Item Types vs Categories

There are two ways to organization your inventory and allow your users to browse your items:

1. Item Types: typically "what an item is"
   • This is "what the item is" (e.g. Circular Saw vs Laptop vs a Drone)
   • Every item must have a single Item Type
   • These are arranged in a hierarchy (e.g. Tools -> Power Tools -> Cordless Power Tools -> Cordless Drills)
   • You can set "default" values on Item Types that will cascade down to all subtypes (e.g. "all Power Tools have a late fee of $5/day"). Default values let you change fees, maximum reservation lengths, and other options across all or large portions of your inventory in a couple clicks.
   • Due to the defaults, each item can only have one Item Type since otherwise the default values could conflict (among other issues).
   • The Item Type hierarchy is set across all of myTurn so you don't have to set it up from scratch and so that we can provide you with actionable metrics and best practices (coming soon) across multiple organizations/myTurn sites.
2. Categories:
   
   • We understand our Item Types, and especially the fact that each item can only have one Item Type, so we also provide you the ability to set up Categories. You can think of these as "how the item is used" or "characteristics" of the item.
   • You typically have complete control over the Categories (unless set for a Network of myTurn sites -- coming soon)
   • This is a completely optional feature
   • Categories can have one level of sub-categories (e.g. "Color" with subcategories of Black, Blue, Red, Green, White)
   • Items can have no, one, or multiple categories. 
   • Only categories that are assigned to items will show up to users when browsing inventory.
   • When browsing inventory and checking off Categories, the following rules apply:
     • For top level categories, or when selecting sub-categories in different parent categories only items that have ALL of the categories will show up (AND search)
     • For sub-categories in the same Category, all of the items with ANY of the types will show up (OR search)
     • See the Sub-Categories section of the following article for more information: https://support.myturn.com/hc/en-us/articles/206389557-Adding-and-Editing-Categories

Both Categories (if any are assigned to your items) and Item Types (if you have items of at least two different types) show up when users are browsing your inventory.