Operations

Gear

Gear is the registry of the physical things you hand out and want back: radios, comms packs, cases, tools, cameras, laptops, keys. Each one gets a printed label with its own code. Scan the label and a crew badge and it is checked out to that person; scan the label again when it lands and it is back on the shelf. In the left menu, under Operations, choose Gear (in CoralOps it is called Field gear).

It is in TourOps, FestivalOps, ActionOps and CoralOps (not VenueOps or PromoterOps). Owners, Company Admins, Managers, Ops and Coordinators can edit; Finance, Legal and View only seats do not see it. A Company Admin can set it per person in Users and access, and switch it off for the whole company.

Gear used to be a tab inside Logistics. Logistics still holds shipments and the simple equipment log.

How do I add gear to track?

1. Open Gear and choose Add gear.
2. On One item, type the Name (required) and an Asset tag (for example RAD-04).
3. Pick the Category and Status, and add Make, Model, Serial, Home location and Notes as needed.
4. Choose Add.

To add many identical items, use the A batch tab: set the Name, How many, a Tag prefix, Start at, Category and Home location. A preview shows the names and tags it will create. Twelve radios in one go means one print run labels them all.

How do I print labels for gear?

Set the filters to the items you want (or leave them all), then choose Print labels.

1. Pick your Label stock. The list holds the common Avery sheets for US Letter (5160, 5167, 5195, 5161, 5162, 5163, 5164) and for A4 (L7160, L7651, L7163). For stock nobody publishes a template for, choose Custom and type the measurements: how many across and down, the label size, the margin from the corner of the paper to the first label, and the distance corner to corner between labels.
2. Start at label skips labels already peeled off a part-used sheet, so the run starts in the right cell.
3. Copies of each prints a spare for the flight case or the strap.
4. The code holds is a link by default, so any phone camera opens it. On a small label, switch it to The tag only: that encodes a much coarser code that a camera can still read at half an inch. The note under the picker gives the printed size in millimetres and says whether it is comfortable.
5. Tick what else goes on the label: Item name, Category, Company name, and a Hairline border if your stock is not die cut.

The preview is the real sheet, drawn at size. Print at 100 per cent with page scaling off and the printer set to the same paper as the stock. Before spending a sheet of labels, choose Calibration sheet: it prints the grid empty and numbered on plain paper, so you can hold it against a sheet of labels and check the alignment.

If a label is lost or copied, open the item with Edit and choose Rotate code. The old label stops scanning, so print a new one.

How do I check gear out to someone and back in?

In the table:

1. Choose Check out on the item.
2. Pick who it is going To (crew or company users).
3. Optionally pick the Show, a Due back time and Condition / notes.
4. Under Goes out with it, set how many of each accessory go with it, and pick any numbered item riding along.
5. Under Counts against, pick the department paying for it, if you plan allocations.
6. Choose Check out.

When it comes back, choose Check in on its row. A bare item goes straight back on the shelf. One that went out with accessories asks how many came back, filled in with what went out, so the only thing you type is the exception; None of it came back zeroes every line at once. Items past their due back time show Overdue. History lists everyone who has had the item, when, its condition, and what went out with it.

How do I hand out a radio with its batteries and mic?

Two different things ride with a radio, and GigOps keeps them apart:

• Accessories are counted, not numbered: two spare batteries, a surveillance kit, a six-bay charger. They are on the checkout as a number, and counted back when it lands.
• Numbered items are gear in their own right, with their own label: a speaker mic, a spare handset. Pick them under Numbered items riding with it and they go out on the radio's checkout. Their own row in the registry reads On a kit, and they come back when the radio does. They can also be handed back on their own.

If a numbered item you picked has gone out since the window opened, the radio still goes out and the verdict says which one could not go. If an accessory does not come back, the number you type is kept and the verdict says so at the counter, where somebody can still do something about it.

Edit the list of accessories under the Allocation tab, with Accessories. The list starts as the one a touring radio desk actually uses; rename them, add your own, or switch off the ones you do not carry. One already on a checkout or a request is switched off rather than deleted, so old kits stay readable.

At a busy desk, set the kit once: in the Scan window, open The desk's standing kit and set the accessories and the department there. Every radio checked out from that window carries them until you change it.

How do I make a scan station hand out a kit?

Choose Scan stations, then Standing kit on the station. Set how many of each accessory go out with every radio from that desk, and the department the handouts count against.

That kit belongs to the station, not to the device, which is the point: a tablet zip-tied to a road case and a scanner in somebody's hand are both terrible places to type "two spare batteries", and every device on one station link should hand out the same thing anyway. The parked tablet, GigOps Scan and the GigOps Scan S1 all pick it up, and keep handing it out with no signal.

On a device, an operator can still change it for their own session:

• In GigOps Scan, the Kit button on the gear screen. It shows the station's kit, and any number you change is yours until you choose Put the station's kit back. Setting everything to zero means bare radios on purpose, which is not the same as leaving it alone.
• On the S1, hold the button for three seconds for the supervisor menu and choose Kit: on or off for that device. What the kit *is* is never edited there; a scanner with one thumb button is no place to type an accessory list.

The gear screen and the S1's ready screen both say what the next radio carries, so nobody has to remember whether somebody changed it an hour ago.

How do I count a kit back in on a device?

A radio that went out with something says so when it lands, on the device and with no signal: the bundle carries what went out with each radio, so the desk can name it while the crew member is still holding it.

• In GigOps Scan, a check-in of a radio with a kit shows what came back with it, and Count it back opens a count: each accessory starts at what went out, so the only thing you type is the exception. All back and None of it are one tap each. If you would rather be asked every time, turn on Count kits back in in Settings, under Gear desk, and the count opens on every such check-in.
• On the S1, a check-in of a radio with a kit asks ALL BACK? PRESS IF NOT. One press records that it landed without its kit, and the screen says KIT MISSING. A scanner with one button cannot count "one of two batteries"; that is typed in GigOps, and the press is what makes sure somebody knows to.

Either way the radio is checked in the moment it is scanned. The count only records what came back with it, and the office can change it afterwards.

What a device says about the count is exact: naming one line short leaves the rest fully returned, saying nothing at all is everything back, and "none of it" is its own answer. An offline act carries the same three answers and lands the same way when the signal comes back.

How do I scan gear out with no typing?

Choose Scan, then scan two codes in either order:

• Tag, then badge. Scan the item's label. It says Scan a badge and waits, naming what is waiting. Scan the crew member's badge and it goes out to them.
• Badge, then tag. Scan the badge first. It says Holder set, and every item scanned after it goes to that person until you change it.

Either way nothing is typed. Checking gear in needs nobody selected: scan the label and it comes back. Direction pins it when you want it pinned (Auto, Check out only, Check in only), and Show records which date it went out for.

The camera is one way in. The scan box below it takes focus on the way in and takes it back after every scan, so a hardware scanner that types a code and presses Enter (the GigOps Scan S1, or any USB or Bluetooth scanner) works with nothing to click. You can also type an asset tag there and choose Go.

Each scan shows the result (Checked out, Checked in, Already out and so on) and is listed under This session. Choose Done to close and stop the camera.

What can scan a gear label?

• GigOps on the web, through Scan on this page.
• A gear scan station: a parked tablet or phone on a station link, with no login. See below.
• GigOps Scan on an iPhone or iPad, paired with a station link. It works with no signal: see the next answer.
• The GigOps Scan S1, the pistol-grip scanner, set up from a station link in the same way.
• Any phone camera, when the label's code holds a link: it opens a page naming the tag. To check the item in or out, use GigOps, a station or one of the apps.

A crew badge is the same code GigOps Crew shows and the same one printed on a badge, so no second credential is needed.

How does a device work with no signal?

A device paired with a gear station downloads the gear list: every item, who has what right now, and the crew it can go to. Then it decides each scan itself and queues what it did. When the signal comes back the queue goes up, oldest first, and each act is applied with the time it actually happened, so a radio handed out at two o'clock reads two o'clock whenever it reaches GigOps.

Two things to know:

• The device is not the last word. GigOps re-decides each act against what it finds. If somebody else took that radio while the device had no signal, the act is recorded as a conflict and nothing is changed: the device says so, and it is in the Scan log. Go and find the radio, then put it right by hand. The conflict names the kit the device believed went out with it, because somebody chasing a radio needs to know they are also chasing two batteries.
• The same scan is never counted twice. Each act carries its own id, so a reply that goes missing and a queue uploaded again change nothing.

How do I set a device up for the gear desk?

1. In GigOps, open Gear and choose Scan stations, then Copy link on the station the device will be.
2. In GigOps Scan, open Settings and choose Pair a gear station, then show the device the station's code or paste the link. On the GigOps Scan S1, hold the button for three seconds, choose Set up and scan the same code.
3. The device pulls the gear list and is ready.

A device can hold both a gear station link and the scanner link from Credentials, and switch between the gate and the gear desk in Settings. One with only a gear station is a desk and nothing else, and needs no sign-in.

The station link is deliberately not the scanner link from Credentials. Handing a gate guard a scanner link does not let that device hand out radios, and the station's name is what the records show against every scan it makes.

Where do I see what the devices did?

Open Gear and choose the Scan log tab. Every scan is there, wherever it came from: this page, a parked station, GigOps Scan and the S1. Each row says when, which item, what happened, who it went to and where it came from, with the device's name under the station and a No signal chip on anything a device decided on its own.

Filter it by Conflicts, by Checked out or in, by Made with no signal, or by the station it came from.

A check-in somebody counted short says what did not come back, on the row. That is the only record there will be: afterwards nobody can say which shift the battery went missing on.

What is a conflict and what do I do about it?

A device with no signal handed something out, and by the time the scan reached GigOps somebody else already had it. Nothing is changed when that happens: GigOps keeps the record it already had, because it cannot know which of the two people is holding the radio now.

A banner at the top of Gear counts them, so it is in front of you whichever tab you are on, and Show them opens the log filtered to just those. Each one names the person who has it according to GigOps, which is who to go and ask, and what the device believed went out with it, and the row is highlighted until somebody closes it out.

You are told about one without having to look: everybody whose access to Gear is Edit gets a notification when a device uploads one, naming the items and the station, and it opens Gear. One notification per upload, however many are in it. A Gear to chase card is on My day as well, with what to find and who has it according to GigOps.

To close one out:

1. Find the item and work out who actually has it.
2. Put the record right in the Gear tab (check it in, or check it out to the right person).
3. Back in Scan log, choose Mark sorted on the conflict and say what you found.

The row keeps saying it was a conflict: marking it sorted is not a deletion, it adds who said so, when, and what they found, so the next person reading the log knows. A conflict can only be closed out once, and a seat set to View only cannot close one out.

How do I set up a gear scan station on a tablet?

1. Choose Scan stations.
2. Choose how long new links work for (7 days, 30 days, 90 days or 1 year; 30 days unless you change it).
3. Type a name (for example "Production office") and choose Add station.
4. Choose Copy link and open it on the tablet.

A station link opens a check-out screen with no login, so anyone holding it can check gear in and out. Treat it like a key. Standing kit sets what every radio from that desk goes out with, for the tablet and for the apps alike. Disable or Enable it, Rotate link if a device goes missing (the old link stops working), or Delete it. The station takes the two scans in either order and keeps its scan box focused, exactly as the app does. The same link sets up GigOps Scan and the S1.

Why does the gear station say its link has expired?

Station links expire, like scanner links in Credentials. Each station shows the date its link works until, and Link expired once it has passed; the tablet then shows "This station link has expired" and checks nothing in or out. Choose Renew link in Scan stations: the date moves on by the time chosen at the top of the window and the link stays the same, so the tablet works again after a reload.

How do I plan how many radios each department gets?

Open Gear and choose the Allocation tab. It is one row per department: what they asked for, what you are paying for, and how many are actually out.

1. Choose Add department for each group that asks you for gear: Medical, Course, Broadcast. Give it a Channel, a Program / zone if you use them, and who is on the hook for them.
2. Choose Numbers on a row to set the ask and the target side by side, for radios and for every accessory. Last yr is what they had last time, which is the number most arguments start from. Target = asked fills every target from the ask in one go, for the common first pass.
3. Set Where it stands to Draft, Sent in, or Approved.

Three numbers per row, and only two of them are typed:

• Asked is what the department says it needs, from its own request link or typed here.
• Target is what the office will pay for.
• Out is counted from the checkout ledger every time the tab loads. Nobody types it, so the plan and the floor cannot quietly disagree. It turns amber when more is out than the target allows.

The totals row is the number the office argues over. Export downloads the whole grid as a CSV, for the people who still want it in a spreadsheet.

Deleting a department takes its ask and its request link with it, and leaves any gear charged to it charged to nobody.

How do I let a department fill in its own request?

Choose Link on its row in Allocation. That mints a private link for that department alone; send it to the department head or an outside vendor.

The page asks how many they need and what goes with them, in your own accessory names. They can save it and come back to the same link until they send it, and change it after. What they fill in lands on the grid as their Asked, with who sent it and when.

They never see your target. A department reading the number it is about to be cut to argues with the form rather than with a person.

The link behaves like every other share link in GigOps: Copy it, Open it to see what they see, Regenerate it if it goes astray (the old one stops working immediately), Renew it to move its expiry on, and Disable link when the list is closed. The grid says whether each department's link is live and whether anybody has opened it.

What do the gear statuses mean?

• Available: on the shelf and free to check out.
• Out: checked out to someone; Overdue when it is past its due back time.
• Maintenance, Lost or Retired: set by you with Edit. Gear with one of these statuses cannot be checked out until you change it back.

Delete item (inside Edit) removes the item and its whole checkout history.

Can crew see what they have?

Yes. In GigOps Crew, under More, Equipment lists what is checked out to them, with when it went out and when it is due back.