Getting your customer list out of Garage Hive

One column matters. The rest change what the product can do for you, and each one says which.

RegistrationRequired

The only column we cannot work without. It is what the MOT and vehicle records are looked up on. A column called reg, vrm, plate, registration or vehicle no. is recognised automatically.

Customer nameOptional

Puts a name on the row so you know who to ring, and lets a message open with it rather than with nothing.

Mobile numberOptional

Without it we can find and price the work but cannot send the text. A landline in this column is worse than an empty one — if your export has both, send the mobile.

Email addressOptional

The alternative to a mobile for customers who never answer a text.

Your own referenceOptional

Customer or account number, if your system has one. It is carried through untouched so a row you look at here can be found again in your own system.

Garage Hive is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is why the export works the way it does: any list on screen can be sent to Excel exactly as it appears, with whatever columns you have chosen and whatever filter you have applied. Get the list looking right first, then export it.

Two lists are worth exporting — Customers and Vehicles — and the procedure is identical for both. Garage Hive's own documentation says so in as many words: the same steps apply to all the list pages, including the vehicle information.

You need Excel on the machine. Garage Hive's system requirements name Office 2016, 2019 or 365. And if the Open in Excel option is missing entirely, that is a permission rather than a missing feature — see the section below it.

Garage Hive's own documented procedure. Do it once for Customers and once for Vehicles; the second time takes two minutes because you already know where everything is.

1. 1

   Step 1. In the Role Centre, click Service and then Customers.

   Straight out of Garage Hive's export article. The same Service menu holds Vehicles, which you will want in a moment — it is on the Role Centre home row as well.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Filter the list first if you want only part of it. The filter pane is the filter icon at the top right, or Shift+F3.

   Optional, and mostly you will not want it — you probably do want the whole list. It is worth knowing about because the export takes exactly what the filter leaves on screen, so a filter left on from last week is an accidentally short export.

   checked against their documentation

3. 3

   Step 3. Click the Settings icon at the top-right of the page and choose Personalise.

   This is the important step and the reason a first attempt often comes out missing something. The export contains the columns you can see and nothing else. Garage Hive's own wording: you will have to personalise the list and select the necessary columns to ensure that you export the desired information.

   checked against their documentation

4. 4

   Step 4. Click +Field at the top, drag the columns you need into place, then click Done.

   On the Customers list, check for name, phone number and email. Garage Hive's screenshot of the default view shows No., Name, Phone No. and a run of balance columns — with no email address, so that is one you will probably have to add.

   checked against their documentation

5. 5

   Step 5. Click the Share icon and choose Open in Excel. Your browser will offer to open or save the file.

   The Share menu in Garage Hive's screenshot has exactly two items on it: Open in Excel, and Copy link. If nothing happens when you click it, that will be your browser's pop-up blocker rather than Garage Hive.

   checked against their documentation

6. 6

   Step 6. Now do the same on the Vehicles list: Service, then Vehicles, then Personalise, then Share and Open in Excel.

   Garage Hive states this in one sentence at the foot of the same article — the exact procedure applies to all the list pages, including the vehicle information. This is the export with the registrations in it, so if you only do one, do this one.

   checked against their documentation

7. 7

   Step 7. While you are in Personalise on the Vehicles list, make sure Registration No. is showing, and add Customer Name and Customer No. as well.

   The vehicle record certainly holds Registration No., VIN, make, model and customer name — that is documented and visible in Garage Hive's own vehicle-card screenshot. What we could not verify is which of them the Vehicles LIST shows by default, because no screenshot of that grid is published. So check rather than assume. The customer number is what lets your two files be joined back together.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

That is a permission rather than a missing feature, and it has a name — which means whoever administers your Garage Hive can switch it on in about a minute.

1. 1

   Step 1. Ask whoever administers your Garage Hive to give your user the D365 Excel Export Action permission set, or system permission 6110, Allow Action Export To Excel.

   Those are Microsoft's own names for it, out of the Business Central documentation, and they are the exact strings an administrator needs to search for.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Check Excel is actually installed. Office 2016, 2019 or 365 — Garage Hive's system requirements are explicit that one of them is needed to send data to Excel.

   checked against their documentation

Garage Hive will, and they have put it in writing, which is more than most vendors do. Worth knowing about whether or not you use it today.

1. 1

   Step 1. Email support@garagehive.co.uk or ring 020 3146 1164 and ask for a copy of your data.

   Support hours from their own page: Monday to Friday 08:00–18:00, Saturday 08:00–13:00.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Expect it in Excel format.

   Their security and compliance FAQ, word for word: "If you wish for a copy of your data because you are migrating to another system, we provide it in Excel format." You do not have to be migrating anywhere to want a copy of your own data — but that sentence is what tells you the answer will be yes.

   checked against their documentation

You will get an .xlsx workbook. That is fine — send it as it is, there is no need to convert it to CSV.

Garage Hive's list export has no CSV option, so do not waste time hunting for one.

One quirk out of the Business Central documentation, in case it alarms you: whole numbers can arrive in Excel with a trailing decimal separator, so a 10 may show as “10.”. It is cosmetic, and it does not touch registrations.

If your garage runs more than one company inside Garage Hive, the export is per company. Do each of them.

If in doubt, send whatever came out. We would rather untangle an oddly shaped spreadsheet at our end than have you spend an evening reshaping one at yours.

You have exported the Customers list rather than the Vehicles list. The registration lives on the vehicle record; the customer record has no reason to carry it.

Go back and repeat the same steps on Service, then Vehicles. That file is the one we actually need — the Customers file is the optional extra.

If you have both, send both. As long as each carries the customer number we can join them, and you get names against registrations without doing it yourself in Excel.

A file of customers with no registrations is not usable — the whole product is a lookup keyed on the plate. A file of registrations with no customers is completely fine. If you can only get one of the two, get that one.

Send the file back to the email you are already talking to us on, and you will get your own list — every MOT run out, every advisory written up twice, every service due on mileage, priced at your rates.

If you would rather not do the export at all, we will do it with you on a screen share. Half an hour, you drive and we read the menus. That is also the version of the pilot that runs ninety days rather than sixty, because it starts with your real list in it.

There is no card at any point during the pilot and nothing set up to renew. We ask about paying at the end of it, if you want to carry on.

See what it finds, on twenty of your plates

Everything marked “checked” above comes from one of these. Everything not marked is us reasoning, and is labelled as such.

• Garage Hive — How to Export Customer and Vehicle Information — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — Vehicle Card Details (the fields a vehicle record holds) — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — How to Filter Lists (the filter pane, and Shift+F3) — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — Personalisation of Garage Hive — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — Security, Privacy and Compliance FAQs (the copy-of-your-data commitment) — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — System Requirements (Excel is needed) — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive — Support (phone, email and hours) — the vendor's own page
• Microsoft — Viewing and editing in Excel from Business Central — documentation for the platform it is built on
• Microsoft — Export your Business Central data to Excel (the permission names) — documentation for the platform it is built on

• TechManTechMan GMS, Northampton
• MAM Autowork OnlineMAM Software, part of Kerridge Commercial Systems
• Any other systemEverything else, including a spreadsheet and a card index