Equipment Reservation Instructions

Point your web browser to http://www.wfu.edu/~cottrell/commdept/

You will be asked to input your user name and password. These are the same user name and password that you use to access the campus network. This establishes for the reservation system who you are, so that it can accurately display your reservation status.

The first time you access this web page, a dialog box will tell you that you are not a registered user and will ask you if you want to register. If you say yes, you will be presented with a form to fill out.

The form asks forthe following information:

· “username,” which is yourcampus network user name

· “real name,” which is your first and last name

· “ID,” which is your student ID number

· “phone,” which is your local phone number (this should be the number you most regularly check locally, which in some cases may be a cell phone)

· “office/dorm,” which would be an office location for faculty/staff or a dorm or local address for students

· “homeaddress,” which is where you go when the campus closes — your actual home

· “home phone,” which is the phone number at the place where you go when the campus closes

· “status,” which should be “undergrad,” “grad student,” or “faculty/staff”

· “affiliated with Communication Dept.?,” which you should check if you are enrolled in a COM Dept. media production class or if you work for the COM Dept.

· “affiliated with Wake TV?,”which you should check if you are an active member of Wake TV

Once you submit this information, your application to become a registered user must be approved by a system administrator, at which point you will be added to the database and will be able to use the system. Once you are a registered user, you will see a “user menu” upon logging in. The options are to view your user profile or to view or make a reservation. Select the appropriate radio button and then click “Do it.”

This action will take you to the “equipment loan request” page.

Begin by selecting a pickup time for the loan. Select from the appropriate drop down menu a month, day, and time.

Important note: Be sure to choose your pickup time carefully. In particular, be sure that you have chosen a time when the equipment room will be open. This is important because the system is set up to make reservations active only during a three hour window, which extends from one hour prior to the stated pickup time until two hours after the stated pickup time. If you make a reservation for 2:00pm, for example, the reservation will be active from 1:00pm until 4:00pm. After 4:00, the reservation will be automatically deleted from the system, which means that the equipment you reserved will be available for others to check out. This safeguard was built into the system so that a forgotten reservation would not cause equipment to be held needlessly when other people could have been using the gear.

Important Note: The equipment loan period is 48 hours. This loan period was chosen because experience taught us that 24 hours is generally not sufficient for a student to get equipment, get out to a location, complete a shoot, pack up, and get the gear back in. However, this loan period entails a couple of consequences that must be borne in mind:

• Equipment that is reserved for today is also reserved for tomorrow. This necessarily limits the number of possible reservations per week for any given piece of equipment.
• Since the loan period is delimited in hours rather than in days, it is important that you return equipment by not only the due date but also the due time on that date. If a camcorder is due back on Wednesday by 3:00 and you bring it back on Wednesday at 7:00, you may not think it is a big deal, since you brought it back on the correct day, but you may well have caused another student to be unable to shoot because they were relying on the camcorder being available at 3:00. If, for example, they had an appointment to interview President Hatch on camera at 4:00, they are simply out of luck.

Having selected a pickup date and time, move to the “Item Type” field and use the drop down menu to select an equipment type. Full explanations of the designations on the “Item Type” drop down menu can be found by clicking the “Details on equipment types” button at the bottom of the “equipment loan request” page. This details page goes into detail as to, for example, which tripods should be used with which camcorders and which batteries should be used with which equipment.

Next, select a quantity from the drop down menu. Multiple quantities will most commonly be used for selecting such items as batteries, but may apply to any item if multiples are needed and available.

The “Alternate Type” field may be used, although it is fine to leave it in the default value, which is “none.” Using this field may save time in instances where one item is preferred but another similar item would work if all the preferred items are already reserved. For example, if you want a PD-170, but the PD-170 is already booked, a PD-150 would almost certainly work just as well. If you go ahead and enter PD-150 in the “Alternate Type” field the system will make the substitution for you automatically rather than just rejecting your request if the PD-170 is unavailable.

After all these choices have been made, click on “Submit Request” to begin the reservation process. You will then see a screen that looks like this:

Note that your first item is listed, and a ticket number has been assigned. The system is now ready for you to submit additional items on the reservation. To do this, click on “Add Another Item.” This takes you to a screen that is similar to the initial screen, but without the date and time information. The pickup date and time that you originally entered are now associated with your ticket number in the system and so need not be entered again.

Proceed as before, selecting an item type and quantity, and alternate type if desired, and then click “Submit Request.” This will take you back to the screen that keeps a tally of all the items you have selected so far. If more items are desired, click “Add Another Item” again.

Once again, repeat the item selection process. In this example, I am adding two batteries to the reservation, as the tally page shows:

Repeat this process until you have selected all the items you will require. Then click “Finalize This Request.”

Your request is now in the system. A system administrator will have to review it and sign off on it before it can become active in the system. This normally happens within 24 hours.