Inventory Booking mechanism for Inventory

Now I'm getting into Joomla, thought I'd check out a few inventory booking extensions. Found one which looks excellent - JomRez

Here's a demo of it on their servers.

With this system I can visualise the situation working as follows:

1. Browse to the correct webpage
2. log in
3. if your a student:
1. search for the resource
2. book it out if it is free
4. if your staff
1. add resources
2. check booking status
3. sign back in
4. search for free resources

Questions

1. could it use Active Directory logins?
1. Yes, I think so. Found this forum on the topic although couldn't look at it
2. does it manage assets?

One thing I have read is that it is good, but to get it really customised you will probably need to buy the extensions. These generally start at £9.99 and go up to £29.99.

The next thing to do is to test it:

1. install MAMP
1. make a new database in myphpadmin
1. I named it "inventory"
2. install Joomla
3. download JomRez and install
1. found this article on how to install
1. download Download jomres_webinstall.zip or just jomres_webinstall.php
2. Place this in the root of the joomla
3. run the jomres_webinstall.php in the browser
1. this came up with:
1. We are unable to comunicate with the updates server, you might have a firewall preventing your server from communicating with the jomres.net servers. You should create some rules that allow your server to communicate with the domains "updates.jomres4.net", "plugins.jomres4.net" and "license-server.jomres.net"
2. I could ping all of these from my machine?
2. So, might as well just install it manually
4. Nope, can't find the manual install zip.
5. installed it on a server using the webinstall and worked fine
4. add assets
1. as it's geared for hotel bookings the only way I've thought of doing it is to add each asset as a room in a hotel.
2. I'd have to go into the database and find the room type and add a different room type for each different item we had.
5. test asset management
1. can't really manage assets
6. test booking mechanism
7. test logins

Well, to conclude, if I want this to work as an inventory management utility I'd need to buy plugins. It's ridiculously restricted.

The way I can concieve to make it work is to have the college as a hotel, and it have 'room types'. You can have a number of each room type, each bookable. Too confusing.

Had another look on Joomla and found only paid things! Doh! Can't get everything for free. I shall go back to Access Databases.