Inventory store settings and notifications

Each store has two settings: whether it's taking bookings, and whether admins are emailed about overdue items. Rubric also emails students and clubs reminders automatically, so you don't have to chase pickups and returns, and you can set up your own emails for first bookings and returns.

Changing a store's settings

Open the store and go to Settings from the side menu.

• Taking Bookings: with This store is taking bookings on, students and clubs can book through the store's open booking forms. Turn it off to pause the store — for example, over the holidays. No new bookings can be made, and the store's page says it isn't taking bookings. Existing bookings stay as they are: people can still see and cancel them, and you can still check items out and mark them returned.

• Overdue Alerts: borrowers are always emailed when an item they borrowed is overdue. Turn on Email admins when an item is overdue to also email the union accounts with access to Inventory Booking, listing each item that's past its return time. If you use branches, admins only hear about stores in their own branches.

Click Save Changes under the setting you changed.

At the bottom of the page, Delete Store closes the store for good (see What happens when you delete a store, group, item or form). To stop bookings for a while instead, turn off This store is taking bookings.

Emails Rubric sends

Each email lists the items by name (for example, "Camera 02"), with the times, the store, and a link to the booking, so people know exactly what to collect or bring back. Items due at the same time are sent in one email. Club bookings are emailed to the club account's email address.

• Pickup reminder: sent up to an hour before the pickup time of an approved booking. It asks people to cancel if they can no longer make it, so someone else can borrow the item.

• Return reminder: sent up to an hour before a checked-out item is due back.

• Overdue notice: sent to the borrower shortly after a checked-out item passes its return time.

• Overdue summary for admins: sent at the same time, if Email admins when an item is overdue is on. Each item links to the store's Bookings page, open on the Overdue tab.

Each email is only sent once per booking. If you change a booking's pickup or return time, the reminder is sent for the new time instead. No overdue email is sent for an item that was already past its return time when it was checked out.

Setting up your own emails

As well as the reminders above, you can set up emails that go out automatically to people who book from a store — for example, a safety video for anyone borrowing a BBQ for the first time, or a feedback survey after they return an item.

1. Open the store and go to Notifications from the side menu.

2. Click Create Email, and choose one of these categories:

   • Inventory: First Booking of an Item: choose an item. The email is sent when someone's booking for that item is approved, before they pick it up.

   • Inventory: First Booking from an Item Group: the same, but for any item in the group you choose — for example, every vehicle.

   • Inventory: Returned to a Store: choose the store. The email is sent after someone returns an item they borrowed from it.

3. Write your email. As well as the usual merge fields, you can use **item_name**, **group_name** and **store_name**, plus **pickup_at** for first-booking emails or **returned_at** for return emails.

4. Set the end date well into the future, so the email keeps going out for new bookings, and save it.

Each student or club gets each email once, on their first approved booking (or first return) after you set it up — not again when they book next time. Club bookings are emailed to the club account. Emails go out shortly after the booking is approved or the item is returned. Return emails only go to people who returned something in the last 7 days, so setting one up doesn't email everyone who has ever borrowed from the store.

The store's Notifications page lists every email set up for it, with its status and how many people it's been sent to. These emails don't appear on the main Communications page. To change one, click Edit in its menu; to stop it, click Delete.

Notes on submissions

When you reject, cancel or change a booking, the student or club sees a note on their submission saying what happened, with the item, the times and any reason you gave.