Bookings

Bookings

Bookings let teams reserve equipment ahead of time with conflict-free scheduling. Whether you're managing cameras, laptops, tools, or shared resources, Shelf ensures availability is clear and coordination is seamless.

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What Bookings Solve

Shared equipment creates coordination challenges:

• Double bookings: Multiple people reserve the same item for the same time without realizing it.
• Unclear availability: No one knows what's free, what's out, or when it's coming back.
• Manual calendars: Spreadsheets and paper logs drift out of sync and fail under pressure.
• Resource conflicts: Teams compete for the same gear, leading to delays and frustration.
• Poor coordination across departments: Different groups operate in silos without shared visibility.

Shelf's booking system solves these problems with real-time availability, automatic conflict prevention, and unified workflows that connect scheduling to actual handoffs.

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How Bookings Work in Shelf

Real-Time Availability

The availability view shows exactly when each item is free. Users see open time slots at a glance—no guessing, no calling the equipment room, no spreadsheet lookups.

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Simple Reservation Workflow

Booking takes seconds:

1. Choose the item you need
2. Select an available time slot
3. Confirm the reservation

That's it. The system handles the rest.

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Automatic Conflict Prevention

Shelf validates every booking in real time. For an individually tracked item, a taken time slot simply can't be booked: conflicts are prevented before they happen—not discovered on the morning of a shoot. Fabel Film eliminated double bookings with Shelf.

Pooled stock gets the same guarantee, counted rather than matched: Shelf checks how many units are free on your dates and won't let a booking take units that aren't there. See Quantity-Tracked Reservations below.

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Unified with Custody

Bookings and custody work together. When a reservation starts, custody transfers automatically. When equipment is returned, the system updates instantly. Scheduling and responsibility live in the same workflow.

See: Custody

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Kit-Aware Reservations

Users can reserve individual items or entire kits. Book a camera kit, and all its accessories come along. Shelf tracks what belongs together and keeps kits complete.

See: Kits

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Book by Model

Fleets of identical gear can be reserved without picking exact units up front. Group units under an Asset Model and reserve by model: a booking for "4x HDMI cable" is fulfilled at pickup by whichever 4 physical units you hand out. Any unit of the model fulfils the request, every unit keeps its own record and QR label, and the booking records exactly which units went out. Available on Team plans.

Reservations are settled by putting a matching asset on the booking, whichever way you do it: scanning at pickup, picking it in Manage assets, adding it in bulk from the asset index, or scanning in the Companion app. The reservation ticks down the moment a matching unit lands on the booking, so a team without a scanner to hand is never stuck with a reservation it cannot discharge. Outstanding reservations sit in their own Unassigned model reservations section above the assets table, and each row says exactly what is left, for example "1 of 2 units still to assign".

The whole loop also runs on the Shelf Companion app for iPhone and Android: reserve or adjust a model reservation from the booking's Models tab, then open the fulfil scanner from Scan to assign & check out, watch the assigned counter tick as you scan the physical units, and assign plus check out in one submit.

See: Asset Models · How to Choose a Tracking Method

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Quantity-Tracked Reservations

For assets you track by quantity, reserve a number of units instead of a specific item, and adjust that number as needs change. Shelf counts what's free on your dates and turns away anything the pool can't cover, so a shared stock of gloves or cable or sandbags is as safe to book as a camera.

Counting by date is what makes shared stock usable: gear that comes back before your booking starts is yours to book. Three crews can each take 7 of the same 10 sandbags in three different weeks, and the fourth crew that wants 8 in a week already spoken for is told so up front. Available on Team plans.

When the gear comes back, check-in asks how many units returned in what condition: returnable stock splits across returned, lost, and damaged, and consumables across consumed, lost, and damaged. The same split is available in the Shelf Companion app, so a partial return can be reconciled on the floor rather than remembered until someone is back at a desk.

See: Consumables Tracking

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Flexible, Progressive Checkout and Returns

Real handoffs are rarely all-or-nothing. Shelf lets you check a booking's gear out as it's picked up — scan each item at the counter, or select a subset from the Actions menu — instead of forcing one all-at-once checkout. The booking goes live on the first item, and a segmented Booked / Checked out / Returned lifecycle bar shows exactly what's gone out and what's still waiting. Returns work the same way: check items back in one at a time or in bulk, even when not everything comes back together.

See: Progressive Checkout and Partial Check-ins

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Configurable Notification Recipients

Admins control exactly who receives booking email notifications — without flooding everyone's inbox.

At the workspace level, admins configure default notification rules in Settings > Bookings: choose whether booking creators are automatically notified, whether all admins receive new booking broadcasts, and add an "always notify" list for people who need full visibility across every booking. On individual bookings, anyone can add per-booking notification recipients for extra stakeholders on a specific checkout.

The custodian always receives all notifications. Everyone else is configurable.

See: Booking Notification Settings

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Benefits of Shelf Bookings

• Eliminates scheduling conflicts with automatic validation
• Reduces admin overhead for equipment managers
• Speeds up student and staff workflows with self-service booking
• Provides a clear audit trail of who reserved what and when
• Enables predictable resource planning across teams
• Works on any device with a mobile-friendly interface
• Scales across departments with workspace separation
• Keeps the right people informed with granular notification controls — no inbox flooding

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Common Use Cases

• Education equipment rooms: Students reserve cameras, laptops, and lab gear for projects.
• Film and media programs: Schedule production equipment for shoots, classes, and events.
• Corporate shared equipment pools: Manage loaner laptops, meeting room gear, and training resources.
• AV teams: Coordinate projectors, microphones, and video equipment across events.
• Field teams: Schedule tools and specialized equipment for job sites.

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Related Features

• Custody
• Kits
• Location Tracking
• Workspaces
• Consumables Tracking