You can easily categorize and organize items in EZRentOut using groups. Another way to organize your assets using our equipment rental software is ‘by Location’. When creating groups to classify your assets, it is important to first understand how groups are used in our equipment rental software. Groups play a crucial role in setting up the following:
CONTENTS:
Creating a Group and Associating Items to it
Changing the Group of Multiple Items Simultaneously
Defining Depreciation Rate for Groups
Assigning Groups to Custom Fields
Sorting and Filtering Items by Group
– Sort Items by Group in the Item List View
– Filter Items by Group in the Item List View
– Filter Items by Group in Reports
– Filter and Sort Items in the Availability Calendar
Setting up User Alerts by Group
Attaching Documents to Groups
Reports on Groups and Subgroups
Using Groups to Add Items in Bundles
Setting up Recurring Services on Groups
Setting up Service Triage on Groups
Creating a Group and Associating Items to it
EZRentOut lets you create multiple groups and subgroups to categorize items easily. A group can have subgroups, and so can subgroups. Subgroups can have further division and organized into nested subgroups. Items can only be associated with one group and one subgroup. To create a group, go to Items → Groups → Click ‘Add New Group’ button on the right.
Once you have created a group, you will need to create items from within the group’s detail page or associated assets, asset stock or inventory items to that group when adding/editing an item.
Read More: How to differentiate types of items in EZRentOut?
These items can also be associated with a subgroup of a group. To create a subgroup, go to Items → Group listing page → Select a ‘Group’ → Click ‘Add Subgroup’ button from the right (see image above).
To assign assets to groups or subgroups, go to the Item details page from Items → Assets → Select an Item → Click ‘Edit’. You can also associate groups to items when adding new items in the system. The same method can be applied to asset stock and inventory items.
Note: Each item can only be assigned to one group and subgroup at a time.
Have you checked out the nested subgroups in EZRentOut? Click here to learn more about nested subgroups.
Changing the Group of Multiple Items Simultaneously
There are two ways to change the group of multiple assets simultaneously:
- You can update the group of multiple items using an excel import. To learn more, click here.
- Change the group using mass actions. To do this, go to Items → Assets → Select multiple items → Click ‘Actions’ → Edit → Change Group.
Defining Depreciation Rate for Groups
The percentage of depreciation that takes place on assets per year is defined at the group level. If you have depreciation for assets enabled, from Settings → Add Ons → Asset Depreciation, then you will need to enter the depreciation (%) per year when creating/editing a group. The depreciation rate is applied to all the assets in the group and related subgroups. To learn more about how depreciation is calculated, click here.
Assigning Groups to Custom Fields
Sometimes it’s important to track specific information for assets, like the serial number or the warranty expiration date of assets. To track this information for each item, our equipment rental software allows you to add custom fields to items and orders.
However, for cases where you would want a custom field to show for some items and not others you can assign custom fields to specific groups. For example, if you have a group called ‘Laptops’, you can set up a custom field named ‘Software License Expiration Date’ that only shows for items in that specific group and not for items in any other group. To do this, go to More → Custom field → Items → Add/Edit Custom Field. From the custom field overlay, under ‘Group Association’ section, select the groups that you want to associate your custom field to.
When associating custom fields to groups you can check the option to ‘Associate to all future groups’. This will make the custom field automatically available to all the items assigned to any new group that is created in the system. To learn more about setting up custom fields, click here.
Sorting and Filtering Items by Group
Assigning items to groups helps in sorting and filtering items for better lookup. You can use groups to filter and sort through items on the item listing pages, reports, and the availability calendar.
Sort Items by Group in the Item List View
To sort items by Group on the Item list view, do the following:
- Add a column to view the Group of the Items listed. To learn how to customize the item list view, click here.
- Once you have added a column for groups, click on the column name ‘Group’ to sort the items according to their groups. (Note: A down-pointing arrow symbol will appear when you click the column name). See image below:
Filter Items by Group in the Item List View
To filter items by the group on the item list view, go to Items → Assets → Click on the Filter drop-down → Add/Edit Filters → Click ‘Create New Filter. A new window will pop up where you can create a custom filter.
Given above is an example of a custom filter, that if applied, will display all the items present in the group, ‘IT Equipment.’ You can also create filters that will display items on the basis of subgroups.
To apply a custom filter to your item list view, click the ‘Filters’ dropdown on an item’s list view and select your preferred Custom Filter. For example, if you apply the custom filter shown above, ‘Items in IT Equipment ’, you will get the following list view, which only shows Items in that filtered group:
Note: The same process can be used to apply filters to Asset Stock and Inventory items.
Filter Items by Group in Reports
You can filter your reports to only include assets belonging to, or not be belonging to certain groups or subgroups. To do this, simply go to More → Reports → Select a report or graph (that supports ‘Group’ filter) → Set the filter to include the group you need.
Given above is an example of how you can filter checked out (rented out) items by group or subgroup in Asset Reports. To learn more about item reports, click here.
Note: If you select a filter for both a group and subgroup, only those items present in both the group and subgroup will be included in the report.
Filter and Sort Items in the Availability Calendar
You can also customize the view of the availability calendar according to groups. You can access this calendar by clicking on the calendar icon shown at the top in the app.
To customize the calendar view, you can either choose to combine your items (assets/asset stock) by the group and/or filter your items for certain groups.
If you combine items by the group, you will get an overview of how many items in that group are overdue, available, rented out, booked, or under maintenance, with the dates. To combine items ‘by the group’, go to the drop-down ‘Group by’ (on the top left) → Select ‘Group’. You can also choose to combine items in sub-groups.
To filter items by group i.e. only show items of a certain group, click on ‘Filter by’ dropdown (on the top right) → Select ‘Group’ → Select group name.
You can further customize the filter by selecting a subgroup as well.
Setting up User Alerts by Group
Users can set up alerts in such a way so as to be notified only for actions or events on items in certain groups. To do this, go to More → Alerts → My Alerts → under ‘Select the groups and the locations that you would like to be notified about’ → Select groups. This will ensure that you only receive email alerts for items present in your selected groups. To learn more about the types of alerts in our asset tracking software, click here.
Attaching Documents to Groups
Rather than attaching certain documents for each item in a group separately, you can attach the documents to groups and make the process smoother. Attaching documents to a group will make the documents available to all items present in that group. To do this, go to Items → Groups → Select a group → scroll down and select the ‘Documents and Images’ Tab → Attach Documents.
Reports on Groups and Subgroups
You can also run a report to get a summary of the number of total assets, checked out (rented out) assets and subgroups in a group. To do this, simply go to More → Reports → Group Reports → Group List. Similarly, you can also generate a report for subgroups from More → Reports → Group Reports → Subgroup List.
Read More: Exporting Reporting Data from EZRentOut
Using Groups to Add Items in Bundles
A bundle is a flexible combination of items, which acts like a checkout list making it easier to rent/sell items out together. Groups can be used to add items to bundles. The advantage of adding items from groups to bundles is that the system will automatically select available items and add them to the order when the bundle is rented out. Additionally, if you wish to further specify the items, then you can swap these items out with other items in the groups specified. To learn more about bundles, click here.
To assign groups to bundles, go to Bundles → Add New Bundle → Under ‘Items in the Bundle’ → Click ‘+Bundle Line’. Choose ‘Advanced (Assets)’ against the Type field and specify details of how many Assets you want to add from a particular group or subgroup. See image below:
To help us understand how this works, let’s take an example of a Bundle, ‘Beach Photoshoot Bundle’. This bundle has the bundle line items containing 2 asset stock items of ‘Tripods for Nikon Cameras’ 2 assets from the group ‘Cameras’ and 3 inventory items of ‘Lens Cleaning Solution.’ See image below:
When this bundle is added to an order, 2 available assets from the group ‘Cameras’ will be added, 2 available asset stock items of ‘Tripods’ and 2 inventory items of ‘Lens Cleaning Solution’ will be added. To rent out this bundle you will need to first add it to the order by using the ‘Add To Order’ on the right of the bundle detail page or directly from the Order details page.
To learn more about Orders, click here.
Setting up Recurring Services on Groups
Recurring services are set for Groups, such that all items in that group will have the recurring service take place for them. Recurring services can be enabled from Settings → Add Ons → Advanced Service and Maintenance → Recurring Services. To learn more about setting up recurring services for groups, click here.
Setting up Service Triage on Groups
You can choose to send your assets/asset stock automatically into service for a defined period of time once they are checked-in, using the service triage feature. To enable this feature, go to Settings → Add Ons → Advanced Services and Maintenance → Service Triage. Once you enable the Service Triage feature you can either choose to:
- Triage assets of all groups.
- Triage assets of selective groups.
If you choose to triage assets for selective groups, you will need to enable or disable the Service triage for each group. To do this go to Items → Groups → Select a Group → Click ‘Service Triage’ button and set it to enabled/disabled for the Group.
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