a. General introduction to Containers

 

Containers are simply Items that have the ability to contain other items. You can book them, and they have all the attributes and attachments as any other item. They can also be demoted back down to regular items that cannot contain others.  

 

Scanlily Containers have many uses! For storage and organization, a container can represent a box of items you store. For inventory management, you might create a container to track the quantities of items that you sell. For equipment bookings, you might create a container to represent a kit that your users reserve (such as a photography kit). 

 

Containers can be nested. In other words, you can place containers inside of containers. Note that a similar effect as multi-level containment can be achieved using Address, Location, and Attachments concepts. Due to this nesting, containers can also be considered as "folders". Read more on hierarchies of nesting here.



b. Adding containers

 

It’s straightforward to turn a regular item into a container. On the Item Page, just click on the bottom right blue button with the three dots and select “Change to Container”.

 

Image of bottom right menu opened with Change to Container highlighted

 

However, if you are starting from scratch, the quickest way to add a container and get items into it is navigating to the ‘Container’ page (Menu->Containers) and then clicking on the upper right scan menu to scan a Scanlily QR and create the container. 

 

Image of Containers highlighted on the main menu




Image of upper right Scan button highlighted




If the container does not involve a Scanlily QR code, then you can create it manually without the QR. Click on the upper left menu bar and select Manual Add. 

 

You can leave it without a QR or barcode or add your own proprietary QR code

 

c. Searching for containers

 

You can find ‘containers’ listed in the Menu->Container page:

 

Image of Container page with many items included



Containers can also be found on the Item List page (Menu->Items). They are designated with a “(C.)”



Image of Item List page with some containers



d. Items in Container

 

Image of items shown at the bottom of the container page with varying quantities




If you specify quantities for the items in your container, you can see these. You can manipulate the quantities with the + and - buttons next to each item at the bottom. If there is no quantity, that means quantity is not being tracked for that item. If you want to track the quantity for the item, click on it to go to the Item Page and adjust the quantity from there.

There are options for Deleting and Removing All items. 

 

If you click on the "Select and Move" button, you will be able to perform actions on selected items such as moving them to another container, removing them from the container and selectively deleting them.

 

Container page showing items with selection checkboxes and action buttons




e. Containers Report

You can access several reports about your containers and the items in them via the Scanlily user website. As with other Reports, you can print these as a PDF or even download them to an Excel or CSV file.