Managing Your Vehicles

BigChange is a robust tool designed to streamline the management of your company's vehicular resources. This article provides a guide on efficient fleet management, from the initial setup of your vehicles to the daily management tasks.

Does your navigation menu bar look like this?  Read our Support article about changes we are making, New BigChange Navigation Bar.

Fleet Overview and Set-Up

BigChange offers a comprehensive suite of features for fleet management. It enables you to track vehicles, manage maintenance tasks, record vehicle history, and generate detailed reports on vehicle performance. Before adding your vehicles, it's advisable to first set up the infrastructure for your fleet, such as Groups and Vehicle Attributes. This ensures that when you add your vehicles, you can immediately categorise them appropriately.

Adding and Editing Vehicles

Once your fleet infrastructure is in place, you can proceed to add your vehicles. This process involves inputting various vehicle details such as the registration number, vehicle type, make, model, and year of manufacture. You can also link the vehicle to a tracking device, specify whether the vehicle is used for jobs, and estimate the vehicle's cost per mile and per day. These details are crucial for effective fleet management and cost control.

• Navigate to Account Settings → Settings→ [Quick links] Manage your Vehicles → Add – edit and you should see a list of any vehicles you have on your site as below:

1. Add vehicle - add a new vehicle
2. Add asset - add a new asset. Assets are similar to vehicles but less information is recorded against them (custom fields can be used to record any information required).  ‘Assets’ could be used for trailers, forklifts, tractors, etc and can be tracked on the map with AssetWatch.  With the excepting trailers, which may well have their own tracker, many other assets might be chargeable on an hourly or daily basis.
3. Import - this allows you to import an Excel list of vehicles from your computer.
4. Import fleet attributes - this allows you to import the attributes for your vehicles.
5. Export fleet attributes - this allows you to export the attributes for your vehicles.

To create a new vehicle, click on ‘Add vehicle’ and the popup below will appear:

1. Registration - input the vehicle registration number.
2. Vehicle type - use the drop-down list to select the type of vehicle. This is used to determine speed limits applicable to the vehicle.
3. Group - select the group this vehicle belongs to.
4. Make - make of the vehicle
5. Model - the model of the vehicle
6. Year - the year that the vehicle was first registered
7. Odometer unit - select whether odometer is in miles or kilometres
8. Reference - you can optionally specify a vehicle reference. If you would like to use data import to update vehicle information, rather than just to add additional vehicles, then vehicles will need to have a reference to avoid creating duplicates.
9. Tracking device - link this vehicle to a tracking device. Generally, this is completed by BigChange personnel when your vehicle tracking is set up – changing it may unlink the tracker from your vehicle.
10. Used for Jobs - select whether the vehicle is used for jobs and should appear on the schedule tab. If no is selected, the vehicle cannot be used by resources driving to jobs, but you can still record maintenance and other information, set alerts, etc.
11. Fixed Resource - if there is only ever one driver of the vehicle, eg a private car used for business, select yes. If this vehicle is ever used by more than one person, select no. Selecting yes means the linked resource will be allocated the vehicle by default and removes the ability to select other vehicles.  When you select 'yes' a new field 'Resource' will appear.  simply make a selection from the dropdown list and press 'Okay'. If the situation changes, simply select a different resource from the dropdown list or go to the Fixed Resource field and select 'No', followed by 'Okay'.
12. Cost per mile - an estimate of how much the vehicle costs you per mile. You can estimate this using online tools or manually based on fuel costs, wear on tyres and brakes etc. and services. This field is important as it is used by the Scheduling Assistant to calculate the job costings and determine job allocation.
13. Cost per day - how much the vehicle costs you per day if it does not move. This value would include leasing costs, insurance costs, MOT, etc, which have to be paid even when zero miles are driven.  Calculate annual costs and divide by 365 to find a daily figure.  The cost information feeds through to available reports. This field is important as it is used by the Scheduling Assistant to calculate the job costings and determine job allocation.
14. CO2 - this value should be available on the vehicle V5 document and manufacturer’s information. This information feeds through to populate the ‘Vehicle consumption and emissions’ report
15. Idling fuel consumption - this value should be available on the vehicle V5 document and manufacturer’s information and is used to populate various reports on fuel consumption and idling.
16. Icon - choose the icon that will represent your vehicle on the map.
17. Attributes - select any attributes that the vehicle has and specify expiry dates if applicable.
18. Worksheets for vehicle checks - select the vehicle check worksheet.
19. Vehicle type for defects-  select the type of vehicle for defects, determining the vehicle checklist which will be provided for the tablet user.

Fleet & Resources

(Please note: Fuel levels are only calculated on trackers installed with Canbus and odometer readings are populated either from vehicle checks, Canbus or updated manually?

When an EON or EOFF report is received, the (1) Odometer and (2) Fuel tank values on the fleet list are updated. The timestamp of that update is shown below the odometer value (3). Estimated odometer (4) adds GPS distance onto the CANbus value as the vehicle moves around.

Clicking on ‘Fuel history’ on the context menu here shows a graph of the fuel level values over the past few days.

Note that the amount calculated for CO₂ depends on the value entered in the ‘Edit’ pop-up in ‘Administration/Manage your vehicles’ under ‘My Account’ (on the Navigation Bar).

Day-to-Day Fleet Management

BigChange simplifies the daily management of your fleet. From the Fleet & Resources tab, you can view your vehicles or assets, separate them into the Groups you created earlier, search for a specific vehicle, find vehicles with issues or defects, and adjust the display to show more or fewer items per page. You can also import fuel transactions and export a CSV file for further analysis or record-keeping.

Once you have successfully configured the back end of your Fleet set up, keeping checks on your vehicles could not be simpler. From the Fleet & Resources tab, you can use the side menu filter to:

1. View your vehicles or Assets
2. Separate your vehicles or Assets into the Groups you created earlier
3. Search for a specific vehicle by registration number
4. Find vehicles of a specific make/model
5. Find vehicles with an issue, eg lapsed MOT or insurance
6. Find vehicles with opened defects  eg brakes, headlights
7. Adjust the display to show more or fewer items per page
8. Reset and Save current view as favourite
9. Import Fuel Transactions
10. Export a CSV file

Conclusion

BigChange is a powerful tool that simplifies fleet management. By setting up your fleet infrastructure, adding and editing your vehicles, and utilising the Fleet & Resources tab, you can efficiently manage your fleet and ensure your vehicles are performing optimally. Make the most of BigChange to streamline your operations and enhance your business efficiency.

Videos

Vehicle Used on Jobs

Reallocate All Items on a Vehicle

Signing In, Timesheet & Vehicle Checks

Reallocate All Items on a Vehicle

Fleet: Recording of Live Tutorial