Overview
Managing inventory means maintaining your housing spaces and keeping track of their availability. This article teaches you operational inventory tasks: blocking and unblocking rooms, updating bed statuses, managing furniture, tracking keys, and performing inventory-specific bulk operations.
What you'll learn: How inventory statuses work, how to block and unblock rooms/beds, how to manage furniture and keys, and inventory-specific bulk operations.
Prerequisites: This article assumes you understand the inventory hierarchy (Building → Suite → Room → Bed → Furniture) from PLS-1G: Understanding Data Relationships & Hierarchy and standard table operations from PLS-1E: General UI Patterns.
Where to Find Inventory
In the options on the left side, the building shaped icon Inventory
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New inventory can be added at the Inventory table level or in Setup > Inventory Management. Inventory Management is where admins are able to edit defining factors of respective inventory. Details can be more nuanced for Term Rate/Charge Codes when creating Cycles; more on that in the PLS on Cycles.
Understanding Inventory Statuses
Every bed and room has a status that controls whether students can select it and whether you can assign it.
Bed Statuses
- Available/In Service: Bed is available and can be assigned to students
- Assigned: Bed has been assigned to a student but they haven't checked in yet
- Occupied: Student is actively living in this bed (student has been checked in)
- Blocked/Reserved: Bed is temporarily unavailable (maintenance, renovation, reserved for staff)
- Out of Service: Bed is permanently unavailable (decommissioned, room converted to office)
Room Statuses
Rooms inherit status from their beds, but you can also set room-level statuses:
- Available: All beds in the room are "In Service"
- Partially Occupied: Some beds are occupied, some are available
- Fully Occupied: All beds in the room are occupied
- Blocked: Entire room is blocked (affects all beds)
- Out of Service: Room is permanently unavailable
Status affects availability: Students cannot see or select beds with "Blocked" or "Out of Service" status during room selection. Only beds marked "In Service" appear as available options.
Blocking and Unblocking Rooms
Blocking a room temporarily removes that entire room from availability.
Common reasons: maintenance work, painting, pest control, furniture replacement, reserved for incoming students.
How to Block a Single Room
- Navigate to Inventory → Rooms and click the room name
(or if you know the exact Room Name, using the Quick Search bar at the top) - Click Block in the upper right
- Select either Take Out Of Service or Reserve from the status dropdown
- Input effective dates.
- Note: if anticipating this room needing to remain blocked through future terms or year(s), setting the end date into the future as far as you may need it. The End Date can be edited to end earlier.
- Add a note explaining why (e.g., "Painting Aug 10-15")
- Click Block at the bottom
All beds in that room are now blocked and won't appear in student room selection occurring within the set Start/End dates.
How to Unblock a Room
- Navigate to Inventory → Rooms and filter by Status: "Blocked"
- Click the room name
- Click Unblock in the upper right
- Click Confirm; the room will appear as Available and the End date of the block will update to today (day you are performing the Unblock action)
Blocking and Unblocking Beds
Sometimes you need to block individual beds rather than entire rooms.
Common reasons: one broken bed but roommate can stay or if converting the room occupancy numbers such as making a double a single or a triple a double.
How to Block a Single Bed
- Navigate to Inventory → Beds and click the bed identifier
(or if you know the exact Room Name where the bed is, using the Quick Search bar at the top to get to the Room details page, then clicking on the respective bed under Beds) - Click Block in the upper right
- Select either Take Out Of Service or Reserve from the status dropdown
- nput effective dates.
- Note: if anticipating this bed needing to remain blocked through future terms or year(s), setting the end date into the future as far as you may need it. The End Date can be edited to end earlier.
- Add a note explaining why (ex. "Mattress replacement needed" or "updating room to double from triple")
- Click Block at the bottom
That specific bed is now unavailable, but other beds in the same room remain available.
How to Unblock a Bed
- Navigate to Inventory → Beds and click the bed identifier
(or if you know the exact Room Name where the bed is, using the Quick Search bar at the top to get to the Room details page, then clicking on the respective bed under Beds) - Click the bed name
- Click Unblock in the upper right
- Click Confirm; the bed will appear as Available and the End date of the block will update to today (day you are performing the Unblock action)
Note on blocking beds and room/bed type/variation: blocking one or more beds in a room will not automatically update the remaining available bed type/variation nor will it automatically update the room type/variation.
It is encouraged that admins keep in mind if needing to update the remaining available bed type/variation(s) and room type/variation for purposes of billing and how they would appear on residents' pages and during selection.
Bulk Status Updates
When you need to block or update many rooms at once (e.g., entire floor under renovation), use bulk operations.
How to Bulk Block Rooms
- Navigate to Inventory → Rooms
- Filter as necessary to narrow your selection (by building, by features/tags, name, etc.)
- Select multiple rooms using checkboxes
- Click 3 dots on top to the left of View Occupancy Graph → Update Status
- Select Blocked or Out Of Service, add dates and a reason note
- Click Update Status
Time-saving tip: Block rooms in advance of renovations so they don't appear in student room selection. After work completes, bulk unblock them to make them available again without editing each room individually.
Managing Furniture
Housing.Cloud tracks individual furniture items (desks, chairs, mattresses, dressers) assigned to each bed.
Viewing and Adding Furniture
- Navigate to Inventory → Beds and click a bed identifier/Bed Name
- Click the Furniture tab to see all furniture items
- Click Add Furniture to add a new item
- Select furniture type, enter ID/tag, set condition
- Click Save
Managing Keys
Housing.Cloud tracks key inventory and distribution: which keys exist, which residents have them, when they were issued, and when they were returned.
Viewing Key Inventory
Navigate to Inventory → Keys to see all keys with their ID, type (Room, Building, Mailbox), location, status (Available, Issued, Lost), and assigned resident.
Issuing and Returning Keys
Keys can be assigned during the check-in process at the "Issue a Key" step.
Outside of formal check-in processes, key operations are typically done from the resident's detail page:
- Navigate to Profiles filter, and click the resident name. Or utilize Quick Search at the top.
- Click the Keys tab
- Click Issue Key and select from inventory (or Return Key at check-out)
- To report a lost key, click Report Lost Key and optionally charge a replacement fee via Finance
Security note: When a key is reported lost, update your access control system (if integrated) to deactivate that key and prevent unauthorized access.
Room Parts Management
Some institutions track individual room components (walls, doors, windows, fixtures) for condition reports and damage tracking.
Navigate to a room detail page → Click the Room Parts tab (if enabled) → View all trackable components (walls, doors, windows, ceiling, floor, fixtures) → Click a part to record condition, damage, or add photos.
Room parts integrate with room condition reports (RCRs) at check-in and check-out to document and compare condition over time.
Inventory-Specific Bulk Operations
Beyond standard bulk actions, you can perform inventory-specific operations:
- Bulk update room types/variations: Change bed type/variation (Twin XL → Full), room type/variation (Double → Single)
- Bulk assign furniture: Apply standard furniture sets to multiple beds
- Bulk update pricing: Change room rates for a group of rooms
- Bulk tag inventory: Add accessibility tags, amenity tags, or cohort tags to groups of rooms
Efficiency tip: Before bulk operations, always filter to preview exactly which rooms/beds you're about to change. Double-check your selection, then proceed with the bulk action.
Real-World Scenarios
Scenario 1: Blocking Rooms for Summer Renovation
East Hall 3rd floor is being renovated in June and July. You need to prevent students from selecting those rooms for fall.
Solution: Filter by Building: "East Hall" and Floor: "3" → Select all rooms → Bulk Actions → Update Status → Blocked → Add note: "Summer 2024 renovation" → Students won't see these rooms in fall room selection.
Scenario 2: One Bed Broken, Room Still Usable
A bed frame broke in Room 205A but the other bed is fine.
Solution: Search "205A" in Beds → Click the broken bed → Edit → Status: Blocked → Note: "Bed frame broken, facilities work order #4567" → The other bed in 205A remains In Service.
Scenario 3: Unblocking Rooms After Renovation Completes Early
East Hall 3rd floor renovation finished early. You need to make rooms available immediately.
Solution: Filter by Status: "Blocked" → Select all East Hall 3rd floor rooms → Bulk Actions → Update Status → In Service → Rooms now appear in student room selection.
Scenario 4: Tracking a Lost Key and Charging Fee
A student lost their room key.
Solution: Search for the student → Click Keys tab → Report Lost Key → Navigate to Finance → Create charge transaction for lost key fee ($50) → Send notification via Communications.
What's Next
Continue your Product Learning Session 2 journey:
- PLS-2E: Introduction to Tags—Learn what tags are, how they organize data, and how to view and filter by tags
- Complete PLS-2: Product Learning Session 2: Managing Your Housing Data
- PLS-3: Forms & Tags—Learn how to create tag categories and build application forms (next session)