How do I add advisories to a workshop job?
Contents
Summary
The aim of the advisory work section of the Workshop is to enable the logging of work which is potentially required on units in order that this information can be used in the future to encourage unit owners to have this work done when required.
More Information
 | Units: Unit is a general term used to cover all types of vehicle and machinery, including items such as motorcycles, scooters, cars, trucks, vans, caravans, motorhomes, boats, tractors, ATVs, agricultural equipment, wholegoods and construction equipment. |
The workshop advisory system is fully integrated into the software so that as much of the process as is possible can be automated. Information is gathered and stored with the minimum of effort.
Advisory information stored should include all work that is expected to be required to the unit prior to its next scheduled service.
It is envisaged that the following workflow is followed although it is possible to disable features and also to log information on an "ad hoc" basis. Elements of the advisory work system can be selectively enabled or disabled as required via the Workshop Settings option.
Advisory items can be given appropriate priority and an estimated date of action being required.
Should the customer choose not to arrange remedial work immediately then the customer can be reminded of the problem and need for action via the retention centre in a similar way to service or MOT work required.
Creating Advisories
- See How do I record unit health checks? for details on how use Platinum Online to record results of a unit check or to manually record results against a unit record.
 | Results other than 'Pass' will create advisory records against the unit. |
Alternatively from a current workshop jobcard:
- Make sure the Customer and Unit have been added to the jobcard.
- Click [Advisories].
- Click [Add].
- Enter a "Problem Code" relevant to the issue (e.g. LEA - Leak) or use the drop down button to select a code. See this article to create a new code.
- Set the "Priority" for the issue.
- Select 'Immediate', 'Urgent' or 'Advisory'.
- Enter a short note to explain the problem.
- Enter the Timescale for resolving the issue.
- Use either "Remaining" mileage or "Time Remaining" in days or months or you may enter both.
- Unless you are dealing with this issue on the current jobcard, leave "Job" blank.
- "Remedial action" should not be completed until the corrective work has been carried out.
- Click [Done] and [Accept] the new advisory.
Allocating Advisories to Jobcards
Go to " Workshop Workshop Diary".
- Click [Add] to create a new jobcard or search for an existing job.
- Enter the customer and unit details.
| If you wish to record estimated costs against advisories, enter the parts and labour required for the work on the [Estimate] tab of the jobcard - see How do I create a workshop estimate? for more information on creating estimates. |
- On the [Details] tab of the jobcard, click [Advisories] to take you to the "Workshop Advisory Work" screen.
- Select the advisory to allocate to this job.
- Click [Allocate].
- To select which estimated costs to allocate to this advisory, click [Select].
- Select each line and click [Allocate] to include that item as part of the estimated value for the advisory.
- To allocate all estimated costs to the current advisory, click [Allocate] and [All].
- To allocate an advisory to a job without estimating costs, enter the advisory prior to listing parts and labour.
- Click [Allocate] and [All].
 | [Un-Allocate] will unlink the selected advisory from the current job. [Remove] would delete the advisory from the unit altogether. |
You may now carry out the work and process the job as normal.
Print Advisory Report
You may wish to print a list of advisories for your customer.
- From within the jobcard, click [Advisories].
- Select [Current] to print those advisories allocated to the current job plus unallocated advisories.
- Select [All] to print the above plus those allocated to other jobs.
| You may find your system automatically prints the 'Current' list when you print a jobcard and/or when you produce the customer invoice. This is controlled by Workshop settings. |
See also
- How do I create problem codes for workshop advisories?
- How do I stop the workshop advisory work report from printing automatically?
- How do I stop unit health check sheets from printing automatically?
- How do I change where unit health checks and advisory reports print?
- How do I do Service and MOT reminders?
