Check and Filter by Item Availability
Customers can see what's available for their dates in three places on your webstore: an availability calendar on an item, a rental date filter on the gallery, and an availability check across a whole set list.
They're separate features with separate switches, so you can turn on as much or as little as you want. All three read your Propcart line items, so they're only worth using if you manage your rentals in Propcart.
The availability calendar on an item
Customers viewing an item see an Availability Calendar button. Opening it shows a month at a time, with each day colored:
| Color | Means |
|---|---|
| Green | Available |
| Orange | On Hold — on someone's Draft or On Hold order |
| Red | Rented Out — booked, out, or not yet returned |
A customer who needs more than one sets the Quantity above the calendar, and the colors change to answer "can I get this many?" rather than "is there one?". Past dates can't be picked.
Under the calendar they're told that availability isn't guaranteed, because it can be thrown off by early or late returns, inventory errors and paper hold tags.
Turning it on
The calendar is a per-item setting, Show Availability?, and only rental items have it — sale items never show a calendar.
To have it on for new items without setting it each time, turn on Show Availability by default? in your Inventory Settings. That sets the default for items you create afterwards. Items that already exist keep whatever they have, so change those on the item itself or with an import.
Show Availability by default? also controls the rental date filter below. Turning it off removes the filter from your gallery, even for items whose own Show Availability? is on.
The Check Availability email
Customers who'd rather just ask you get a Check Availability button on the item, which emails your sales address about that one item. Those arrive in Inbound → Emails, where New Order starts an order with their details already filled in.
Filtering the gallery by rental dates
With Show Availability by default? on, your rentals, search and catalog pages get a Rental Dates filter in the sidebar. A customer picks a start and end date, and the gallery hides anything that can't cover the whole range.
Two things worth knowing:
- It respects the quantity filter. Asking for 4 of something hides items that only have 3 free on any day in the range, not just items with nothing free.
- It's per day, not per item. An item booked for one day inside the customer's range is out, even if it's free either side.
The filter only appears when the customer is browsing rentals. If they've filtered Purchase Type down to sale items only, it goes away, because rental dates mean nothing for those.
Their dates are remembered as they browse, so the same range carries from the gallery to the items they open.
Checking a whole set list
A customer who has built a set list can press Check Availability on it to check every item at once, against the set list's own rental dates. Each item gets a badge:
| Badge | Color | Means |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Green | Free for their dates, in the quantity they want |
| Reserved | Blue | Already held for them on an order you made |
| Pending | Orange | On someone's Draft or On Hold order |
| Rented Out | Red | Booked or out for those dates |
The check runs again by itself whenever the customer comes back to a set list they haven't checked recently, and whenever they change its dates.
Reserved appears once you convert their quote request to an order, and it names the order. See Availability Badges on the Set List items for how it behaves and what customers ask about it.
Turning it on
Turn on Check Availability? in the List Settings section of your Inbound Requests Settings. It's for Propcart Pro webstores.
It also affects sending: if any item is unavailable when a customer submits their request, they're warned and asked whether to go ahead. Items that are Reserved don't count against them, since those are already theirs.
Like other webstore settings, all of these take effect the next time you publish your webstore.