Custody — equipment with no return date
Some equipment isn't borrowed, it's issued: a laptop for a new employee, a meter that lives on one site, a phone that belongs to a role. There is no date it will come back, so a normal checkout doesn't fit — you would have to invent a return date, and then be told it is overdue.
Custody is a checkout with no return date. Itefy records who holds the equipment and since when, and nothing else about it changes:
- It is never overdue, and no due-date reminders are sent.
- The items can't be reserved or checked out by anyone else while they are held.
- It shows as In custody — on the checkout, in the Checkouts list, and in the availability column of the items list.
Give custody
Create a checkout as usual (see Check out items) and tick No return date (custody) next to the Return by field. The window's title and button change to Give custody.
The person holding the equipment is the checkout's Assigned to user, or you if nobody is assigned. It can also be a contact, linked under Customer on the checkout.
If any of the items have upcoming bookings, the window lists them and asks you to tick I understand these bookings won't be fulfilled — with no return date, nobody can collect them while the custody lasts.
Change a checkout to custody, or back
Open the checkout, click Edit on the Details card and use Remove return date (it becomes custody) or Set return date (it becomes a regular checkout again, with its reminders).
Release custody
Releasing is a check-in: click Release custody on the checkout, the same window as Check in items. You can release some items and keep the rest, and choose where they go back to.
Find equipment in custody
- Items: the Availability filter has Available, Checked out and In custody.
- Checkouts: the status filter has In custody.
Confirmation — do they still have it?
Without a return date, nothing ever prompts anyone to notice that equipment has quietly gone. Itefy can ask the people holding it, every few months, to confirm item by item that they still have it.
Turn it on
An administrator chooses how often under Settings › General › Custody confirmation: Never, every 3 months, every 6 months or every year. The first time an administrator gives custody while it is off, the new-checkout window offers to turn it on.
A single checkout can use a different interval: open it and change Ask every on its Confirmation card.
What the holder sees
When a confirmation is due, the holder gets an email, a notification, and — in the smartphone app — a push message. One email covers everything they hold, however many checkouts it is spread over. They answer either on Confirm your equipment (the email's button, and a card on their dashboard) or on the checkout itself: I have it or I don't have it for each item, with an optional note for anything missing.
In Itefy Go, scanning the item's QR code answers for that item on the spot.
Confirmation is only sent to users. When a contact holds the equipment, there is nobody to ask, and the checkout says so.
What happens next
| Answer | What Itefy does |
|---|---|
| Every item confirmed | Nothing more until the next interval. |
| An item reported missing | The checkout is marked Item missing and the administrators are told. |
| No answer after 7 days | One reminder. |
| No answer after 14 days | The checkout is marked Unconfirmed and the administrators are told. |
Nothing is ever changed automatically. An item reported missing is not checked in — it may simply be with a colleague, and checking it in would make it look available. Someone follows it up, then either checks it in, hands it to someone else by changing the assignee, or clicks Mark as resolved on the checkout if it turned up.
Following up
- The dashboard shows N custodies need attention to people who manage checkouts.
- The Checkouts list has a Custody confirmation filter (Item missing, Unconfirmed, Waiting for answer, Confirmed), and the list marks the ones waiting on someone.
- The checkout's Confirmation card shows the last and next confirmation, and the full history: who answered what, when, and how — answered, scanned, or confirmed on their behalf by someone else.
Anyone who can edit the checkout can Ask now, or answer on the holder's behalf ("I've seen it"), which is recorded as such. For an audit or year-end, Settings › General › Ask every holder now asks everyone at once.
When someone leaves
Removing a user who holds equipment in custody shows what they hold before you confirm. The custody stays checked out to them, is marked Unconfirmed straight away, and the administrators are told — so it can be chased while someone still remembers who had it. See Remove users.
In reports
Custody is still a checkout, so it counts in the checkout reports. It would read as 100% in use in Utilization, so every checkout report has a Checkout kind grouping and filter (Checkout, Custody, No checkout) to separate it. Custody is never counted as overdue, and isn't counted as ad-hoc use in Planned vs actual. See Reports.