Start an Engagement
Starting an engagement takes less than two minutes. At the end of these steps, you will be in the Canvas with the Engagement Profile open, ready to describe the dealership and the presenting problem.
Who can do this: Consultants and Account Owners.
Open the New Engagement panel
From the Engagements home screen, click + New engagement in the top-right corner.
The panel that opens has two stages: finding or creating the dealership, then choosing the audit form.
Find or create the dealership
The dealership search box appears first. Type the dealership name to search your workspace’s existing records.
If the dealership already exists: Select it from the results. The panel shows it as a selected record and moves to the form chooser.
If the dealership does not exist yet: Type the name and click + Create “[name]” or + Create new dealership at the bottom of the results. This opens the dealership creation form.
If you see a “similar dealership” warning: A dealership with a similar name already exists. Open the existing record and check whether it is the same dealership before creating a new one. Duplicate records cause confusion across your team.
Create the dealership (if needed)
The creation form has four groups of fields:
Identity
- Trading name (required) — the name that appears on the report and the engagement list
- Legal entity name — defaults to the trading name if left blank
- Country (required) — sets the default reporting currency automatically
- City — used in the dealership’s region label on engagement cards
Commercial
- Currency — pre-filled from the country selection; override if needed
- Fiscal year starts — the month the dealership’s fiscal year begins
Operation
- Brand(s) — comma-separated, e.g. “Toyota, Lexus” or “Nissan”
- Dealership type — New + Service, Service-only, Multi-brand independent, or Body & paint specialist
Dealer Principal
- Name — appears on the signed report
- Email — for reference; not used to send the report automatically
Fill in what you know. You can update any field later from the dealership record.
Click Create dealership. The panel returns to the engagement flow with your new dealership selected.
The country you select determines the default currency for all findings in this engagement. At Sharma Motors in Mumbai, selecting India defaults the currency to INR. At Santos Body Works in São Paulo, selecting Brazil defaults to BRL. You can override the currency in the dealership creation form if needed.
Choose the audit form
With the dealership selected, the form chooser appears:
Short — rapid health-check. Covers the priority stages most likely to surface material findings quickly. Use this for initial assessments, follow-up visits, or situations where time on-site is limited.
Long — full lifecycle audit. Covers all 15 sections across the five phases: Acquire, Engage, Service, Retain, and Roll-Up. Use this for a complete engagement.
Select the form that fits the scope of work.
If you are unsure, choose Long. You can exclude any section from the report later with one click — it is faster to remove sections you do not need than to add them back in a Short form engagement.
Click Start
Click Start →. The Canvas opens at the Engagement Profile & Objective stage — the first stage in every audit.
Complete the Engagement Profile
The Engagement Profile is the foundation of the audit. Describe the dealership and the presenting problem in your own words — the way you would in a briefing note or an introductory email.
Example for Al Faris Motors, Dubai:
“12 bays, 22 technicians, Nissan franchise in Jebel Ali Free Zone. Monthly RO volume roughly 800. Monthly service labour revenue around AED 380,000. Client was referred by the OEM dealer development team. Presenting problem: service retention has collapsed since the 8-to-12 bay expansion last year. Walk-ins are not converting to regulars. Service manager has been in place 4 months.”
Write naturally. Lens extracts key indicators — bay count, technician count, monthly RO volume, currency, market — from your description automatically and populates the Key Indicators block below the text area.
After writing the profile, review the Key Indicators block:
- Check that the extracted values are correct
- Edit any figures that were inaccurate
- Add indicators Lens did not capture (advisors, CSI score, monthly inflow, powertrain mix)
- Toggle “verified” on figures you know to be accurate from hard data; leave “est.” on estimates
Common questions
Can I change the audit form after starting? No — the form is fixed when the engagement is created. The sections snapshot from the template at that point. If you need different sections, exclude the ones that do not apply from the Section Rail.
Can I change the dealership after starting? No — the dealership is fixed when the engagement is created. If you selected the wrong dealership, you will need to create a new engagement for the correct one.
What if the presenting problem is not clear yet? Write what you know — even “service operation not hitting plan targets, investigating root cause” is a valid start. You can update the profile text as you learn more during the engagement. The Key Indicators update automatically each time you save.
Can I come back to the Engagement Profile later? Yes. The Engagement Profile is always accessible from the Section Rail. Update it as often as you need — each save creates a new document version with your latest description.