Most items in a lab are free to take, but some belong to a person or a group, and a few have a manager. When an item is not yours to take, you ask for it in Labsistant instead of asking down the corridor. The request is recorded, the right person is told, and their answer is recorded too, so nobody has to remember who said yes to what. Which items are yours to take is covered in Personal, group, and lab items.
What the badge counts
The Requests entry in the sidebar carries a number when someone is waiting on you. It counts every request you are able to answer that nobody has answered yet: requests for items you own, items you manage, and items owned by a group you belong to. It does not count requests you have sent. When nothing is waiting, there is no number.
Click it to open the Requests page. Waiting on you lists what you can answer, and Your requests lists what you have asked other people for.
Asking for an item
- Open Inventory and click the item to open its detail panel.
- If the item is not yours to take, the panel offers Request item in place of the actions that would change it. Click it.
- The dialog names who the request goes to: the item's manager, its owner, or the members of its group.
- Enter a Quantity if you need a set amount. Leave it blank to ask for some of the item without naming a number.
- Add a Note if the reason matters to whoever answers. The note is optional and goes to them word for word.
- Click Send request.
The button then reads Requested, and stays that way until someone answers. You can have one open request per item at a time. To take a request back before it is answered, use Withdraw on the item's Requests block, or from Your requests on the Requests page. It then shows as Withdrawn.
An item with a manager says so on its detail panel: Managed by and the manager's name, with a note to ask them for it. The request goes to the manager even when the item belongs to a group you are in.
Who is asked
| The item | Who is asked | Who can answer |
|---|---|---|
| Has a manager | The manager only | The manager |
| No manager, owned by one person | The owner | The owner |
| No manager, owned by a group | Every member of the group | Any one of them. Once one member answers, the others see Answered by and that member's name, so nobody answers the same request twice. |
| No manager, shared lab stock | Nobody. Take what you need. |
Appointing a manager narrows the door: from then on, the manager is the only person a request reaches, and the only person who can approve it.
Answering a request
A request reaches you three ways: a notification under Team & requests, the Waiting on you list on the Requests page, and the item's own Requests block on its detail panel. Each row reads the same way: who asked, how much, and when. Every request offers Approve and Deny. Hand over appears as well when you own the item.
- Approve opens a dialog headed Approve this request. Set a Quantity to approve, or leave it blank to approve any quantity. The dialog shows what is On hand and what is Already promised to others, meaning approvals that have not been taken yet, so you can see whether you are promising more than the shelf holds.
- Deny turns the request down. The person is told, and the request shows as Denied.
- Hand over gives the person the item itself, or the amount they asked for, in one step. What you hand over becomes theirs, the request shows as Handed over, and nothing further is owed.
The person who asked gets a notification either way, headed Approved or Denied with the item's name. An approval spells out what they may take and until when.
If the item changes hands after a request is sent, because its owner, group, or manager changes, every open request on it ends and shows as Denied under Your requests. The person can ask whoever holds the item now.
What an approval does
An approval is permission for one pull, not a standing arrangement.
- One pull. The item's detail panel tells the person what they may take, in one pull, and until when. Once they take from the item, the approval is used up. To take more later, they ask again.
- 14 days. An approval that goes unused expires 14 days after it was given. The panel then says the approval expired, the request shows as Expired unused, and the button reads Request again.
- The location is revealed. Where the item is stored stays hidden from people who are not allowed to take it. Approval reveals it, from the moment of the approval until the pull or the expiry, so the person can go and get what they were promised.
- Less on the shelf than promised. If the item has run down since the approval, the person takes what is there, and whoever approved the request is told that it fell short.
- Every step is recorded. The request, the answer, and the pull each land in the audit log against the item, so the trail of who took what is complete.