how long an Item has been checked out or if it is checked out

I would be very careful with such automatic check-in functionality, if it's actually feasible to implement in the first place: what if the user is just in the middle of making some edits and the version that gets checked in is incomplete / has factual errors / etc.? Would other users realize this or act based on wrong information? Or, if you undo the check-out automatically, would the user lose some valuable edits they have made and used a lot of effort on?

The check-in functionality is usually left to the user on purpose since they know what's the status of the files they are editing and whether they are ready to be saved to the server.

One alternative would be to identify the objects, then perhaps message (Teams/Email/whatever) the author to prompt them.  I'd still be wary of this approach though - it sounds like a way to annoy everyone!

Thankyou both this has given me some things to think about and I think I would rather look into prompting the person rather then automatically checking in the object.

Thankyou both this has given me some things to think about and I think I would rather look into prompting the person rather then automatically checking in the object.

But in case anyone is wondering how to check if an object is checked in via VAF the code is 
env.Vault.ObjectOperations.IsObjectCheckedOut(env.ObjVerEx.ObjID) which will return true or false if it is checked out or not