Automatic Tool Start by Reservation

[Defenestrar]

First of all, I love this project (and NIST). I've talked to a number of administrators who run NEMO and most of us would have a use case for tool usage starting (and ending) automatically based on reservation (likely a tool specific option).

Each situation is different, but for me I have a couple of instruments that need to be continuously powered (i.e. power interlocks don't work), aren't networkable (so software interlocks don't work), and in a bad zone for wireless/wi-fi (problematic for self-reported tool usage). My personal case is a need to track/bill based on reserved time (not exact tool usage) and so an option to automatically start and stop tool usage based on the reservation would be great.

I suppose another way to do it would be to allow billing/reports based on reservations, but that might be more complicated to implement due to the systems already built around handling missed reservations.

[rptmat57]

Hello and thank you!
I understand your solution, but I feel like if this is going to be done, it should be done "correctly" in the sense that if reservations are being used to charge, then those should be charged, rather than "faking" a tool usage that didn't actually happen in NEMO.

This would keep the data "correct" in NEMO.

Implementation-wise, this would mean:

1. creating a new "reservation" type of charge
2. it would be returned from the billing API and everywhere else (my usage, project billing, etc.) when it's enabled for the tool.
3. it would be mutually exclusive with missed reservation threshold (add validation for that)
4. regular usage event might need to be disabled?

if you don't mind me asking, what's your facility? and who else did you talk to (just curious)? you can email me directly at [email protected]