One of the most frequently requested enhancements we have received is the ability for users to add their pre-signup maintenance service history to ServiceBeacon. Their reasons for asking for this enhancement can, for the most part, be divided into two categories:

1. They want their service history to be complete and capture everything they have done on the car, including service performed prior to signing up.
• Basically they want a way to take all their service records out of their glove compartment and quickly capture that information electronically in ServiceBeacon.
2. They needed a way to tell ServiceBeacon when they are really due for service next.
• The idea here is allow you to set up ServiceBeacon’s service schedule to match exactly what is due. ServiceBeacon makes assumptions about your car and when you did your service. Using Service History, you can align your real service with that of ServiceBeacon.

The new service history system accomplishes both request very nicely:

First, the user can enter all their service history - it creates an order which is immediately completed and posted to the car’s service history, bypassing the normal order completion step that occurs in the regular order creation process.

Second, the service history will affect the current maintenance schedule IF a service item added to a particular service history order fall within the next service interval for that particular service item. Here is an example of how and why this is needed and works:

A user creates a new car, e.g. a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer, and puts in the mileage as 2900 miles. The first interval on the maintenance schedule is at 3000 miles so the system just creates the car and new schedule and assumes that service is due in 100 miles. But what if the user went in a little early and did their service last week at 2800 miles? Now the car is not really due for service in 100 miles — it is now really due in another 3000 miles (from when they did service at 2800 miles) at 5800 miles as opposed to the 2nd interval which by default is 6000 miles. So the service history system allows the user to enter the service performed at 2800 miles and because it is within the service interval range (3000 miles) it knows to push all those items out to when they are really next due.

You can find the service history enhancement under My Service as Create Service History.

One other enhancement that is now at least partly in place is the ability to capture the cost of the service.

This was missing from the first release of complete service order so when we added service history we added a Cost field to both the service history and regular complete service order pages. We plan to add some new reporting features on Manage My Cars which will add up all the costs and show them there.

That’s it for now — thanks as always to all our users who keep sending in ideas for enhancements! A lot more things coming soon so look for more posts in the coming weeks.

Team SB

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Happy New Year!

Over the last few weeks we introduced a new help system for ServiceBeacon and implemented another two dozen or so fixes and minor enhancements to make things run a little more smoothly. A lot of the fixes were reported by users — we really appreciate it as reporting them not only helps the user who reported the issue but it helps anyone else who otherwise would have encountered it later.

A few words about the help system: When we first launched ServiceBeacon, we had a very static help system at the top of each page. It served its purpose but it was not exactly cutting edge and based on the questions we would get, probably generally ignored. The new help system is hopefully a little more inviting and user friendly and will really help users get a good handle on how to best use ServiceBeacon. If you have not yet tried it out, give it a go by clicking on the “Help” link at the top of any page within the application. Let us know what you think and how we can improve it!

Some other fixes are a little more subtle. Here are some of them:

1. We changed the login link to an image in the main navigation. A few people reported that the old text link version really was hard to find. Hopefully the new one is a little harder to miss.
2. We changed the way the server messages appear. An example of a server message is “Invalid login information” on the login page. The old version of the server messages looked too much like regular text and too easily missed. The new look is, we hope, going to grab a user’s attention and get the point across a lot better.
3. Some really small stuff got fixed like some font issues, a page caching issue, etc… In and of themselves nothing huge but the cumulative effect made for some frustrations.

That’s it for now. We are very close to launching the history system for users who want to enter service they did prior to sign up. Look for that to come in the next week or two.

Thanks and if you have any feedback or other suggestions, please send them in!

SB

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Thanks again to all the users who have contacted us with requests for enhancements and new ideas, as well as letting us know if something isn’t working quite right. One thing is for sure is we have some amazingly smart and creative users!!

We thought at this point it would be a good idea to let everyone know what is happening with fixes and what is coming with enhancements
First some fixes:

• Some users have reported some issues where they made a change or did something like create a service order and then they wouldnt see it anywhere. For example, they would create an order and then they would not see it on the open orders page. We think it is a caching issue some browsers are having and we believe we have resolved that issue now. If you experience any similar issue, please let us know!
• Some users have reported not getting the email to confirm their registration. We believe that there are two reasons for this:
1. The email does not show up as quickly as they expect they think something is wrong. For most people the email should in fact arrive pretty much right away. For others though it may take a little while - maybe as long as ten or fifteen minutes. That’s just the way the Internet works sometimes, not much we can do about it unfortunately.
2. The other issue is that some spam filters are taking the registration email and then people end up not seeing it at all. This is something we are going to try and fix and we are already taking steps to help the matter. That said, there are some super aggressive spam filtering systems and we wont be able to help all our outbound emails from going to your inbox instead of your spam folder. So it you were expecting an email and it doesnt arrive, check there.
• We have had a few users who are trying to register email to say the system is telling them their email is already on file even though they have never registered before. We are going to change some stuff on the signup page to make sure users know they registered and to check the email, including their spam folder. We think there are two possible explanations for the issue occuring:
1. Users get trigger happy and hit the signup button twice. The first time sends the registration and then they push it again and get the warning.
2. A similar possible reason is the user signs up, doesn’t get the registration confirmation email as expected (as quickly as they thought or it goes to spam) so they think their registration failed and then they try and register again and get the warning.
• We had a user report an issue where they selected items from step 3 of add a car — the missed service items step for used cars. He created an order with just items from that step and it did not update his service schedule. That is now fixed so if anyone experiences a similar issue, please let us know.

Now some of the stuff that is coming (and approximately when):

• Some users said they would like us to better identify the login link.
1. We have some designs created for that and should have a new graphical version done and on the site by next week.
• We have had a number of requests for more info related to the recalls we show so they can talk to their dealer about them in detail.
1. Based on the feedback we got we are going to be changing a number of things related to the recalls section. Among the changes, we are going to start showing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) number and the issue date of the recall. This change should go online tonight.
2. In addition, we are also going to see if we can figure out how to link to that particular recall on the NHTSA site itself. This may or may not be feasible but we plan to try.
• The ability to enter previously performed service.
1. Once we get past some of the critical issues, this is going to be a super high priority. It’s not a hard one to do so hopefully we get it online in the next week or two.
2. In addition, this is going to help a secondary issue which is have the system setup based on what was done when the car was last serviced. For example, if you tell the system your car has 54,000 miles, the schedule will setup based on that mileage. If the next service interval is at 55,000 miles, the system will show you are due for service in 1000 miles (55,000 miles less your current 54,000 miles). That is fine unless you just serviced your car and are not due until 58,000 miles. So to get the system to say you arent due until 58,000 miles the way to do it is to enter the last service that was performed.
1. There is a way to resolve this today but it just isnt as obvious as it should be: Just create an order with what was done and save it with the mileage it was performed at and the schedule will adjust itself.
• A time based option for service.
1. We have had this request and it makes good sense. Right now the system tracks when service should be done based on mileage. We are going to add a time based system so that the system says, for example, you should do your oil within 5,000 miles or 6 months, whichever comes first. We have to figure out how long this will take us to write and test but hopefully it is pretty quick.
• Ask users up front how many miles/km they expect to drive the car per year.
1. Pretty basic request and something we should be able to add pretty quickly.
• Have a better help system.
1. We have a help system now but the new one is going to be far superior. We are working on it now and it is on its way.

There are some other things on the list but these seem to be the most pressing ones. If you submitted an idea and don’t see it listed here, dont worry, we kept track of all of them and I dont believe we excluded a single idea from our to do list.

Thanks,

SB

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Hello Everyone,

Well, time for a little maintenance on the application.  In order to do what we need to do to keep the site humming, we are going to shut off  logins and sign-ups for a couple of hours.  The shutdown is scheduled to occur on Thursday, November 8th, between 4:30am and 6:30am EST.

On a lighter note (if you have made it this far down the post), we really have had amazing feedback and ideas from tons of users this week.  Please keep the ideas coming!

In addition, we’ve had some users help us debug some issues we had not previously encountered.  Thank you for helping make the system work better for everyone!

SB

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We are launching the first part of what is essentially the other half of ServiceBeacon - the side that really empowers dealers to use ServiceBeacon to take better care of their customers, market products and services to them effectively, and really create a strong relationship with their customer after the car gets driven off the lot. If you are from a car dealership and visiting our blog for the first time, we encourage you to check out our car dealership benefits page to get an understanding of what ServiceBeacon can do for you and your customers.

In addition, in an earlier post we talked about the fact that we have over 15,000 US and Canadian car dealerships preloaded into ServiceBeacon. If you represent a car dealership, please take some time to check out our map of car dealers (btw - even if you aren’t from a car dealership, the map is pretty cool and fun to play with) to see if a) we have your dealership loaded already, b) the information we have is correct, and c) take the time to get in touch with us and “claim” your dealership within our system. Claiming your dealership is free and will allow us to work with you to ensure that we have the right business name, address, phone, fax, website, contact person and email information for your dealership. We will also be capturing other information like hours of operation and the makes of cars you sell as this information helps control how your dealership appears within ServiceBeacon. If you cant find your dealership at all, we will be happy to add it - we are trying hard to add as many dealerships as possible (hopefully one day all of them), but finding a truly complete list has been next to impossible.

In time, the system is going to have other benefits to car dealers and your customers, but for now, claiming your dealership and confirming we have you correctly reflected in the application is a great start.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.

As always,

SB

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This is the first in a number of blog entries discussing some of the interesting technology and implementation methods used in the ServiceBeacon application.

Recently, we have added a car dealership map allowing people to find their car dealer in the system. To accurately map the locations and place dealership markers, we needed a mapping tool with geocoding capability. For those unfamiliar with the term “geocoding”, it describes the method of converting street address information into a global latitude/longitude combination. Some systems also produce a standardized format of the address which can be loaded back into the calling system. For companies dealing with mapping or with questionable address information, this technology can be a great tool. To provide that functionality for ServiceBeacon, we chose Google Maps and their geocoding functionality.

Why Google Maps? The technology is very powerful, response times are good, and most importantly, it can accurately discern different address formats which is great when your address quality is suspect.

While Google Maps and its geocoding abilities are quite powerful, it does have its own drawbacks. The number of addresses you can simultaneously geocode is limited. If you try to send too many requests (more than 10 in a short timespan), the application will start to respond to those additional locations with an error. This forces you to resend or delay in sending the address information. There is also a limit to the number of geocoding address you can do in a day. We have seen a site report the number is around 15,000 but we have not been able to confirm it. Lastly, while the response time is short, it still takes time to do the work. This means your user has to wait while the page starts to fill with markers as you geocode each location.

These drawbacks may not be problematic for some companies who have 10-20 locations to map but ServiceBeacon already has over 15,000 dealerships across North America and each person can try to view all of them every day. If we didn’t implement a strategy to reduce the data traffic, our site would quickly get bogged down in geocoding calls and maybe hit the upper daily limit.
To reduce the effect of these limitations and increase speed, we implemented an interesting strategy. Given the over 15,000 car dealership locations (and rising) we may have to map on a daily basis, we implemented a “check once, show many” strategy. The database has a flag determining if the address needs to be geocoded or not. If a dealership address has already been geocoded, the accurate latitude/longitude is sent to Google Maps and the dealership is marked. This happens quickly and is a JavaScript call locally to the web client. If it requires geocoding, the system sends the address via a JavaScript call to Google for analysis. Once returned, the information is mapped. Here is the interesting part. The address information including the accurate latitude/longitude pair is sent back to the database via an AJAX call. This allows the ServiceBeacon database to be updated with accurate data and also set the geocoded flag. This means only the first requester of that dealership is slowed down as it is geocoded. All other users will see the marker instantaneously. Another great feature of this model is as new dealerships get added or existing dealerships move, the system sets the flag to needing geocoding and when that dealership is requested, the new data seamlessly updates itself.

If you want to see it in action, try it out here. If you have any comments, please submit them as we are always interested in hearing from our car community.

More technology blogs to come….

The SB Team

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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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A new set of maintenance schedules went online today along with that promised batch of dealerships (see yesterday’s post). 220 new schedules got added along with IDs for 181 cars. The majority of the new batch was for 2007 model cars. A big upload of recalls will be going online in the next day or so. The other big change that is coming is support for the 2008s so look for that in the coming days/week.

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A couple of weeks have gone by since our last post and a number of changes have been made to the application to tidy things up and in a couple of cases, repair some issues. Fortunately none of the issues were major.

1) We fixed an issue where if a service order was too big, it would break the order and cause it not to get emailed to the car dealer.

2) We were finding that some email clients (e.g. Gmail) was corrupting car transfer emails.

3) We added some new buttons in the open service order area - we think they are way nicer looking than the text links we replaced them with.

4) We also fixed the buttons in manage my cars so they change colors. This might sound pretty trivial but there is actually a ton going on within the page and getting it to work correctly was not so simple.

We made some other minor changes here and there and we have quite a few more on the way over the next few weeks. We expect the tour to be finished an uploaded shortly too - keeping our fingers crossed that it will be within the next week or two!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by and if you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve ServiceBeacon please don’t be shy and let us know!

(more…)

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