Resource Types are similar to Resource Groups in that they allow your Resources to be further organized. The difference, however, is that, whereas Resource Groups are more designed to help you say where the resource is, Resource Types are designed to help you say what the resource is. For instance, say you have building full of equipment that is organized the following way:
Basement – 2 Microscopes, one Spectrometer, and one Computer.
1st floor – 2 Computers, 1 Microscope, 3 spectrometers
2nd floor – 5 Computers, 2 Spectrometers, no microscopes
In this case, you might make a Resource Group for the Basement and for the First and Second floors. However, you might consider a resource type for all Resources that are Computers, all Resources that are Spectrometers, and/or all Resources that are microscopes.
To create a new Resource Type, click the three-dot icon on the Resources screen then select “Resource Type”. Doing this will cause a screen like the one below to appear:
To create a new Resource Type, simply type some Name and some Description in the correspondingly labeled fields, then click Create. The new Resource Type will appear in the table below. Note that existing resource types can be edited or deleted via the Pencil and Trashcan icons that appear on the far right of each Resource Type Row.
Resource types have a few additional Features that resource groups do not, including:
- When creating Reports, Report results can be filtered by Resource Type
- When editing existing Resource Types, you can include Custom Attributes. Custom Attributes can only be set up by the Application Administrator and are available to Premium Organizations only. Click here for more information on Custom Attributes.