does the system auto-extend late returns?
does the system auto-extend late returns?short answer is NO - not yet.
BRM is great at scheduling stuff and if all goes according to plan it stops you ever taking a double-booking.
But what if you schedule it really well, but your naughty customers bring your kit back late!!
then you have a problem. You just have to hope they do bring it back eventually, and that meanwhile it doesn't collide with any other pre-existing rentals you may have in the system.
take a look at this example:
Ideally when the customer fails to bring the bike back by 11am you'd want the system to
- auto-extend the rental (perhaps in 15 minute increments)
- send emails / or text messages to your customer
- perhaps give you a head's up about the situation
.png "Image: https://bikerentalmanager.uservoice.com/assets/123806731/auto-extend%20(1).png")
Boom! - the 09:35am rental collides with the 17:00 rental for the same bike, coz it was not brought back.
So when the system comes to auto-extend the time slot overlapping with the 17:00 rental it would detect the problem and fail to extend.
it would then alert you to a very real problem.
Therefore the requirement would have the following features:
- set up notifications (to shop and customer)
- setup time increments for auto-extension
- escalation action (in case of collision)