Grouping Copies of The Same Items / Multiple Copies

If you have multiple copies of the same item you can have them group together when users are browsing your inventory by following the guidelines for item naming and other options below. These groupings can also be used to allow users to reserve multiple copies of the same type of item, or even easily (and often automatically) "swapping" equivalent items on reservations during the Build Order process.

Items will be grouped together if they have the same:

1. Name
2. Item Type
3. Amount (Rental Cost)
4. Location (not location code)

For smaller items and/or ones you do not necessarily care about tracking the usage history of each copy, we also recommend the items be give the same "Product Code" (UPC/EAN/etc.) which will be used in the future to allow scanning a single barcode to check out a random copy of that type of item from among all items with that same Product Code.

When items are grouped, they will display in your inventory as a "stack." There is an indicator of the quantity available and the card displays as a "stack" with a shadow to help people recognize there are multiple copies of this item:

In this example, there are 4 copies of the "Bee-Bots Hive" and 2 copies of the Compound Microscope.

If you click on the Quantity indicator, you can expand to see all copies of the item (not typically that useful if they are all exactly the same), or clicking on the image or title will go to the Item Page for the item as usual.

If you do not want to show how many copies you have, you can set the Inventory option to "Hide Quantities". 

If you do not want items to stack/group, at this time, you will need to change the name of the items slightly, often by putting something distinguishing the items as part of the name (color, brand, etc.).

If you allow Reservations people will be able to reserve multiple copies by setting the quantity on their Reservation cart.