Early Check-in and Check-out of Bookings

When managing assets with Shelf's booking system, there are situations where you may need to check in or check out assets earlier than the originally scheduled dates. Shelf now includes a feature to handle these cases while maintaining a record of the original booking period.

How Early Check-in/Check-out Works

Early Check-out

If you need to check out assets before the scheduled start date of a booking:

• A warning message will appear, notifying you that the booking start date will be adjusted to the current time
• You can choose to either:
  • Cancel the action
  • Adjust the date (which will update the booking start date to now)
  • Don't adjust the date (proceed with the early check-out without changing dates)

Early Check-in

Similarly, if you need to check in assets before the scheduled end date:

• You'll receive a warning that the booking end date will be adjusted to the current time
• You'll have the same options:
  • Cancel
  • Adjust the date (update the booking end date to now)
  • Don't adjust the date (proceed without changing dates)

Original Booking Dates

When dates are adjusted during early check-in or check-out, Shelf maintains a record of the original booking period:

• The system stores the initial booking dates as originalFrom and originalTo
• These original dates are preserved even when actual booking dates are adjusted
• If a booking has been adjusted, the booking details will display both:
  • The actual booking period
  • The original booking period

Access this information by exporting your booking data.

Important Notes

• When creating or updating bookings in draft status, both the actual and original booking dates are updated
• The original dates are only preserved when performing early check-in or check-out operations
• All scheduled reminders and overdue notifications are managed according to the actual booking dates, not the original dates
• When exporting booking data to CSV, both actual and original booking dates are included

Use Cases

This feature is particularly helpful in scenarios such as:

• When equipment is no longer needed for the full originally scheduled period
• When equipment needs to be returned early to accommodate another urgent request
• When tracking actual usage versus planned usage for reporting and analytics purposes

The ability to track both original and adjusted booking periods provides greater transparency and helps with resource planning and utilization analysis.