A couple of new things to blog about this week, one is sort of minor and the other is more significant.

First the minor item: We loaded up a bunch of car recalls. The joy of being a startup is that sometimes things that may seem simple end up being more complex than they probably appear. Over the last few weeks we made some very significant changes to our database structure which gave us a lot more flexibility as we add new schedules and recalls. What prompted our having to make these changes was a significant change in the model of the data we have been receiving from our data provider (no, we don’t create the schedules on our own). Making the changes temporarily delayed our ability to add new car schedules and recalls but now that the changes are done we have a lot more flexibility to adjust to any future changes that may arise (and we have no doubt they will). In any case, this week we added a batch of recalls we received and we expect another batch over the next few weeks.

The more significant change we made this week was the ability to add a 2008 model car. As you’ll see in the example below, a 2008 will still be considered “custom” as we dont yet have any 2008 schedules but the process is pretty straightforward and in most cases any car you add will have a schedule assigned that should be pretty close to the correct one - certainly close enough to have little to no negative impact. Here is the process:

First, when adding any car, the first thing you do is go to My Cars/Add a Car. From the drop down, select Model Year “2008″ and then pick the make of car you are adding which in our example is a Scion. You will then notice that the Model Name drop down wont have anything to choose from. The reason is, as explained above, we do not yet have 2008 schedules. This is not a problem though as you can still add your car by checking on the “Model not here” checkbox which will then also check on the “Engine not here” checkbox and display a drop down box of schedules we have that are a close enough match. You then fill out what car you have which in our example is a tC with a 4cyl, 2.4 liter DOHC VVT-i. Then from the other schedule drop down, ServiceBeacon displayed schedules that are a close match and in this case we selected the 2007 Scion tC schedule. Note that in some cases, a user may see this drop down if we have all other information for the car except for the actual schedule.

Once you complete adding the car, you’ll be taken to Manage My Cars which will confirm that your car was successfully created. You will also see that in the area where it says “Schedule Type” it says “Alternate Schedule”. If it was the 2008 Scion schedule this would say “OEM Schedule”.

A couple of final points on what happens when we get the OEM schedule. Right now the Switch to OEM Schedule button is disabled. This button will become active when we load up an OEM Schedule that we believe is the correct one and will then walk the user through the process of confirming whether you want to switch to the new schedule we have identified.

The other place you will get notified of an OEM schedule being loaded that is a close match for your car on an alternate schedule is on the Dashboard page in the messages area for that car. You’ll notice that right now nothing is displayed as we currently do not have that schedule.

Hopefully this all makes sense. If it doesn’t or our process is more confusing then it should be, please let us know.

Until next time, thanks for reading our blog!

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