Has anyone tried using a Dry Eraser board as a large scheduler for the day?

mspecperformance · May 10, 2015

I am debating on using something like this to schedule out my day. Looking into creating a customer dry eraser board with columns and such. Has anyone used such a tool in scheduling?

UsedTireShop · May 10, 2015

Funny I was thinking the same thing on my way home from Dunkin Donuts this morning. They use this method next door to track their car sales. Automotive pin striping is great to use for the lines.

How were you planning to set it up? Daily or weekly?

mspecperformance · May 10, 2015

Daily. I guess i have to plsy around with exactly what i want on it.

rtauto3000 · May 11, 2015

We use www.setmore.com best thing we have done for scheduling it free internet based can be loaded to your smart phone, schedule months out or hrs out can have multiple techs. When someone stops you at the store and ask if you can get them in tomorrow you can just look on your phone and set them appointment right then and there. It also can be loaded to your website and allow your customer to make their own appointments only recommend that for tires, LOF or alignments stuff you can set as hrs and not your mechanical work.

alfredauto · May 14, 2015

We use a large at a glance calender. The night before I make a to do list for the next day on notebook paper. Things get done, jobs get crossed off. My tech likes it. In up down out is how its supposed to go.

carolinahigear · May 14, 2015

I use a half sheet of printer paper with a grid w/ each of the 5 techs on it. Jobs go in their grid block by customer name w/ a number beside it for order of work. Example follows:

__Buck____ ** __Jaime'_____ Buck does alignments and undercar and the time slots are usually for alignments. Jaime is General Tech who works a job til it's finished. The

8:00 Smith 1) Williams 1) other 3 techs are set up similarly. I like the half sheet of paper. It's compact, names get marked off when job is finished, and fits on the counter easily.

9:00 Jones 2) Perez 2) IMO the white boards are too big, too public, and take too much work. My half sheet is flexible, too. Jobs can be redirected to another tech without a lot of

10:00Adams 4) Owens 3) erasing, and I like the privacy of the half sheet.

11:00 Cox 3)

PAPShop · June 10, 2015

We use www.setmore.com best thing we have done for scheduling it free internet based can be loaded to your smart phone, schedule months out or hrs out can have multiple techs. When someone stops you at the store and ask if you can get them in tomorrow you can just look on your phone and set them appointment right then and there. It also can be loaded to your website and allow your customer to make their own appointments only recommend that for tires, LOF or alignments stuff you can set as hrs and not your mechanical work.

rtauto3000, what industry did you use when you set up using the program? There doesn't seem to be an automotive specific industry from the drop down box. We are looking at changing the way we schedule, and this may be something to look at.

thetireshop · June 10, 2015

I've been using one for years. I have to manage work flow for 6 techs, a lube tech, and 2 alignment techs. Makes it nice for anyone that needs to to be able to glance at the board and know what's going on. Making sure the right people are the ones updating the board is key, though.

stowintegrity · July 16, 2015

Our POS software has a scheduler, and although we don't use it in entirely the manner it's been intended, it manages to get the job done. I do, however, wish that it offered a visual (at-a-glance) demonstration of the hours booked for the day/tech. We count the hours sold against the hours our staff is able to bill out each day, but admittedly, we have a flawed, "EOD", or end-of-day completion process in play, which exaggerated the problem of have 6-8 customers all being in our lobby to pickup their cars at 4:30pm everyday.

A good friend of ours that has owned his own shop afor about 15 years has begun using the Google calendar for exactly this. It's interesting to me how he's set it up. For those of you familiar with Google calendar, he uses a different color for each of his technicians, and it gives him a quick picture of remaining time available to sell more work.

One of the things he appreciates about it is that he doesn't have to enter anything except the customer's last name in all capital letters, along with the time of the appointment. Of course, here's where I think it gets interesting...

He sets the time loosely according to what technician will be doing the service, and adjusts the timeframe to reflect the complexity of the job, as well as the relative efficiency of the tech that will be performing it. I encouraged him to use a different color, not for the different technicians, but for the relative skill level required to do the work.

He knows who can adequately perform the various types of service, and really only needs to know how many "B" hours are sold for the day, compared to how many "B" techs will be on the floor. Same goes for General Service employees knocking out inspections, or even "A" techs digging into diagnostic services.

Although I haven't used this system yet, there's something powerful, in my opinion, about being able to see a snapshot of the day's work, organized by billable time, efficiency, and talent required.

I think I've talked myself into looking into trying it for our shop, afterall.

Just one man's circular encouragement.

mspecperformance · July 16, 2015

For mitchell users, report pro through bolt on just added a advanced scheduler. It is a bit clunky right now but they are a company that constantly updates their products. In short it is what we mitchell users have wanted, a visual scheduler.

cleenyc99 · July 17, 2015

I worked in a shop that used a daily or weekly board to lay out the work. had the apts for the day and a column for eh tech listing their work with status. helps keep everyone on the same page, especially when it get supper busy. also makes it quick and ez to give customer updates when they call.

totalautocare · October 26, 2015

Google Drive. Intel from a friend who works for the largest and most successful motorsports business in the Midwest shared with me how they went from white board to that and is helping me do the same.

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totalautocare · October 26, 2015

For mitchell users, report pro through bolt on just added a advanced scheduler. It is a bit clunky right now but they are a company that constantly updates their products. In short it is what we mitchell users have wanted, a visual scheduler.

We've had serious problems with bolt on. I think they're a few years ahead with there technology and a few years behind with there functionality. Love the ideas, hate the outcome. We recently cancelled 100% of our services with them and we subscribed to ALL of them for 4 months until we bagged it.

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mspecperformance · October 26, 2015

We've had serious problems with bolt on. I think they're a few years ahead with there technology and a few years behind with there functionality. Love the ideas, hate the outcome. We recently cancelled 100% of our services with them and we subscribed to ALL of them for 4 months until we bagged it.

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I tried using the scheduler without much success. I will probably end up trying it again once they work out some bugs and design flaws. I have used their other software with tremendous success. In my opinion if you are not using a digital inspection process you are missing out on a lot of opportunity and trust building with your clients. Just my opinion.

totalautocare · October 26, 2015

I tried using the scheduler without much success. I will probably end up trying it again once they work out some bugs and design flaws. I have used their other software with tremendous success. In my opinion if you are not using a digital inspection process you are missing out on a lot of opportunity and trust building with your clients. Just my opinion.

Agreed. Pics and video are required with recommendations. Next time we talk I'll show you how we're doing it for free with less hassle.

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CarER · October 26, 2015

I use a large white board that I use for daily/weekly goals. I keep track for the week on the white board but also fill out a weekly sheet so that I have a hard copy to look at later. I think it would be a good idea for scheduling as well as long as you keep a hard copy or picture of it. (I like to pull up previous weeks and see how they look, etc.)

totalautocare · October 27, 2015

I use a large white board that I use for daily/weekly goals. I keep track for the week on the white board but also fill out a weekly sheet so that I have a hard copy to look at later. I think it would be a good idea for scheduling as well as long as you keep a hard copy or picture of it. (I like to pull up previous weeks and see how they look, etc.)

Thanks for the pic

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Marksas · October 27, 2015

We use the scheduler/Calender built into RO writer. It works well and the techs check the calendar when they clock in in the AM to see what is on the schedule for the day. Plus everyone has access to view it. We can block off times when we know a tech is going to be out or if we have some kind of training going on, or if we feel we are overbooked. We have 3-4 different people scheduling work so to using a paper calendar becomes to cumbersome.

We also use Auto Vitals to push jobs to the techs and it is very easy to see what techs have which jobs. One of the neat things about Autovitals is that I can check and see what is going on in the shop when I am away if I choose too. I can see the vehicle inspection reports the repairs, what the current statuses are as well as what techs have what jobs and which order they are scheduled to work on. I have used white boards in the past and have even installed large monitors in the shop so everyone can see what is going on.

The thing about white board is that it really is additional work and you need to have decent handwriting so that everyone can read it. You could also consider using post it notes stuck to the board instead of having to actually write on the board.

If you feel a whiteboard is the way to go, maybe an option would be putting a large monitor in the shop and maybe doing your schedule in a spreadsheet and displaying it, That way you can just drag and drop jobs very easily and it would be easily read.You could also use color coding for hot cars or VIP's. It's just a thought.

I don't want to sound like a salesperson for AutoVitals but there are some great benefits to using it. I understand there is a cost but I can tell you I pay around $1800 per year and have 5 techs, 2 service writers, admin person as well as myself using it. I would not want to go back to dispatching jobs and printing work orders. The program runs in a standard browser so it accessible from anywhere. We purchased the most inexpensive ipad mini's and a $15 colorful childs case for them and have yet to damage one, we have been using them for 2 years. The techs then have complete vehicle history at their fingertips as well as any declined service items from previous visits. They know if their parts have arrived as well as whether jobs have been approved, without having to track down a service writer. They also have Alldata, Motoview, and identifix at their fingertips. It's about keeping them in their bays where they produce and giving them all the information they need. It cuts down on the service writer going back and forth from the office as well as the techs. It also keeps us from having to decode hieroglyphics (tech handwriting). We preload various conditions based upon the job so the tech doesn't have to type or do text to speech. We monitor if a tech is having to type the same thing on various jobs and if we see some consistency then we preload it into the system as select-able text from a dropdown.

We also use Demand Force which picks up on our calendar appointments. We have it set to send appointment reminder texts or emails to our customers at various times. This works extremely well and it makes it easy for our customers to notify us of any schedule changes without ever calling us. I have found most people rarely cancel but they do request to change an appointment. I am not that thrilled with Demand Force but I like the appointment requests as well as followup that is automatic and takes no effort on our part. We used to use Customer Link and loved their marketing and demographics information. When they were purchased by Demand Force they best things they were doing went away.

Consider the time you are going to spend updating a whiteboard and who will update if you are not there. For a shop that is not high volume or only has one or two people scheduling the work then it would work fine. I like to think about how scale-able is what we are doing as well as how easy is it to train someone else to do it, and can we duplicate it easily. I also understand that all these options have a cost associated with them and a shop may not be in a position and just may not want to commit the funds towards the technology.

meowpox · November 12, 2015

We thought about whiteboard but still havent used it. I think it would be a nice addition to what we already do (below) because it would be a better visual, but ended up being too repetitive.

We use Google Calendar for the appts, and all 4 of our techs have their own company email so we share that calendar so they can all see it. As for daily tasks, they usually know what they need to do...but then again, we are small. We did try Google Keep to list all tasks daily and shared it but it seemed unnecessary and time consuming to do it everyday so we stopped.

Vdubfixer · December 13, 2015

Couldn't live without my large whiteboard.

UsedTireShop · April 9, 2016

Can someone who uses a white board successfully post a picture of their board please.

shumsauto · April 10, 2016

I use a large white board that I use for daily/weekly goals. I keep track for the week on the white board but also fill out a weekly sheet so that I have a hard copy to look at later. I think it would be a good idea for scheduling as well as long as you keep a hard copy or picture of it. (I like to pull up previous weeks and see how they look, etc.)

I'm guessing you are with repair shop coach because my board looks pretty identical : )

Edited April 10, 2016 by shumsauto

meowpox · May 4, 2016

Started using a whiteboard and its been awesome! As said in previous post, we still use Google calendar for all appts, and its shared with everyone. Google calendar is awesome for small shops, in my opinion. Decided to use a whiteboard to get an overall "glance" of everything.

It's pretty simple but the team seems to like it.

Top red row are daily tasks. We look at the Google calendar and write in those appts on that row, each evening before.
Everything else below are the big car projects they are working on. We thought about doing large square magnets so they can re-position them based on priority, but decided to just write numbers next to it. (Grace starts on Monday so she has not been assigned anything big just yet ) Priority is based on number of things like waiting on parts, how fast customer needs car back (is it daily driver or just an extra fun car), etc.

Dan Reichow · May 4, 2016

We have used for a long time - I just upgraded to a larger board 36X80 Ebay - neoplexsuperstore $101.00

We use one for scheduling each tech on current job's / We use magnetic name tags on board -

We watch - Waiting on parts , Cold Start , Need's Road tested , We have four time slots OFL waiters.

Our new board we are watching Sales goals , Rebate Available / Any concerns of the Day - Training available etc.

I know you can do computer forms but just an easier system for us so everyone can do a quick glance and or work off of at our daily 10:30 meeting

Thanks Dan

babyhydro · February 15, 2017

I am thinking about going to a dry erase board for our scheduler, but am not sure how to make it work. Would love to see pics of others using this. Thank you in advance