Kits

Overview

Kits represent a unified management approach in Shelf for handling related equipment as a single unit. This feature proves beneficial when multiple items need to move and be tracked collectively.

Kits vs Tags: Two Grouping Approaches

The platform offers distinct methods for asset organization. Kits group assets as a single unit with one QR code, while Tags allow flexible labeling without that constraint.

Kits function best for:

• Managing assets as one consolidated unit
• Single QR code covering the entire kit
• Unified custody assignments where all items move together
• Collective booking management

Tags work better when you need:

• Individual asset management within groups
• Ability to book or assign custody to single items
• Dynamic grouping without custody restrictions

Creating a Kit

Navigate to the Kits page and select New Kit. Complete the setup by entering a name, image, description, category, and location, then add desired assets. You can also assign a custodian during creation.

Kit Statuses

Kits can exist in three states:

• Available: Ready for assignment to a person or booking
• In Custody: Currently held by a person; unavailable for reassignment until released
• Checked Out: Assigned to a booking and unavailable for reassignment

Kit Assets

Assets can be added regardless of individual availability status. Even items marked as unavailable for bookings can be included. However, kits cannot be assigned until all contained assets become available.

Quantity-Tracked Stock in Kits

A quantity-tracked asset is a pool of identical units rather than a single item, so the same asset can sit in several kits at once. Each kit holds its own slice: 3 sandbags in Grip A, 3 in Grip B, and the rest of the pool free on the shelf.

On the asset's Quantity Overview card, every kit's slice adds into the In kits row. Those units are counted there once, whether the kit is sitting on the shelf or out on a booking, and they are not part of Available. The Checked out (bookings) row is a different measure: it counts every unit physically out right now, the loose ones and the kit-held ones together. The two rows overlap on purpose, so don't add them up.

A single booking can hold the same pool from more than one direction, some units booked loose and more carried in by the kits you added. Checking the booking out hands over every slice it holds, and the pull-list PDF prints one row per source so the packer can see which kit each portion belongs to.

Kit Location

A kit has its own location, and that location owns where its assets are. Move the kit and every asset inside it moves with it, so you don't have to relocate the contents one by one.

Three ways to move a kit

The dialog tells you how many assets are coming along before you confirm.

You can also set or change the location from Actions → Edit on the kit page. The Location field there behaves the same way as the dedicated Update location action.

What happens to the assets

• Individually tracked assets are moved to the kit's location. Because each of these assets sits in exactly one place, the kit's location replaces whatever location the asset had before.
• Quantity-tracked assets only move the slice the kit holds. If a kit contains 20 cables out of a pool of 100, those 20 units show up at the kit's location and the remaining 80 stay wherever you placed them. On the asset page that slice is labeled via kit. To move it, change the kit's location rather than editing the placement directly.
• Every asset that moves records a location change in its own activity history, along with a note on its timeline, so the paper trail shows the move came from the kit. Assets that were already at the destination aren't logged again.

Adding and removing assets

• Adding an asset to a kit that has a location moves the asset (or the kit's slice of it) to that location straight away, so the kit never claims a member that's sitting somewhere else.
• Removing an individually tracked asset from a kit, or deleting the kit, leaves the asset at the location the kit gave it. It keeps the placement instead of becoming unplaced.
• Removing a quantity-tracked asset from a kit releases the kit's slice; those units become unplaced and can be placed again manually.
• Clearing a kit's location leaves individually tracked members where they are and releases the quantity-tracked slices.

Location is not custody. A kit's location says where the gear is; custody says who has it. The two are tracked separately and can be changed independently.

Changing Kit Contents and Existing Bookings

Swapping a member out of a kit, a network switch in a rack for example, affects bookings that already carry that kit. What happens depends on how far each booking has got.

Adding a member

A booking that carries a kit carries the kit as a unit, so an asset you add to the kit is added to the bookings that already hold that kit and are still Draft, Reserved, Ongoing or Overdue. It appears under the kit on those bookings, at the kit's own quantity for a quantity-tracked member, so a kit that gains a part does not leave its live bookings short of it. Completed, archived and cancelled bookings are left alone: they are a record of what went out.

Only the bookings holding this kit are touched. That matters when a quantity-tracked asset belongs to several kits at once, which is common for shared stock like banners, cabling and fixings. A booking that holds a different kit containing the same shared asset is a different booking's business and is not changed.

Removing a member

The rule in one line: the asset stays on the booking if the booking has ever left the planning stage.

This is why a finished booking no longer rewrites its own history. Taking an asset out of a kit used to make that asset appear as a loose item on every past booking that had used the kit, so a completed job retroactively looked like it had gone out with a stray asset rather than a complete kit.

Because a row carrying the Removed from kit label looks otherwise identical to a current kit member, and the kit header counts the rows shown, a booking can read "3 assets" beside a kit that now holds 2. The label is what explains the difference. It disappears by itself if you put the asset back in the same kit. The pull-list PDF carries the same information as printed text in the Kit cell, since a printout has nothing to hover over.

You are told before you confirm. Removing an asset from a kit names the bookings it affects, in two groups, because the outcomes differ: Reserved bookings, where the asset will be taken off, and bookings already in progress, where it stays and is marked as removed from the kit. Completed, archived, and cancelled bookings are left out of the warning, since nothing can be done about them and a popular kit could list dozens. The warning informs, it does not block. Blocking would make routine kit maintenance impossible whenever anything was reserved or out. Only people who can edit kits see it, because only they can do the removal.

Duplicating a booking matches what you see. Duplicating a draft copies its current contents exactly. Duplicating an older booking re-resolves each kit to its current members, and the confirmation lists both what has been added to the kit and what has been removed since the original.

Assigning Custody

Navigate to the kit page and select Assign Custody. Choose the team member to receive custody responsibility. The kit updates to reflect the new custodian.

Audit Trail

Each individual asset page documents kit custody changes to designated persons, creating a transparent record of modifications.

Tracking Assignments

Kit assignments display on the kit page, enabling easy identification of current custodians.