Just launched: parent-child equipment booking

There’s a lot of lab equipment that can be used at the same time by different people, like shelves in an incubator, different decks on a liquid handler, or a few parts of a larger automated system.

Lab managers typically handle this either by registering these sub-components as different pieces of equipment, or with manual workarounds. However, this then creates two knock-on problems:

• Nobody can see what’s really available, meaning equipment either gets underused or overbooked
• ‍It’s hard to calculate utilisation because the different subcomponents are handled separately

This causes a headache for lab managers who need to coordinate day-to-day activity and think about long-term capacity planning at the same time.

Parent-child lab equipment hierarchies for easier booking

Our new parent-child feature solves these problems by letting lab managers register equipment in a way that more accurately represents their real-world hierarchy.

For example: you can register an incubator as a parent, and each shelf as a child. Once it’s set up, it requires no further attention or work on the part of the lab manager.

This means:

• Lab users can easily see what’s available at the relevant level
• Lab users can then book an individual child component (e.g. “Shelf 2”) without blocking access to the rest
• Lab managers can then get automatically rolled-up usage data without trawling through disparate spreadsheet tabs or shared calendars

Behind the scenes, Calira handles all the logic ensuring that permissions and availability are correctly managed between parent and child items (along with everything else like training-linked access and access groups).

What this means in the lab (and at your desk)

So why is this important for labs, and why did we launch this feature? There are four main reasons.

• More accurate equipment modelling: labs can now represent real-world instrument structures directly in Calira, avoiding duplication and manual asset splitting.
• Better utilisation: booking at the child level maximises availability because multiple researchers can use different parts of the same instrument simultaneously.
• Easier reporting and analytics: because all child bookings roll up to their parents, usage data accurately reflects overall instrument usage. This simplifies CapEx planning and maintenance scheduling, providing a single source of truth for equipment performance.
• Better booking experience: lab users get a clearer, more intuitive booking process because they can quickly identify what’s available, book what they need, avoid conflicts, and plan experiments with confidence.

Would this be useful in your lab?

We built this feature because of real feedback from our existing customers. They’re now using it in labs just like yours, and we’re busy building the next thing they’ve been asking for (more on that soon).

Do you think you or your team might find this useful in your lab, site, or across your wider organisation? If so, we’d be happy to give you a live demo, and show you how the wider Calira platform works. You can click here to book a half hour call with a member of our team.