current and future product availability is calculated automatically behind the scenes, so you don't over commit for rental jobs, or try to rent more items than you have on hand. In this article you'll learn about product availability, especially when creating a rental.

Before You Start

Before using product availability, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. You must have Tech - Billing, Manager, Admin, or Owner level permission to see product availability
2. You must have inventory products in your account in order to use product availability
3. When creating a rental, the same inventory products cannot be delivered and picked up on the same day (these items will show as unavailable)

How Product Availability is Calculated

Product availability is calculated automatically in ServiceCore using the following combination of rules:

1. Your starting availability, before you create your first rental in ServiceCore, is the number of Active items for each product as shown for each product in Settings > Inventory
   
   
2. Product availability does not include any inactive items
3. Availability is based off delivery and pick-up jobs for items
4. Inventory becomes available once the pick-up job that uses that inventory is completed

ServiceCore does not assume that a pick-up job was completed successfully, even if the date of the job has passed. ServiceCore only considers a pick-up job to be complete when it is marked as complete. For example, if there is a pick-up job in the schedule, and the job gets marked as "Cancelled" because the gate was locked and you couldn't pick-up the units, those units will not be returned to inventory. ServiceCore assumes that the inventory is still unavailable.

Where to View Availability

Availability of products and items can be viewed in the following locations in ServiceCore.

Settings > Inventory > Products

To view availability of inventory products, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Inventory tab
2. Click on View Availability
   
   
3. An Inventory Availability lightbox will appear
4. The Qty column is to total Active items in your inventory
5. The number for each date is the number of Available items to rent for that dates
6. Any date with a "0" means that the product is unavailable to be rented for that date unless the item is first picked up from a job site (the completed pick-up job makes the item available again)
   
7. Use the Search Products search box to search by full or partial product name
8. Use the previous and next arrows to move the calendar dates forwards and backwards
   
9. Or, click on the Calendar icon to jump to a specific date
   
10. Click Filter by to filter by Itemized vs Non-Itemized products, and by Product Category 
11. After you apply any filters, click Close
12. Click on the View button below the table to view more items at once
13. Click on the previous and next arrows below the table to see additional products if you have more than 100 products
14. Once you're finished, click the X in the upper right corner of the lightbox

Create Rental

You can also view availability when creating a rental. Here's how:

1. Navigate to Customers
2. Locate the customer for which you are creating the rental
3. Click View Customer for that customer
4. Click the Sites tab if it's not already open
5. Locate the site where you will be delivering inventory for the rental
6. Next to the Add System button, click the down arrow
7. Click Create Rental from the list of options that appear
   
8. Fill out the Delivery Job section
9. Click Create Service Job if you want to schedule one or more service jobs for this rental
10. If you know when this inventory will be picked up, click Create Pick-up job
11. Enter the pick-up job date into the Date field
12. Scroll to the Inventory section
13. Click View Availability if you want to see a calendar view of your product availability
14. Otherwise, look at the inventory table
15. Any products available for the date range you set above using the Delivery and Pick-Up jobs dates will be available to select in the inventory table
16. If you see a message about units checking in on the delivery date, that means that there is another rental with a pick-up job scheduled for this same date (once the pick-up job for that date is completed, that inventory will become available again)
    
17. Any items that show "0" Available are not available for the date range you specified in the Delivery and Pick-Up job sections above
    
18. For available products, enter a quantity less than or equal to the number of products available
    
19. Products and quantities Selected will appear below the inventory table
    
20. Click Save when you're finished creating the rental
21. On the rental details page, you will see the item quantities that will be at the jobs site based on the delivery dates and pick-up dates in the Inventory rented table
    

Here are some frequently asked questions we receive about product availability...

Why are there 0 units available when creating a rental?

Great question! Here are a couple reasons why there might be 0 products available when creating a rental:

1. Because you have not entered a pick up date for another rental that is using the same product(s)
2. Because there will be a rental later on in the month using the same units.

Because you have not entered a pick up date for another rental that is using the same product(s)

ServiceCore does not make inventory available for delivery jobs until that same product is picked up on another rental. The system does not know that your inventory is available for use again without a pick-up job. To correct this, you can do one or more of the following:

• Add a pick-up job to a rental for the same product(s)
• Complete a pick-up job for the same product(s)
• Enter a pickup date when creating additional delivery jobs on a rental

Add a pick-up job to a rental for the same product(s)

To add a pick-up job for the same products, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Inventory > Products tab
2. Locate the product you need to pick-up (so that you can deliver that same product for another rental)
3. Click View Product for that product
4. Click the Open Rentals tab
5. If you use itemized inventory, click on the Rental number to display the serial numbers managed on this rental
   
6. Locate the open rental that needs a pick-up job
7. Click the Schedule Pickup link
   
8. Fill out the Create new job form for this pick-up
9. Make sure to choose the correct products in the Inventory to pick up section
   
10. Once you're finished, click Save
11. Because you have scheduled a pick-up job for this product, when you go to create a new rental, if your new delivery date is the same as your pick-up date, you will see this message letting you know that inventory will be checking in on that that date if the pick-up job is completed successfully

Complete a pick-up job for the same product(s)

To complete a pick-up job for the same products, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Inventory > Products tab
2. Locate the product you need to pick-up (so that you can deliver that same product for another rental)
3. Click View Product for that product
4. Click the Open Rentals tab
5. If you use itemized inventory, click on the Rental number to display the serial numbers managed on this rental
   
6. Locate the open rental that needs a pick-up job
7. Click the Schedule Pickup link
   
8. Fill out the Create new job form for this pick-up
9. Make sure to choose the correct products in the Inventory to pick up section
   
10. Once you're finished, click Save
11. Complete the pick-up job
12. Once the pick-up job is completed, then the items you pick-up will be available for delivery on another rental

Enter a pick-up date when creating additional delivery jobs on a rental

Even if you don't know when you will pick-up units, to help plan availability for future rentals, you can enter a pick-up date when creating additional delivery jobs on a rental. Here's how:

1. Navigate to Rentals
2. Locate the rental that you want to manage
3. Click View Rental for that rental
4. Scroll down to the Jobs section
5. Click Create Job
   
   
6. Click the Select job type dropdown list
7. Choose a delivery job type from the list that appears
8. Fill out the upper part of the form including delivery date
9. Go to the Inventory to deliver section
10. Enter the Expected pick-up date
    
11. Select the items you will be delivering by choosing a quantity in the Available column for each product
12. Finish filling out the form, then click Save

Because there will be a rental later on in the month using the same units

If you have several rentals for the same product with date ranges that overlap, you will see 0 available if the product is not available for the full span of the date range. Here's an example: