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:
- You must have Tech - Billing, Manager, Admin, or Owner level permission to see product availability
- You must have inventory products in your account in order to use product availability
- 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:
- 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
- Product availability does not include any inactive items
- Availability is based off delivery and pick-up jobs for items
- 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:
- Navigate to Settings > Inventory tab
- Click on View Availability
- An Inventory Availability lightbox will appear
- The Qty column is to total Active items in your inventory
- The number for each date is the number of Available items to rent for that dates
- 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)
- Use the Search Products search box to search by full or partial product name
- Use the previous and next arrows to move the calendar dates forwards and backwards
- Or, click on the Calendar icon to jump to a specific date
- Click Filter by to filter by Itemized vs Non-Itemized products, and by Product Category
- After you apply any filters, click Close
- Click on the View button below the table to view more items at once
- Click on the previous and next arrows below the table to see additional products if you have more than 100 products
- 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:
- Navigate to Customers
- Locate the customer for which you are creating the rental
- Click View Customer for that customer
- Click the Sites tab if it's not already open
- Locate the site where you will be delivering inventory for the rental
- Next to the Add System button, click the down arrow
- Click Create Rental from the list of options that appear
- Fill out the Delivery Job section
- Click Create Service Job if you want to schedule one or more service jobs for this rental
- If you know when this inventory will be picked up, click Create Pick-up job
- Enter the pick-up job date into the Date field
- Scroll to the Inventory section
- Click View Availability if you want to see a calendar view of your product availability
- Otherwise, look at the inventory table
- 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
- 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)
- Any items that show "0" Available are not available for the date range you specified in the Delivery and Pick-Up job sections above
- For available products, enter a quantity less than or equal to the number of products available
- Products and quantities Selected will appear below the inventory table
- Click Save when you're finished creating the rental
- 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:
- Because you have not entered a pick up date for another rental that is using the same product(s)
- 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:
- Navigate to Settings > Inventory > Products tab
- Locate the product you need to pick-up (so that you can deliver that same product for another rental)
- Click View Product for that product
- Click the Open Rentals tab
- If you use itemized inventory, click on the Rental number to display the serial numbers managed on this rental
- Locate the open rental that needs a pick-up job
- Click the Schedule Pickup link
- Fill out the Create new job form for this pick-up
- Make sure to choose the correct products in the Inventory to pick up section
- Once you're finished, click Save
- 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:
- Navigate to Settings > Inventory > Products tab
- Locate the product you need to pick-up (so that you can deliver that same product for another rental)
- Click View Product for that product
- Click the Open Rentals tab
- If you use itemized inventory, click on the Rental number to display the serial numbers managed on this rental
- Locate the open rental that needs a pick-up job
- Click the Schedule Pickup link
- Fill out the Create new job form for this pick-up
- Make sure to choose the correct products in the Inventory to pick up section
- Once you're finished, click Save
- Complete the pick-up job
- 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:
- Navigate to Rentals
- Locate the rental that you want to manage
- Click View Rental for that rental
- Scroll down to the Jobs section
- Click Create Job
- Click the Select job type dropdown list
- Choose a delivery job type from the list that appears
- Fill out the upper part of the form including delivery date
- Go to the Inventory to deliver section
- Enter the Expected pick-up date
- Select the items you will be delivering by choosing a quantity in the Available column for each product
- 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:
Mon 5/1 |
Tue 5/2 |
Wed 5/3 |
Thu 5/4 |
Fri 5/5 |
Sat 5/6 |
Sun 5/7 |
Mon 5/8 |
|
Rental #1 5/1 – 5/3 5 Available for entire rental |
Delivery |
Pick-Up 5 PTs |
||||||
Rental #2 5/6 – 5/8 5 Available for entire rental |
Delivery 5 PTs |
Pick-Up 5 PTs |
||||||
Rental #3 5/2 – 5/7 0 Available for entire rental |
Delivery |
x | x | x | x | x | ||
Rental #4 5/4 – 5/5 5 Available for entire rental |
Delivery 5 PTs |
Pick-Up 5 PTs |