Role Required
To Manage Loans you need to be assigned to the Application Administrator or the Records Manager role. Alternatively, Record Visitors can be given the permission to Manage Loans through the use of Security Profiles. For more information on security profiles and permissions, see Security Profiles.
Sorting and Filtering
Clicking on the ‘Loans’ tab in the main navigation in Records365 takes you to the Loans page. To find a particular Loan Request, you can filter and sort by the following columns:
- Request ID
- Status
- Delivery Location
- Requested By
Viewing the details of a Loan
Once a Loan Request has been made, a Records Manager can view the details of the loan to decide whether to Approve the Loan, Check Out the physical assets requested, and update the Loan upon the Return of the assets.
A Loan Request can be viewed by clicking the Request ID value for a specified loan.
On the Details tab you can see all of the information entered by the requester. Each of the original fields are available for editing inline. When modifications are made, the Save button will become available so that they can be saved.
On the Items tab, each item that has been included in the request is displayed. The columns available are:
- Type – To indicate what type of physical asset is being requested for Loan: Record, Folder (or Part) or Box.
- Title – The Title of the record, and links to the full details of the item.
- Record Number – Can be used for filtering when looking for a specific item.
- Author – The original author of the content.
- Location – The details of where the asset currently resides. For items on a Loan Request that has been Approved and Checked Out, it will be set to the Delivery Location of the Request. Once returned, the Location field will return to its previous value.
Approving or Rejecting a Loan Request
From the Loan Request Details tab, a Records Manager can assess whether the required assets can be sent out to the requester. When Approving or Rejecting a loan request all of the items in the request are Approved or Rejected – individual items within a request cannot be actioned alone.
To allow an item to be Approved, the following must be true:
- None of the items or their corresponding containers are already be out On Loan.
- None of the items or their corresponding containers are part of another request that has a Status of Approved.
To Approve or Reject a Loan Request:
- From the Loans page, click the Request ID link for a Loan.
- Click the Manage Approval button.
- Select Approve or Reject.
- Optionally, one or more email addresses can be entered for notification. When Approving requests, email notifications are particularly useful when there is a warehouse or storage facility that houses all of the physical assets. When clicking Save, an email template will be drafted on behalf of the approving user and will contain a link directly to the associated Loan Request, so that the warehouse users can easily determine what items are required to be sent out.
- Click Save.
Once items have been Approved or Rejected, the Status of the loan request will be updated accordingly. Items that are in a Status of Approved or Rejected can be changed by clicking the Manage Approval button again. Note once the item has been Checked Out, the approval status can no longer be changed.
Checking Out
Once a Loan Request has been Approved, the next step is to send the associated assets out to the requesting user. This is tracked by carrying out a Checkout operation on the Loan Request. A Checkout can only be performed on a Loan Request that has been Approved.
Checking out items may be carried out by a Records Manager from Records365, or by a user who is using a scanning device. When using a scanning device, the Checkout is performed from the Records365 scanning page. See Scanning Operations for more information.
Similar to Approval, Checkout is performed at the Request level and not at an item level. To Perform a Checkout without using a scanning device:
- Click the Request ID for a particular Loan Request.
- Click the Checkout button and confirm.
- Once the Checkout is complete, the following will take place:
- The Loan Request will have its Status set to On Loan
- All items within the Request have their Location property set to the Delivery Location of the Loan Request.
- An audit entry will be written to all items within the Request.
Returns
After a user has finished with a set of loaned physical assets they will be sent back to their original storage location. This operation is tracked in Records365 by performing a Return for a Loan request. A Return can only be carried out on a Loan Request that has a Status of On Loan.
Returning items may be carried out by a Records Manager from Records365, or by a user who is using a scanning device. When using a scanning device, the Checkout is performed from the Records365 scanning page. See Scanning Operation for more information.
As with the other Loan operations, Return is performed at the Request level and not at an item level. To Perform a Return without using a scanning device:
- Click the Request ID for a particular Loan Request.
- Click the Return button and confirm.
- A Return Date is required to complete the operation.
- Once the Return is complete, the following will take place:
- The Loan Request will have its Status set to Completed.
- All items within the Request have their Location property set to their Location value prior to the Loan Request.
- An audit entry will be written to all items within the Request.
- The return date entered will be set on the Return Date field for the loan request.
- No further Approve, Checkout or Return operations can be carried out on the loan request.