College of New Jersey
TCNJ has made the workflow of equipment management a lot smoother and got students more involved with Cheqroom
The Art and Interactive Multimedia Department at the College of New Jersey offers classes in different disciplines of digital and interactive technology such as: animation, motion graphics, game design, digital audio, and technical writing. The department uses Cheqroom to manage more than 2200 pieces of audiovisual equipment.
The overall workflow is just so much nicer. The software is reliable and stops a lot of mistakes from happening.
Brett Ratner is the department’s technical coordinator and is in charge of the equipment cage at the art building.
The software the department was using for their equipment management was getting outdated and was missing important features, so they decided it was time for a more reliable, cloud-based solution like Cheqroom.
Reservations you can rely on
“Students are now able to make reservations online from the mobile or web application and trust that the equipment is ready to be checked out when they pick it up at the cage. We no longer have to deal with the chaos of students having to actually show up at the equipment cage to make a reservation hoping that the equipment is available.”
“The overall workflow is just so much nicer. The software is reliable and won’t let you make any double bookings. Cheqroom telling us ‘Hey, you can’t do this’ has been helping a lot and stopping a lot of mistakes from happening.”
In the past, things could get so busy and chaotic students sometimes ended up buying the equipment that they needed. But now with Cheqroom it got a lot better because they can reserve things online a week prior.”
Onboarding students
At the start of the semester, Brett goes into every classroom to show students how Cheqroom works. “I do a demo on how to make reservations on their end and then I explain all the rules.
I recommend downloading the mobile app and I’d say about 50% of them do. Some of them will just go to the website and not download it on their phone and the other half will download it.
One of the rules we have enforced is that students have to make a reservation an hour before they come to check out the equipment. That way, the cage worker has time to set up the reservation, making sure everything is good for the checkout, and everything. So that’s been super helpful.”
CHEQROOM doubles as an inventory software
Cheqroom has helped reduce time by also being the department’s inventory software. Every single piece of equipment is labeled with a QR sticker and is tracked in the app. We have over 2200 pieces of equipment, so it’s really a lot to keep track of, luckily we no longer need to do it manually.
“Every summer we do an inventory check and my student workers will just go through the 1000 items, searching by flag.
During the semester, the items that need repair, maintenance, or replacement are put into my custody. That’s how the student workers let me know what we need to buy and what needs to be replaced. So that’s how we keep track of broken things during the semester.”
Easy reporting & smarter buying decisions
Generating reports used to take up a lot of time with the old software, but has become a lot easier with Cheqroom.
“I have to do monthly reports for the department so they can see what is being checked out the most and what time of the semester equipment gets checked out, midterms and finals usually being the busiest periods.
With the other software, I’d had to generate a report per item manually and copy the information into a giant Excel spreadsheet. Here I can just run the report and I have everything that I need. I can put it in a visualization and give it to the department and they are happy with that.”
“I’ve mostly been using reports per kit and have noticed that cameras and tripods are the most popular items, followed by projectors. This helps us guide what we should be purchasing in the future.
We know that audio equipment doesn’t get checked out as much, so the next step is to look at why they don’t and if we’re not using it, then we can veer away from that type of audio equipment and put our money somewhere else.
The reporting feature has been very helpful to the department.” “I like the adaptability. The fact that you listen to your clients and when some feature might not be there but is something that could benefit your clients you are able to implement it in a timely fashion.
And my favorite part about Cheqroom is how easy it is to navigate.
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