Use the Action Centre
The action centre is the rail on the right of the board, and it is the answer to “what needs me?”.
On a busy day it is the only part of the board a controller strictly needs. Everything on it is a vehicle that a person has to decide something about.
Who can do this: Workshop Controllers, Location Managers, Org Admins and Account Owners. Service Advisors see it but have fewer actions.
Opening it
The rail starts collapsed, so the floor gets the width. Collapsed, it still shows a count of urgent items — nothing is hidden to save space.
Tap Act now to expand it. Tap it again to collapse.
The five lenses, and the order to work them
Needs action — work this first
Everything that needs a decision now, ranked with the soonest promise at the top.
| Reason | What to do |
|---|---|
| Promise passed … ago | Call the customer. Then decide whether to expedite or re-promise |
| Promise in … | The best moment to act. Reassign, expedite, or ring before it becomes an apology |
| Allocated time passed · promise still safe | Check in on the job. No customer impact yet |
| Failed QA · back to rework | Make sure it has landed with the right person |
| Paused … — will overrun by … | Chase whatever the pause is waiting on |
| Assigned … ago — not started | Find out why nobody has begun |
Unblock — work this second, it is the cheapest win
Finished vehicles still occupying bays. Each row is capacity you are not using, and clearing it takes one tap.
Hand over from the row. The bay frees immediately.
Could not schedule — work this in the morning
Vehicles the day could not fit, each with a reason and how long it has been waiting.
Deal with these early. A vehicle that cannot be placed at 08:30 is a customer conversation you can still have well; the same vehicle at 16:00 is an apology.
A vehicle you resumed after moving it out of its bay also waits here, reading Back from storage. Use Assign on the row: the bay it came out of is already selected for you.
Rows are ordered by promise time first, then by how long they have been waiting — so nothing is placed ahead of a customer who was promised earlier.
→ When a car could not be scheduled
Waiting and In progress — mostly look, do not work
Waiting is the queue of vehicles not yet started. In progress is what is on the floor.
These two lenses are for orientation. If something in them needs action, it will appear in Needs action.
The one exception is a vehicle marked “In storage” — a paused car that was moved out of its bay so the bay could be used. It sits under In progress because the job is still open, and it is the one row in these two lenses that carries an action. Each shows the pause reason, how long it has been waiting, the bay it came out of, and your note about where it is parked:
In storage · Out of Bay 3 · side lot, row 2
Press Resume when whatever it was waiting for arrives.
A vehicle in storage does not count towards the urgent number, because nothing is going wrong — it is waiting on purpose, where you put it. It is on the rail so it cannot be forgotten, not to demand attention.
Acting on a row
Each row offers the actions available for that vehicle:
| Action | Use when |
|---|---|
| Reassign | The work should go to a different bay and technician |
| Swap tech | The bay is right, the person is not |
| Override bay | The technician is right, the bay is not |
| Assign | The vehicle has no bay yet and you want to place it |
| Deliver | The work is done and the customer is taking it |
| Review / Open | You need the full detail before deciding |
| Resume | The vehicle was moved out of its bay and whatever it was waiting for has arrived |
| Re-plan | Ask for the vehicle to be placed again |
| Acknowledge | You have seen it and are choosing to leave it |
Acknowledge is not a way of clearing the list. Use it when you have genuinely decided to leave something — a customer who has agreed to wait, a vehicle you know is being collected late. Using it to silence rows you have not dealt with turns the action centre into a thing people stop reading.
Working a busy morning: a worked example
Sharma Motors, Mumbai — eleven bays, 09:15 on a Monday.
Priya opens the action centre. Seven urgent.
Two under Needs action with breached promises. Both are Saturday’s carry-over work that was promised for first thing. She opens each, sees the stage detail, and rings both customers before doing anything else — 09:15 is a workable conversation, 11:00 is not.
Three showing “promise in …” between 40 and 90 minutes. One is a straightforward service running slightly behind; she leaves it. Two are behind a single overrunning job, so she swaps the technician on the overrunning one to bring it in.
One “assigned 35 minutes ago — not started”. She walks out and finds the vehicle is still in the customer car park. Two minutes of walking that the board saved her forty minutes of not knowing about.
Under Unblock, three finished vehicles. She hands over two; the third is being collected at noon, so she leaves it and knows why.
Total time: about eight minutes. She has not looked at the other eight bays, because nothing on them needed her.
When the lenses are empty
Empty lenses say so plainly — “Nothing needs action right now”, “Everything has been scheduled”. An empty action centre on a busy floor is the normal, correct state, and it means the plan is holding.
Common questions
Something disappeared from Needs action without me doing anything. The condition resolved — the technician started the job, the pause was updated, the promise was moved. The change feed shows what happened.
Why is a vehicle in Needs action when it is fine? Read the reason on the row. “Allocated time passed · promise still safe” is a workshop signal, not a customer one, and often needs nothing.
Can I filter the action centre? The lenses are the filter. To narrow the floor itself, use the board filter for zones and status.
Everything is urgent every day. That is usually a configuration signal rather than a busy shop: catalogue durations too optimistic, promises all set to closing time, or check-in timings too tight. Start with estimation accuracy in analytics.
Service Advisors cannot see some actions. Correct — reassigning a technician and overriding a bay belong to controllers and above.
A vehicle is under In progress but nobody is working on it. Check whether it reads In storage. That means it was paused and moved out of its bay — the job is open, the vehicle is parked, and the row tells you where. Press Resume when it can go back to work.
I pressed Resume and the vehicle moved to Could not schedule. That is correct. A vehicle that gave up its bay has to be given one again, and the bay it left may now be busy. It waits there until you place it — one tap on Assign, with its old bay already selected.