📝 How do I set up the Loan Car Diary?

Question

How do I set up the Loan Car Diary?

Answer

To set up the loan car diary options first of all we will need to complete some parameters. The first is to enable. If you navigate to Workshop – Parameters – Parameters and select the General 2 tab you will see the Loan Car Diary tick box, enabling this will turn on the option.

When you have made your changes hit ‘Accept’ to save. Once this is done then go to Workshop > Parameters > Admin - Tick 'loan car by marketing vehicle'. Then navigate to the Loan Car diary tab;

Here you have the following things to set up;

Unavailable Reasons

Here set up the different reasons that will be available to select when marking a loan car as unavailable. For example, we have here ‘Service’ and ‘Technician Training’.

Loan Car Turn Around Time

Here you can set the time in minutes that will be added on to the end of each booking to give enough time for the vehicle to be valeted and made ready for the next booking. 

Working Hours

Here you have the option to set the times between that the vehicle will be available to be booked each day of the week. It is important that these are set as no vehicle will appear on the diary unless these are, if you are running a 24hr workshop and would like to make bookings available throughout then start time should be 00:00 and end time should be 23:55.

When you are happy with the changes hit ‘Accept’ to save.

Once you have completed this you can then set up the vehicles that will appear in your loan car diary. Navigate to Workshop – Parameters – Loan Cars – Vehicle Information;

In this screen you can set up the vehicles that you wish to have appear in the loan car diary. You can amend the details of any existing vehicles or add a new one. If you hit Add you will be given this pop up;

From here search for the vehicle Reg of the car you wish to add locate the CRM record of this vehicle. Single click on the correct record and hit accept

You will then be presented with a second pop up populated with the vehicles details and then asking for availability for the vehicle – what date the vehicle will start appearing on the diary and what date this will end.

Note that one a vehicle is added to this screen you are unable to remove this, if you no longer wish for a vehicle to appear on the loan car diary then you can amend and change the end date to the date you wish the vehicle to be removed and it will no longer show. You must ensure there are no outstanding bookings for this vehicle before you can do this.

You also have the option to set a vehicle as unavailable for a certain date or set of dates for maintenance or repair, navigate to Workshop – Parameters – Loan Cars – Unavailable Dates.

You will see that the screen automatically sets to the current date but you can navigate forwards or backward to a desired date using the calendar icon.  You can see in the screen any vehicles that are unavailable for that date and the start and end date, the reason and any relevant notes.

To mark a vehicle as unavailable hit the Add button and you will be given a pop up with a list of your current loan vehicles, single click on and hit accept and you will be given a second pop up for further details;

Enter the start date and the time the vehicle will be unavailable from, then enter the end date and time (this could be the same day or for multiple days). Select the unavailable reason from the list (these are what have been set up in the parameters) and then add any relevant notes. Once you are happy with the changes hit accept, this will update the diary and make the car unavailable.

You have the option to create a loan car declaration that is supplied to the customer when a loan car is booked. Navigate to Workshop – Parameters – Loan Cars – Documents to set this up;

Hitting New will open the following pop up

Process

From the drop down menu select ‘Loan Car Documents’

Document Name

Enter the name of the document

Document Type

This is set as Word Document (Note; you will need Word 2003 or above)

Category

This is set as All

Description

Enter a brief description of the document content.

Once you have completed those fields hit save and you will be given the following window;

Within this screen you have three options available;

Edit Document

This allows the document to be edited or viewed

Edit Document Summary

This option re-opens the document summary screen where the name or description can be uploaded

Document Check Lists

Shows the list of documents

To create a new document, select Edit Document and this will open Microsoft Word. Within work enter the required narrative to the document, select the inset merge field button to display fields taken from the system and enter these fields at appropriate points. The document can also contain branding and images if required.

Once the document is ready click the save icon (or file and save). Once the document is saved the Manage Document Summary window will be displayed again.

If more than one document is created, then the system will use the most recent version.

The loan car form will now be available when the customer’s vehicle is received into the workshop and job card printed. If the job is then amended, it will prompt to reprint loan car form again.