Find your situation. Start with the section for your role.
Your membership is not active, or it has expired. Open your profile and check the membership status and expiry date. If it has expired, renew it. If you have just joined, you may still be pending: complete your orientation and key fob steps. A few tools allow pending members to request a checkout; most do not. If your status looks wrong, ask the board.
This tool needs another checkout first (for example a shop orientation). Look at the tool's page for the prerequisites, get checked out on those, then request again.
You are already checked out on this tool, or you were checked out before and it was later revoked. Check Tool Checkouts > My Checkouts. If it is not there, ask an approver or the board. A revoked checkout has to be reinstated by an admin or board member before you can be checked out again.
You already asked. Look under My Checkout Requests. You can edit the note, or delete the request and ask again.
Anyone may use this tool without a checkout. There is nothing to request.
The tool or its shop is turned off, hidden or out of service for now. Ask the shop's Resource Manager.
The Available Tools list leaves out a tool if it needs no checkout, you are already checked out on it, your checkout for it was revoked, or the tool or its shop is hidden. While your membership is still pending, only tools open to pending members are listed.
A tool you cannot request yet is still listed. Missing Prereq in the Status column means a prerequisite checkout is missing (the Prerequisites column names it), and Request Pending means you have already asked. If your membership is not active, the list does not load at all and you see the membership message described above.
Approvers are volunteers, and a request is reminded about in the Resource Managers channel at 5, 10 and 15 days. The quickest route is to message the shop's Slack channel, or ask in person at an open house. After 20 days with no checkout the request closes automatically and you are told, and you can ask again or contact the board.
Ask the approver to record it in the portal using Check Out Member. Until they do, the portal does not know.
Read the reason in the Slack message. Fix whatever it says, then submit a new request.
Check that your Slack account is linked to your membership and that you have not turned off direct notifications. The portal does not email these messages. Slack accounts are matched to members by email address, so check that the email on your Slack profile is the one on your membership. If they differ, ask a board member.
The code opens the tool's page in your browser. If it fails to load, check your phone's connection and try again. Signing in is required to request a checkout. If a code gives a "not found" page, tell the shop's Resource Manager: the tool may have been removed or hidden.
The screen shows the reason, and for missing prerequisites it lists them (Missing: ...). The common reasons:
| Message | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Membership must be activated / orientation first | Member is expired, inactive, revoked, suspended, or pending on a tool that does not allow pending members | Ask them to renew or complete sign-up; board can fix a wrong status |
| Complete all prerequisite checkouts | A required earlier checkout is missing | Check them out on the prerequisite first |
| A checkout record already exists | They are already checked out here, or an old checkout was revoked | See below |
| Tool unavailable | The tool or shop is disabled | Ask the RM or an admin |
Choose the Shop first. The tool list only shows tools in that shop that you can approve.
You are not an approver for that tool or shop, or you are not signed in. Ask the shop's Resource Manager to add you as an approver (see Tool groups and approvers).
Requests from members whose membership has expired, lapsed or been revoked, or who are missing a prerequisite, are hidden until that is fixed. A closed, declined or timed-out request is also gone from the open list.
Use Check Out Member to record it. That closes the open request. Until then it stays in reminders.
You only get it when there is a new request since your last one, or an open request is exactly 5, 10 or 15 days old. You also need a linked Slack account with direct notifications on. Admins and board members only get it if they are also an RM or approver.
Check the Notes column on the roster first (approvers, Resource Managers, board and admins can see it) for why it was revoked. A row marked Reinstated is no longer blocking: the member has a newer active checkout.
The portal does not check someone out again over a revoked record. Tell the board or an admin, who can reinstate it.
A revoked checkout stays as a record and blocks a new request or checkout. Admins and board members can lift this from Tool Checkouts > Checkout Roster: set Status to Revoked only, tick the row and click Reinstate Checkout, then give a reason. The revoked record is kept and a new active checkout is added. The old row then shows a grey Reinstated status (filter by Status > Reinstated to see both rows), and the Notes column shows the revocation and reinstatement reasons to approvers, Resource Managers, board and admins only. See Revoke a checkout.
The portal has no delete. Revoking it leaves a revoked record, which blocks a later correct checkout until an admin or board member reinstates it. Prefer telling an admin before revoking.
Open Audit Log (admins and board). Checkout events, fob lookups and request declines (including automatic timeouts) are recorded there with who and when.
Open Portal Settings and check the Slack tab: the Resource Managers channel must be set. Also check the Jobs tab to see that the checkout request reminder and digest jobs have run.
The shop's Slack Channel must be filled in under Tool Checkouts > Shops. It is also how /checkout and /reserve find the shop.
The shop has no Slack channel set. Set it on the shop, then download the sheet again.
The sign's QR code is a permanent short link. Short links cannot be created if the site's public address is not configured or the database is unreachable; this is a server-side problem and belongs on the restricted operations page.
Open Tool Checkouts > Approvers and tick their row and use the edit button to check their scope. Approval for a group needs a shop assignment or a group assignment, not just individual tools in the group.
A checkout is valid through its displayed date in Eastern time. Missing dates
mean Never expires. Select Expired in your checkout list and use
Request renewal when available, then complete any required training and wait
for approval. If the checkout was revoked, contact an admin or board member.
Reservation errors name checkouts that expire before the reservation ends,
including shop and group prerequisites. Request renewal or choose an earlier
end time. An end exactly at midnight after the expiration date is permitted.
Existing bookings are not automatically canceled after expiration edits, but
editing a booking rechecks its prerequisites. Cancellation remains available.
A bulk update keeps the shop locked until its transaction finishes. If its
worker crashes, ask an administrator to confirm the worker has stopped and
recover the orphan catalog lock using the Rails jobs/services runbook. Do not
clear a lock while an update may still be running. Failed transactions do not
leave partially updated expiration dates or audits.