Auto check-out, Auto check-in, Self check-out

I'm trying to see if I understand this correctly. If a patron comes to our desk and we have auto check-out enabled on a camcorder, then theoretically we could bypass the reservation and checkout the equipment in one step or is it the case that the patron that's logged in can self-checkout the item to him or herself in one step and bypass the reservation all together. Or, is it both, or have I got it completely wrong and it means something else? I guess I'm not sure how you assign a reservation/checkout to a patron/user unless you create a cck field in the reservation content type. Is that the idea?

The Auto check-out, Auto check-in feature is now in the current 2.x dev snapshot. Self check-out has yet to be developed.

We're not dictating how the feature is used, but it was originally requested for Resources like studios or edit stations that don't require the user to get the item from a checkout. You could do this with cameras, but if you are using Buckets you'd want to use the new 'auto-assign' option Darrick recently added. Without auto-assign, the staff member needs to indicate which camera of the 5-6 in the bucket the user is being given. Staff would still need to look to see who is getting what equipment, but you wouldn't need to log into MERCI to do the checkout.

Self check-out was conceptualized as an interface that would tie into an interface on edit stations. When the user sits down, they'd have to self check-out the edit station.

If you have time to test the current dev snapshot, we'd appreciate feedback.

Yeah, I tried it. It seems the same as without it. You get a message when creating a reservation:
You can not finalize a reservation that has no reserved items.
You cannot finalize a reservation while adding a bucket item.

Maybe I didn't do the proper sequence.

I think I understand it now. It's still at least 2 steps. First create the reservation but you can't select checkout until it's been created. Then you have to edit the node and select checkout.

The way the code is now, even with auto-assign the Reservation still needs to be saved as Unconfirmed or Confirmed before it can be moved to a status of Checked Out. Auto-assign only selects the item from the pool MERCI expects to be available at that time.

Using auto-assign in combination with auto-checkout would get you the "one form" checkout, but only if everything being reserved is an auto-assigned Bucket or a Resource with auto-checkout enabled. If there is anything in the Reservation that is not auto-checkout, MERCI assumes the user will need to go to the checkout and a staff member will adjust the status of the entire Reservation.

I see. Does that mean that it only works with a CVS version or is it supposed to work with 6.x-2.x-dev on the front MERCI page? I tried the combinations that you mentioned and didn't see to get it to work.

Currently auto-checkout and auto-checkin are only processed when cron is run.

@daengo There is no way to currently do a one step checkout. In the general settings you can set the default reservation status. The default status of unconfirmed and Checked out are not fully tested. I have no experience with them. We use confirmed.

Here are the steps:

1. Either the user or staff creates a reservation. To create a reservation for a user change the author field to that of the userid.

2. Staff assigns items for any reserved buckets. (skip this step if auto-assign is on for all the reserved items.)

3. Staff edits the reservation again to change the status to checked out. (skip this step if auto checkin/checkout is on and cron.php has run since the reservation has been made.)

What you seem to be wanting to do is:

1. Either the user or staff creates a reservation setting the status to Checked out when the reservation is first made. (fails validation).

or

1. Staff assigns items for any reserved buckets for an existing reservation and also sets status to Checked Out. (fails validation)

I find this annoying myself (having to continually reedit a reservation.) At some point we will make the validation function more robust so one step checkout will work.

Yeah, about the validation function that would be nice. Or even if you could select the user from a drop down instead of changing the authored by field. That way you could still know which staff member created the reservation/checkout in case there was a question. Either way MERCI still rocks. thanks darrick.

Yes. That worked just like you said. Although I did get an error after I refreshed the page following a cron.
warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /sites/all/modules/merci/merci.module on line 1994.

another interesting thing that keeps happening is when you edit the reservation node the Reservation 'From date' time section defaults to the same as the 'To date'. That seems to occur whether or not you're using auto-assign or auto-checkout.

If you are using a current dev release, you can unlock the MERCI fields in the admin settings. Once unlocked, you can adjust the date defaults.

Yep. cool! that did it.