Getting your customer list out of MAM Autowork Online

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.

Autowork Online is browser-based, so this is all in the same window you book jobs in. Nothing lives on the office PC.

The export is not filed under anything called Export. It is inside the CRM report screen — Reports, then Customer Relationship Man. — and it comes out as a CSV. MAM's own release notes confirm that customer, vehicle and reminder exports all exist there, and a bug list from a later release names a Customer List Export outright.

One piece of advice that matters more than anything else on this page: do this while you are still a paying customer with a working login. MAM's live licence terms say that after you terminate, a CSV of your data is available on payment of a Data Processing Fee, paid by card in advance, arranged through their sales office — and that they cannot guarantee the data will always be available. The fee amount is not published anywhere. Ten minutes of exporting today is worth a great deal more than the same ten minutes after you have given notice, and this is true whether or not you ever talk to us.

MAM publish this path in their own user guide. The guide describes it for the deferred-work report, but the same screen and the same Export control are what the customer, vehicle and reminder exports use, so the shape below is right even where the dropdown label differs.

1. 1

   Step 1. Click the Reports menu button, then choose Customer Relationship Man.

   From MAM's own published user guide. Their video walkthrough words it the same way: click the reports tab, then customer relationship management. Note that MAM regrouped the report navigation into Report Quick Links in a 2019 release — if you are on a newer version you may be hunting for CRM inside a group rather than in one long list.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Pick what you want from the Type dropdown at the top. Reminders is the one most likely to give you registrations and contact details together; look for anything offering a customer or vehicle list.

   Reminders and Deferred work are the two options MAM name in public. That customer and vehicle exports also exist here is confirmed by their Spring 2019 release notes, which record the last invoice date and customer email address being added to the customer, vehicle and reminder exports. What those two options are actually CALLED in the dropdown is not published anywhere, so we are not going to guess at it.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

3. 3

   Step 3. Leave Date From and Date To completely blank, then click Display.

   This is the whole trick and it is easy to miss. MAM's guide: it is also possible to leave both fields blank, so that all records will be shown. Fill the dates in and you get a window; leave them empty and you get everything.

   checked against their documentation

4. 4

   Step 4. In the Contact Method dropdown, choose Export.

   Word for word from the user guide: "From the Contact Method dropdown menu, select the option for Export." Contact Method is how the screen decides what to do with the list — text them, email them, or hand it to you as a file.

   checked against their documentation

5. 5

   Step 5. Tick the checkbox in the Sent column against each customer you want in the file.

   Documented, and the step most likely to make you swear at a long list. If there is a tick-all control at the top of that column, use it. If there is not, that is a reason to filter the list down to something manageable first — or to use route 2 instead.

   checked against their documentation

6. 6

   Step 6. Click the Export button. A CSV downloads to wherever your browser puts downloads.

   The guide: "Click the Export button, this will generate and download a comma separated (CSV) file."

   checked against their documentation

7. 7

   Step 7. Open the file and check there is a registration column with something in it.

   This is the one thing about the export that MAM never state anywhere. These reports are vehicle-keyed and the reminders are MOT and service reminders per car, so it would be very strange if the registration were absent — but we have not seen the file, and we are not going to tell you it is there. Thirty seconds in Excel settles it.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

Reasonable if the CRM screen is not cooperating, or if you want your whole book in one go rather than a report at a time. Do it while your account is live: this is the support desk, which is a different conversation from the sales office you get sent to after termination.

1. 1

   Step 1. Ring Autowork support on 01226 352904, or email awolsupport@mamsoft.co.uk. Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:30, Saturday 09:00 to 13:00.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Ask for "the data required to import into another garage management system". That phrase gets you the whole extract rather than one report.

   It is the wording Garage Hive used to give its incoming MAM customers, in migration documentation we read from the Internet Archive: "You will need to contact MAM Software directly for them to perform the data extract for you, simply inform them that you need the data required to import into another garage management system and they will send you a file." That page is from 2022 and it is a competitor describing a rival, so treat it as a strong hint. You are not obliged to be leaving to ask.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

3. 3

   Step 3. Ask how it will be delivered, and push for a file rather than physical media.

   MAM's own FAQ describes exports going out on an external media device, encrypted, by Recorded Special Delivery. The 2022 Garage Hive page mentions being offered a CD and recommends asking them to remote in and leave the file on the desktop instead. Either way: a file on your machine today beats something in the post next week.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

4. 4

   Step 4. If reminder dates matter to you, ask them to check the reminders file before they send it.

   The most useful sentence on that archived page: "We often notice that the reminder file provided during the standard export only contains expired dates, please ask them to ensure the reminders file is accurate." Somebody had clearly seen it happen more than once. It makes no difference to us — we take MOT dates from the public record — but it will matter to anyone else you hand the file to.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

5. 5

   Step 5. Ask for it as a data extract under your contract. Do not call it a GDPR request.

   GDPR portability is a right individuals hold over data about themselves. Your customer list is your data and you are the controller of it; MAM holds it as your processor. The entitlement is contractual, so that is the heading to ask under.

   checked against their documentation

Not a route, a warning — and the most useful thing we found about this system. It is in MAM's live licence terms, at clause 9.4, and it is the reason every other route on this page says to act while your account is still live.

1. 1

   Step 1. Read clause 9.4 of the Autowork Online terms, and know that the exit export is chargeable.

   The live terms, in MAM's own words: "Upon termination, the Customer may request that MAM Software Limited supplies a csv file of the Customer's data. MAM Software Limited can not guarantee this data will always be available… A csv file of the Customer's data may be provided, upon termination, to the Customer upon the payment of a one-off “Data Processing Fee”, the amount of the fee is advised on application. Payment of the Data Processing Fee will be by Credit/Debit Card in advance of the generation of the csv file and the Customer must contact MAM Software Limited’s sales office to arrange this." The amount is not published anywhere we could find.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Note that MAM's own FAQ describes the same export without mentioning a fee. If you rely on either, get the answer in writing.

   The FAQ says the data can be exported securely in .csv format to an external media device, encrypted, sent by Recorded Special Delivery. It says nothing about a charge. The licence terms say there is one. We are not going to tell you which governs — that is a question for whoever wrote your contract — but the fact that the two documents disagree is worth knowing before you are relying on either.

   checked against their documentation

3. 3

   Step 3. Also note the notice period: a twelve-month minimum term, then three months' written notice.

   Nothing to do with exporting, and everything to do with why you should export now rather than when it becomes urgent.

   checked against their documentation

CSV, and only CSV. Autowork Online's reports export to CSV or display on screen, and MAM document no Excel option anywhere — so if you are hunting for an XLSX button, stop.

Send the CSV exactly as it downloaded. No tidying, no re-saving through Excel, no pasting into a new sheet.

If you end up with several files — customers in one, vehicles in another, reminders in a third — send all of them. Joining files up is our job, not yours.

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.

Change the Type dropdown. A customer-shaped report will show you customers; the registration lives on the vehicle, so you want the vehicle or reminder side of the CRM screen.

The reminders export is the best bet of the three, because a reminder without a registration is not a reminder.

Two files are fine — customers in one, vehicles in the other — as long as both carry the same customer or account number so they can be matched up.

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.

• MAM — Autowork Online user guide, Using Deferred Work (the full export path, the blank-dates trick and the CSV download) — the vendor's own page
• MAM — Spring 2019 release notes (customer, vehicle and reminder exports all named) — the vendor's own page
• MAM — CRM and reporting features (CSV or on screen; reminder mailing lists) — the vendor's own page
• MAM — Autowork Online licence terms (clause 9.4, the Data Processing Fee) — the vendor's own page
• MAM — FAQ (the export described without a fee, and the notice period) — the vendor's own page
• MAM — Using Customer Reminders (the same Reports, then CRM path) — the vendor's own page
• Garage Hive's MAM migration page, archived 2020–22 via the Internet Archive — a competitor's instructions, since deleted — a third party, not the vendor

• TechManTechMan GMS, Northampton
• Garage HiveGarage Hive, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Any other systemEverything else, including a spreadsheet and a card index