Lend & Lease

Where to start

Overview

In one minute

Lend & Lease is your loan register. You list the things you hand out, you write down who has each one and when it is due back, and BmyGuest reminds the people who are late.

Access cards, laptops, chargers, headsets, keys, parking remotes, safety helmets, umbrellas: anything that is handed over and expected back.

Who does what

Four groups use Lend & Lease, and each sees a different part of it.

Administrator

• Switches the add-on on for a location and chooses how reminders are sent.
• Builds the item list: creates items, sets when each is normally due back, deactivates the ones that are gone.
• Everything a receptionist can do, at every location of the company.

Receptionist

• The everyday user. Lends items, confirms returns, changes a due date when someone asks for longer.
• Creates and changes items, and deactivates the ones that are gone, just as an administrator can.
• Only at the locations they work at.
• Where the location has Receptionists can edit location switched on, can also cancel a loan registered by mistake and change the Lend & Lease settings.

Host

• Where Enable hosts to lend is switched on, a host can lend items to their own guests, or to themselves, from their start page, without going through reception.
• Items marked “Only reception lends this item” are never offered to hosts.
• Sees their own loans on My loans, and never sees anyone else’s loans or the full item list.

Borrower

• Needs no login to borrow. Gets an e-mail, and if your location wants it an SMS, once a loan is overdue.
• Can pause the reminders for that loan from a link in the e-mail, or from My loans when signed in.

How to get there

• Lend & Lease in the Reception menu opens the lending desk where the add-on is on. Every administrator and receptionist has the entry. Where it is on at none of the locations you work at, it carries an Add-on mark and opens a page about the add-on instead: a short demo, and Contact me about Lend & Lease, which asks BmyGuest to get in touch. Where BmyGuest has already made the add-on available, an administrator also finds Switch on at and the location’s name there.
• On the reception desk, New loan at the top and the key chip on each guest’s line lend straight from there.
• Hosts find New loan on their start page, and their own loans under My loans.

Setup

Turning it on

Lend & Lease is switched on per location, not per company. A company with three offices can use it in one of them, and each location writes its own settings.

1. Lend & Lease must be available for your location. If the location’s Add-ons list it only under More add-ons (press Show if that list is hidden), it is not part of your subscription: press Contact sales or ask BmyGuest.
2. Go to Locations, open the location, then Add-ons and Lend & Lease.
3. Choose the settings (next chapter) and press Save and switch on.
4. Build the item list: press Open the lending desk and then New item.

To stop, use Switch off at the bottom of the same page. Nothing is deleted: the items, the running loans and the history stay, and the settings are kept for the day you switch it on again. The desk, the menu entry and the reminders stop at that location.

Every setting

All of them are on one page: Locations → your location → Add-ons → Lend & Lease. Change what you need and press Save changes.

How to

The lending desk

Everything reception does happens on one page: Lend & Lease in the Reception menu. If you work at more than one location, the button next to New item switches between them. The page has four parts.

Each list has its own search box. Every change you make redraws the page at once, so the tiles and lists always agree. Changes made by a colleague show up when you reload the page.

Items

The Items list shows everything the location lends. Each line has the item’s name and, while it is out, who has it and when it is due. The badge says where it is:

• Available (green): in, with a Lend button.
• On loan (amber) or Overdue (red): out, with a Returned button.
• Deactivated (grey): no longer lent. These are hidden until you switch on Show deactivated.

A long list is shown 25 items a page. Click an item’s name to open it.

Creating and changing an item

Press New item at the top of the desk, or open an existing item. The panel has the same fields either way. Press Create item for a new one, or Save changes when you have changed an existing one. A new item can also be a whole numbered series: see Guest cards. Write the first number with leading zeros, for example 001 to 020, to number them 001, 002 and so on: every number gets the same number of digits, so the items sort in order. A line under the boxes shows the first and last name and how many items you are about to create.

The weekday and time together give the due date a new loan starts with: the next time that weekday comes round, at that time. Set Friday 15:00 on the parking remote, and every loan of it during the week is proposed back on Friday afternoon without anybody working it out at the desk. The person lending can always change it.

An opened item also shows its current loan under Out now (or In with a Lend button), and everyone who has had it under Borrowed before.

Taking an item out of use

Open the item and press Deactivate. It disappears from the list and is no longer offered for loans, but its history stays. Switch on Show deactivated to find it again, open it and press Reactivate to bring it back. A loan that is running when you deactivate the item stays open until you confirm the return.

Lending

The common case: a guest arrives and needs a key card and an umbrella.

1. Press New loan at the top of the desk.
2. Under Borrower, type part of the name. You find your company’s hosts by name, and the guests who are at the location today.
3. Tick the Items they take. Items that are out are marked “on loan”; you can still tick one, and are asked before it is taken back. With many items, search the list or page through it: type a number or a name and press Enter to tick that item.
4. Due back is filled in from the items you tick (the earliest of their defaults). Change it if this loan is different; it has to be in the future.
5. Press Register loan.

• Items ticked together share one due date and are reminded together. They can still come back one at a time.
• An item with addresses under “Email when lent out” sends its e-mail now.
• If one of the items is out, BmyGuest asks first and names who has it. Mark returned and lend takes it back and lends it in one go. When that person is checked in at the location today, Check … out as well checks them out too; it is ticked when the item is set to No reminders. Cancel registers nothing.

Other ways to start a loan

• Lend on an item in the list, or in an opened item: the same form, with that item ticked.
• Lend more on a borrower’s card: the same form, with that person chosen.
• On the reception desk: New loan at the top, or the key chip on a guest’s line. See At the reception desk.

At the reception desk

Where Lend & Lease is on, the reception desk shows each guest’s loans on their line, as a chip with a key: 2 on loan in green while everything is within its time, 1 overdue in red once something is late.

Click the chip, or New loan at the top of the desk, to lend without leaving the reception desk. The panel opens with the guest chosen and first lists what they already have out, each with Confirm received. Below it, pick the Items (the cursor is already in their search: type a number or a name), check Expected return (it follows the items you pick, from their own return day and time) and press Register loan. Reception can also pick an item that is out, and is asked before it is taken back (see above). A guest can also borrow as you check them in: the New guest form has Loan, with the same list. To set something aside for a guest who comes on a later day, pick that day with the date at the top of the desk and lend from the guest’s line or New loan: the panel then lists that day’s guests, and Expected return counts from that day. The item is on loan from the moment you register it, so nobody else can take it; hand it over when the guest arrives.

Return item, next to New loan, takes something back by its number or its name. Type it and press Enter: BmyGuest shows the item, who has it and when it was due. When that person is checked in at the location today, Check … out as well is there too, ticked for an item set to No reminders such as a guest card. Press Enter again, or Confirm received: the item is back, the guest is checked out if it was ticked, and the box is empty for the next one.

Shared items in a multi-tenant building

In a building where one reception serves several companies (a multi-tenant building, run in BmyGuest by a multi-house company), reception can keep items that belong to the house rather than to one tenant, for example umbrellas, chargers or a projector, and lend them to the guests and staff of every company in it.

BmyGuest sets it up: the multi-house company gets a location of its own with Lend & Lease switched on, and that is where the house’s shared items live. Ask BmyGuest if your house has none.

1. The multi-house company’s administrators find Lend & Lease in their menu. The location switcher at the top lists the house’s location as Shared items (…), followed by every building the house manages where Lend & Lease is on, so the house’s reception can create and change the tenants’ own items too.
2. Choose the house’s location and create the items with New item, as at any other location. The desk says Shared items for the whole house: lent to the guests and hosts of every company in its buildings.
3. New loan finds today’s guests at every building of the house and the hosts of every company in them.

The house’s items can be borrowed by a host at one of the house’s companies, by a guest with a visit to one of its buildings in the last 30 days or still to come, and by anyone who has borrowed from the house before.

On the multi-house reception desk, New loan, Return item and the Loan card in New guest offer the house’s items as Shared items (…) next to the buildings. A guest’s loan chip counts the house’s items too, and the check-out lists them with the building’s own, so they can be ticked as received. At a building that lends nothing itself, the chip opens New loan on the house’s items. Reminders for the house’s items follow the Lend & Lease settings of the house’s location.

Guest cards

Some things go to every guest: a numbered card that opens the speed gate, a visitor badge. Registered as loans, they show who has which one, and a card handed back tells you who is leaving.

1. Create the cards once. Press New item and switch on Create a numbered series. Write the name, for example Guest card, and the numbers under From number and To number. You get Guest card 1, Guest card 2 and so on, up to 500 at a time; a name the location already has is not created again.
2. In the same panel, switch on No reminders, and set Return time to when the cards should be back, for example 18:00. Press Create item.
3. Hand a card out from the chip on the guest’s line on the reception desk: type its number under Items, press Enter, then Register loan. On the Lend & Lease page, type the number in the item search and press Enter to tick it.
4. Take it back with Return item on the reception desk: the number, Enter, and Enter again. With Check … out as well ticked, the guest is checked out at the same time.
5. A card nobody handed back is still on loan to its last guest. Lend it to the next guest anyway: BmyGuest asks before taking it back, and offers to check the last guest out if they are still checked in.

What is out, and getting it back

The On loan section has one card per borrower. A closed card shows the earliest due date, whether it is overdue or due today, the items, and Reminders off if the borrower has paused the reminders. Click it to open it.

• The borrower’s contact details, as far as BmyGuest has them, so you can call or write.
• Each item, with when it is due, when it was lent and by whom, and Confirm received.
• Due dates and history, Lend more and, where the reminders are paused, Resume reminders.

Set aside for expected guests

Something lent to a guest who has not arrived yet, for example an access card set aside on the reception desk for tomorrow’s guest, counts under the tile for expected guests. Click the tile to see just those. The borrower’s card says when the guest is expected and whom they are visiting, and whether it is ready: Not ready, 1 of 2 ready or Ready.

• Mark ready, on each item in the opened card: press it once the item is prepared, for example once the access card has been activated. The item then says who marked it and when. Press Ready to take the mark off again.
• Add a note, in the … menu of an item: a short note for the next person, such as the access level or where the card is. The search box finds it too. Edit the note changes it; empty it to remove it.
• Registered any time, beside the search box above the list, can be set to Registered today, Registered since yesterday or Registered in the last 7 days: it then shows only borrowers with something registered in that time, so you can see what is new since you last looked.

A borrower counts as expected while the guest has a visit within the next 30 days, today’s included, and has not checked in yet. Once the guest is checked in, the item is simply on loan.

Confirming a return

Whichever way you do it, BmyGuest stamps the loan with the time and with your name, stops the reminders, and puts the item back as available. When the borrower is checked in at the location today, BmyGuest asks first and offers Check … out as well, ticked for an item set to No reminders such as a guest card: the return and the check-out in one go.

• On the borrower’s card: Returned in the header takes back everything the person has; with several items it reads All returned and asks first. Confirm received on a line takes back that item only.
• On the item: Returned in the item list, or Confirm received in the opened item.
• In the borrower’s panel (Due dates and history): per item, or All returned.
• On the reception desk: Return item, by number or name (see above).
• At check-out: see below.

The check-out

When reception or a host checks out a guest who still has something on loan, BmyGuest lists the items with a tick box each. Tick what came back and check out. The guest is checked out either way; unticked items stay on loan and keep being reminded, which is right for the laptop that goes home over the weekend.

Checking out a whole meeting works the same way. Check all out on a meeting lists every guest in it who is checked in. Each guest who still has something on loan gets a tick box per item, and All handed back, which ticks all of theirs. Show loans shows or hides the items. Everyone is checked out either way, and anything left unticked stays on loan.

When something is overdue

From the moment the due date passes, the reminding is automatic. Nothing needs to be started by hand.

1. Within a few minutes of the due date, the borrower gets the first reminder: the e-mail, and the SMS as well if it is switched on and BmyGuest has their mobile number.
2. After that, the same loan is reminded once every 24 hours, by e-mail only, until it is returned or its due date is moved.
3. Every reminder is copied to the admin addresses, if you have any.
4. A borrower who is a host and uses the BmyGuest app in Microsoft Teams or Slack also gets a short chat message.

Items a person borrowed with the same due date are reminded in one message that names them all. Items with different due dates are reminded separately: they are separate promises.

An item set to No reminders, such as a guest card, is never reminded: no e-mail, SMS, copy to the admin addresses or chat message. It still shows as overdue on the desk and on the reception desk.

When the borrower pauses the reminders

Every reminder has a link to stop the reminders. It opens a page naming the items, and nothing changes until the borrower presses Stop reminding me. A signed-in borrower can do the same from My loans.

• It stops the reminders for those items only (everything the person has from this location with that due date), not for anything else they borrow, now or later.
• The desk then shows Reminders off on the card and on the item. The loan is still overdue and still counted; it is your cue to call instead.
• Resume reminders on the card or the item turns them back on.

Changing a due date

Someone asks to keep the laptop until Thursday.

1. Open the borrower’s card and press Due dates and history, or open the item.
2. Change the date and time next to the item and press Save beside it.

Moving an overdue loan into the future stops the reminders at once: it is simply no longer overdue. The card and the item leave the overdue count.

The borrower’s panel also shows their contact details and everything they have returned at this location under Borrowed before.

Cancelling a loan registered by mistake

A loan registered for the wrong person or the wrong item is cancelled, not returned. That is for administrators, and for receptionists at locations where Receptionists can edit location is on.

1. Open the borrower’s card, or their panel, and press the ··· button next to the item.
2. Choose Cancel loan and confirm.

The loan disappears from the desk and from the history, and the item is available again. It is not deleted: switch on Show cancelled in the history to see it, struck through, with who cancelled it and when. Restore brings it back, as long as the item has not been lent again or deactivated since.

History and export

The History at the bottom of the desk lists every loan that started in a period, newest first. It opens on the last 30 days; the period button offers the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days, or a Specific range.

Click a loan to open it: the item, the borrower with their e-mail and phone, when it was lent and by whom, when it was due, and when it came back and who confirmed it. The search box finds loans by item, description, borrower, e-mail or phone.

Export downloads the same period as a CSV file for Excel: item, description, borrower, e-mail, phone, when it was lent and by whom, due date, when it was returned and by whom, whether it was late, and cancellations if Show cancelled is on. The page shows the latest 300 loans of a period; the export has all of them.

Other places with history

• An opened item lists everyone who has had it: the answer to “who had laptop 04 in March”.
• A borrower’s panel lists what they returned at this location: the answer to “does this contractor bring things back”.
• A guest’s profile (under Visitors) has a Loans tab with what they have out and what they returned.

Hosts and borrowers

Hosts lending to their guests

Only where Enable hosts to lend is switched on.

A host hands a guest a laptop on the way to the meeting room, without sending them to the desk first.

1. On the start page, press New loan, or tap the key tile under one of their guests.
2. Choose the Location and who it is Register to: one of the host’s own guests who is expected or checked in, or the host themselves.
3. Pick the Items and check Expected return (it starts at 17:00 today), then press Register loan.

• The list leaves out the items marked “Only reception lends this item”.
• Once a guest is chosen, On loan now lists what they already have, and the host can confirm a return there.
• Loans a host registers are ordinary loans: they appear on the lending desk with the host as the one who lent them, and are reminded like any other.

The Host guide shows the same steps from the host’s side.

For the borrower

A borrower needs no login and does not have to do anything in BmyGuest. They hand the item back at the desk, and reception confirms it.

• My loans: a host at a company with Lend & Lease, and anyone who has borrowed something, sees their loans here when signed in, soonest due first: overdue in red, due today in amber, then what they returned. The bell button pauses or resumes the reminder e-mails.
• The host’s start page also shows an Overdue loan or Due back today line.
• The reminder e-mail names the items and the due date, and ends with the link to stop the reminders.
• An item set to No reminders, such as a guest card, appears in none of these: it is reception’s to keep track of.

For hosts, the Host guide covers My loans as well.

Reference

Reminder timing

Placeholders in your own reminder texts

The e-mail when an item is lent

Separate from the reminders, and easy to miss. An item can have its own addresses under Email when lent out, and they are e-mailed the moment it goes out, whether reception or a host lends it. Nothing is sent for items without addresses.

The e-mail is in your company’s e-mail language and contains:

• The item’s name, and its description.
• Who borrowed it.
• Who registered the loan.
• The expected return date.
• Your message for that item, if you wrote one.

It is sent per item: lend three items at once and three e-mails go out, each to that item’s own addresses.

Data and retention

• A loan records the borrower, the item, the location, when it was lent, when it was due and when it came back, who lent it and who confirmed the return, and when reminders were sent.
• If your company anonymises guests after a period, returned loans older than that period are anonymised too: the borrower is shown as Anonymized everywhere in Lend & Lease, and nothing on the loan leads to the person any more.
• Loans that are still out are never anonymised, however old: you may still need to get the item back. On the desk, the only thing you can do with such a loan is confirm the return.
• The item, the dates and the fact that a loan happened stay, so your equipment history remains complete.

Limits and quirks

• One item, one loan. There is no quantity. Ten identical headsets are ten items; number them.
• Borrowers must exist in BmyGuest. Hosts, and guests with a visit at the location. Register the visitor first, then lend.
• A confirmed return cannot be undone. Register a new loan instead. A loan registered by mistake is cancelled, and can be restored.
• The reminder interval is fixed at 24 hours, and reminders never start before the deadline.
• The SMS goes once, with the first reminder.
• Your own reminder texts are not translated. Leave them empty to get the standard, translated reminder.
• The desk does not refresh by itself. Reload to see a colleague’s changes. Reception lending an item that is out is asked before it is taken back, and a host is refused, so nothing is lent twice.
• Integrations. The BmyGuest Public API has Lend & Lease endpoints (items, loans, returns, due dates, history), for companies that connect their own systems. It is not part of the self-service plan.
• Nothing checks the honesty. Confirming a return is a statement by whoever presses the button; its value is the name and time that go with it.

Help

Troubleshooting

Button and screen names are given in English, as they appear in the screenshots. If you use BmyGuest in another language, the wording differs, but every screen and button is in the same place. The screenshots show a fictional company, Northgate Group.