The Power of Automating Fleet Data

There’s only so much time in the workday to do so much. For many, it’s consumed quickly with top priority projects, daily tasks, and “putting out fires”. What if there was a way to eliminate a lot of the daily task work so you could spend time on ways to improve different aspects of your fleet operation? Fortunately there is through automation.

Things that could be automated within fleet management software would include: emails being sent for upcoming preventive maintenance, the generation and sending of any type of report, or to simply send a notification anytime something happens within the software.

In order to help customers be as productive as possible, Collective Data software has invested a great deal into automating as many things as possible.

Automate report generation and sending

exception-reportingGood fleet management systems will include a wide-variety of useful reports for managing a fleet. But, typically you’d have to run the report manually in the system and then email it to whoever needs it. On a busy day, what if you didn’t have time to run the report and send it out to everyone? What if you wanted to only run a report if costs exceeded a certain amount for each department? These are just a couple situations that would easily be solved through automation. The end goal would to have the software do as much work for you as possible, so you could focus on doing other things…not running reports to find information.

In Collective Data’s System Event Notifications enhancement option, reports can be automatically generated and sent via email to the appropriate person on a specific time period or when certain thresholds or “exceptions” are met. The report will continue to be emailed on a time period, determined by the user, until there are no longer any items exceeding their exceptions. Here are a few examples of what could be done:

  1. Parts to Reorder – Shows a list of all parts that have fallen below the reorder threshold. This would automatically send the email report off in any schedule (daily, weekly, etc.) and would continue to be sent until there are no longer any parts that need to be reordered.
  1. Parts on Inactive Equipment (Obsolete Parts) – This report will be sent when a part exists in inventory but has only been used on vehicles that are inactive. This is a great way to remove old inventory and help recoup some costs.
  1. Outdated Equipment Meters – This report will get sent when a vehicle’s meter hasn’t been updated within a certain number of days (determined by the user). This is critical to make sure meter data is updated frequently and helps drive better preventive maintenance compliance.
  1. Standard Vs. Actual Time – Work codes within the system have a standard work time assigned to them by the user. Anytime actual labor times exceed this standard by a certain amount (determined by the user), a report will be sent with information related to that work that was done.
  1. Scheduled Work Performance – After exceeding a certain threshold, this report will be automatically emailed showing how early or late (in days or meters) your services are being performed.
  1. Equip Out of Service – Automatically sends an email report on a set time period (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) with equipment that is out of service with detailed information related to it.

Automation of these reports happens all in the background and without any user interaction with the software. It just requires a little setting up in advance to determine the parameters.

Be notified when any type of event happens in the software

notifyIf you can avoid having to search or send information manually, then you’ll obviously have more time to do other things. The System Event Notifications enhancement option also allows users to easily set up emails that get sent based on any event in the software. These are emails created by the user to include the subject line and the content itself. This would not send a report as mentioned earlier…it’s a way to simply inform people when something happens. This could be literally a thousand different possibilities and could be different for any organization. Here are some examples:

  1. Anytime a request for maintenance is sent to the fleet management system, an email can be configured to send to the shop supervisor. This would eliminate any need to log into the system to check for requests. You could be informed anywhere you are and easily forward the information onto the appropriate people.
  1. If a work order is scheduled in the system, automatically send an email informing the driver. This would save time by removing the need to manually send an email or contact the driver to let them know each time.
  1. When a work order is completed, notify the driver. Same as #2… you’ll save time because the process would be automated.
  1. Send an email to a supervisor when the number of preventive maintenance items are overdue by a certain level. This will allow you to set where you want to be and if things start falling behind you’ll know about it when it happens.
  1. Be informed when a vehicle has been out of service for a certain period of time. Perhaps that vehicle got missed? Why is it delayed? This simple email lets you know of something that you might not have known about. You’ll now have the chance to find the cause and take action.
  1. Send an email containing information on a part that has had a “waiting on parts” status longer than a certain number of days or hours. This could help in determining if your part supplier is taking longer than you’d like for deliveries.

Conclusion

As you can see, a powerful fleet management system like Collective Data’s should have the ability to automate and monitor the data as much as possible. You need to know when things are happening, but you shouldn’t have to always be logged in or actively search for specific things. With automatic emails and reports going out to everyone that needs them, productivity will skyrocket and you’ll be more informed about issues and other information.

Think about anything you’d like to be notified about when it happens within your fleet. How do find out that information now? How much time would it save you to not have to look for it but wait for it to occur and receive an email notifying you of the item?

That’s the power of automationletting the software find and deliver more information for you in the background so you have more time to do the things that software can’t do.

 

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