Managing Equipment

Equipment is any tool or machine your members use: a table saw, a laser cutter, a 3D printer. Each piece of equipment lives in a workspace, has its own booking rules, and can list the authorizations required to use it.

You need the Manage Equipment permission (Managers and Admins by default). Find equipment under Admin > Resources > Equipment.

Add equipment

1. Go to Admin > Resources > Equipment and choose Add Equipment.
2. Under Basics, enter a name (for example “3D Printer”) and an optional description.
3. Under Workspace, choose the workspace it belongs to.
4. Set the Operating Hours. By default the equipment follows its workspace’s hours.
5. Under Usage, choose how members use it (see below).
6. Under Required Authorizations, add any authorizations specific to this tool.
7. Choose Save Equipment.

If you open the form from a workspace’s Equipment tab, the workspace is already chosen and locked.

Bookable or drop-in

Usage type	What it means
Bookable	Members reserve time on the booking calendar. You set the minimum and maximum session length and a buffer.
Drop-in	Members use it without reserving. It is listed on the booking page under Not Bookable for reference, and can’t be reserved.

For bookable equipment you can set:

Setting	What it does
Min Duration (min)	The shortest reservation allowed.
Max Duration (min)	The longest reservation allowed. Tick No Limit to remove the cap.
Buffer (min)	The time you want left between sessions for cleanup or setup.

Note

Your makerspace also has overall limits on how long a single reservation can be and how far ahead members can book. A reservation must satisfy both the equipment’s limits and the makerspace’s.

Equipment status

Edit a piece of equipment to change its status:

Status	Effect on members
Online	Available. Members can reserve it (if it’s bookable).
Maintenance	Members can’t reserve it. Staff with booking-management access can still block time on it.
Offline	Can’t be reserved by anyone.

Equipment is also taken Offline automatically when you archive its workspace, and brought back when you restore the workspace. See Archiving Workspaces & Authorizations.

Required authorizations

The Required Authorizations section lists what’s needed for this tool. Authorizations the workspace already requires are shown as Inherited from workspace, and you can add more that are specific to the tool.

Where reservations are enforced

When a member reserves equipment, MakerVera checks the workspace’s required authorizations. Authorizations you add to a single piece of equipment are recorded and displayed to members, but they are not currently checked by the booking calendar. If a requirement must stop a reservation, add it to the workspace. See How Authorization Requirements Work for the full picture and recommended setups.

The equipment detail pane

Tab	What you’ll find
Overview	The status note (if set), the equipment’s workspace, and its authorizations.
Settings	The operating-hours editor.
Activity	Reserved for a status timeline, coming later.

Operating hours

Equipment follows its workspace’s hours unless you switch it to custom hours on its Settings tab. If the workspace itself isn’t active, the Settings tab tells you the hours won’t apply until it is. See Operating Hours.

Moving equipment between workspaces

Edit the equipment and choose a different workspace. The tool then follows the new workspace’s hours and the new workspace’s required authorizations.

Retiring equipment

Archiving an individual piece of equipment is coming in a later release. For now, set it to Offline to take it out of service, or archive its workspace to retire the whole area.

Troubleshooting

Members can’t see my equipment on the calendar. Check that it’s set to Bookable, its status is Online, and it’s assigned to a workspace.

A member without the equipment’s authorization could still book it. Only workspace-level authorizations are checked at booking. Move the requirement to the workspace, or split the tool into its own workspace.

I can’t pick a workspace. The picker is locked when you opened the form from a workspace’s Equipment tab. Close it and use Add Equipment from the Equipment page instead.