Resources and Bookings

Resources

Resources within EMhub can be categorized as either instruments or services the facility provides to its external users. Examples of instruments include microscopes, vitrobots, and carbon coaters. Additionally, regularly scheduled drop-in sessions for assisting users with their projects can be classified as services.

Resources are central to the booking system or time allocation for applications. Each resource can have different booking rules and exceptions tailored to specific applications.

Resource List

The list of resources can be accessed from the Resources link in the left sidebar. The following page displays the resources in a table listing the main properties. The Actions column requires users to have admin or manager roles. Other users cannot change resource properties.

From this page, a new resource can be created. Additionally, existing resources can be modified, as shown in the following image. A new resource can be created as a copy of an existing one if it shares some properties and only some need to be modified.

Resource Properties

Basic Properties

Basic Resource Parameters

Name	Name of the resource that will be mainly used for display.
Status	active or inactive, in which case that resource cannot be booked or used.
Tags	Free list of tag names that allows to group resources by categories.
Icon image	Image file used as icon for the resource.
Color	Color to display the bookings related to this resource.

Booking Related Properties

There are a few properties of each resource that are related to the Bookings.

Booking related Parameters

Latest cancellation	The number of hours in advance that users can cancel a booking for this resource. For example, a value of 48 means that bookings of these resources can be canceled just two days (48 hours) in advance. A value of 0 means no restriction.
Minimum Booking time	Minimum number of hours for bookings of these resources. Value 0 means no minimum.
Maximum Booking time	Maximum number of hours for bookings of these resources. Value 0 means no maximum.
Daily cost	Cost of using this resource in a one-day booking. This value is used for invoicing.
Requires Slot	If Yes all bookings of this resource should be within allowed Slots.
Requires Application	If Yes the user that is the Owner of the booking should have a valid Application.

Bookings

Bookings organize access to each resource (e.g., instruments, services). After some applications have been approved, users belonging to each active application can book time slots for using different instruments. Some instruments and applications must be booked only in specific time slots enabled by the facility staff.

Other bookings can be made by the facility personnel to define instrument downtime or to reserve days for instrument calibration or testing. It is also possible to define repeating events that will occur with a specific frequency. For example, slots for some users can be defined every other week.

Booking Calendar

The central page to manage all bookings is the “Booking Calendar.” This page displays all bookings for all resources. It is possible to filter which resources to display by selecting one or several resources in the “Display” dropdown list at the top right corner.

From this page it is possible to operate with bookings in two main ways:

• Creating a new booking

  Users need to click in a space on a given day in the calendar or drag over several days if the booking will use more than one day. Then a new dialog will appear for creating a new booking.

• Modifying an existing booking

  The user should click on the specific booking. The title, description, and other information will be hidden if the user cannot access the booking (it is not a manager, or the bookings do not belong to its lab). In that case, all other entries should be Read-Only. If the user has permission, it can modify the booking.

Booking Dialog

Basic parameters

Booking can be created or modified from several pages (e.g., Booking Calendar, Dashboard, etc). The following image shows the dialog displaying a Booking information.

Main input parameters for a Booking

Resource	Select the resource that one wants to book.
Owner	This is the user to whom the booking belongs to. If the logged user is a manager, the owner can be assigned to another user.
Project ID	(Optional) Select a project to associate this booking with. If not empty, the booking will appear in the Project’s history.
Start/End	Start and end date/time for your booking.
Title	(Optional) Provide a title for your booking.
Description	(Optional) Extra information related to your booking. Very useful for work planning for the facility staff.

Admin options

If the logged user is a manager, then the Admin section will be available with some extra options.

Manager options for a Booking

Operator	This will be changed by facility staff to assign an operator that will be in charge of the booking/session (usually related to data collection).
Booking Type	Select the booking type, options are: booking, slot, downtime, or maintenance.
Slot Authorization	If the booking is a slot, select which application can book in this slot.
Repeat	If this booking is a repeating event. (e.g. drop-ins every other week).
Stop Date	If repeating event, when to stop the series of bookings.
Modify repeating	If changes are applied to only this booking or all repeating ones (only applicable to repeating events).

Booking Types

• booking

  Regular bookings for using a given resource during the selected time frame.

• slots

  These are particular types of bookings used by managers. Their purpose is to block some days and give booking access only to specific users. The permission is granted via the Applications access in the Slots parameter in the Admin panel. One or more Applications can be allowed for a given Slot.

  For example, if a slot is created for Resource 1 and authorization is set to applications A and B, users belonging to application C``cannot book ``Resource 1 in that slot.

• downtime/maintenance

  This type of booking serves to prevent the usage of resources that are not available. It also serves to keep information about instrument performance and availability during a period.

• special

  Free category for marking some bookings as special events, for example, training sessions that are not going to be invoiced but are not downtime or maintenance.