Getting your list out of anything else

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.

Almost every garage system in the UK is the same three things in a trench coat: a diary, a job card, and a list of customers with their cars. The customer-and-vehicle list is always in there, because the system could not send an MOT reminder without it. The only question is which screen will let you have a copy.

Systems we have seen named by garages, and have not yet written a page for: Gemini, Motasoft, Garage Data Systems, Auto Workshop Manager, Dragon 2000, Pinewood, Workauto, Mentor — and a great many spreadsheets. If yours is on that list, or is not, tell us and it moves up the queue.

One shortcut before you read any further. To see what this product does we need twenty registrations, not your whole book. Twenty plates can come off the last fortnight of job cards, or off the top of your head, in about five minutes. The full export can wait until you actually want it, and it may never need to happen at all.

Start here rather than with anything called Export. Every garage system in the country can produce a list of MOTs coming due, because that is what the reminder function runs on — and a reminder list is the one report guaranteed to have registrations and contact details side by side, since it would be useless without them.

1. 1

   Step 1. Find whatever your system calls reminders, MOT due, or marketing.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

2. 2

   Step 2. Run it across the widest date range it will accept. Twelve months forward is the target.

   A twelve-month MOT due list is not everyone who has ever been in, but it is very close to everyone who still comes. For what we do, that is the better list anyway.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

3. 3

   Step 3. Look at the results for a control that produces a file: Export, Download, Save As, CSV, Excel, or a printer icon that offers a file instead of paper.

   On older systems the export is frequently hiding behind the print button. If Print offers a list of destinations, read down it for anything ending in CSV, XLS or Text.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

In rough order of how often we have found each one, if the reminder list is a dead end.

1. 1

   Step 1. A Reports section, then anything named Customers, Customer List, Vehicles or Vehicle List.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

2. 2

   Step 2. A Marketing or Mailshot section. Older systems put the customer-list export here rather than under Reports, because posting letters was what it was for.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

3. 3

   Step 3. A Settings, Admin, Tools, Utilities or Housekeeping menu, then a Data or Backup item.

   This is where a full-database export tends to live in older desktop software. It may produce something that is not a spreadsheet at all — send it anyway and tell us what made it.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

4. 4

   Step 4. A search screen. Run a search that matches everything, then look at the results for a download control.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

5. 5

   Step 5. A right-click on the grid itself, if this is desktop software rather than a browser. Export to Excel is a right-click on a grid in a surprising amount of software of that vintage.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

Not a defeat. For two of the three biggest systems in the UK it is the only route anyone has ever documented, and the request takes one phone call.

1. 1

   Step 1. Ring or email your support desk and ask for "an export of my customers and vehicles including registrations, as a CSV".

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

2. 2

   Step 2. If they want a reason, "the data required to import into another system" is the phrase that gets you the whole extract rather than one report. You are not obliged to be leaving.

   That is the wording a competitor's migration documentation used with two different vendors, and it works because it is a request a support desk has a defined process for. Asking vaguely gets you a report; asking for that gets you the file.

   strongly indicated, but not directly confirmed

3. 3

   Step 3. Ask for it as a data extract under your contract with them. 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; your vendor holds it as your processor. The entitlement is contractual, so ask under that heading — the GDPR one gets a technically correct answer to a question you did not mean to ask.

   checked against their documentation

4. 4

   Step 4. Ask whether there is a charge before they run it, and get the answer in writing.

   Most will not charge. Some do. Either way, the number of garage owners who have found out about an extraction fee at the exact moment they were leaving is not zero, and a one-line email today is cheap.

   not verified — look for this rather than clicking exactly this

The one that always works, and the one most people should do first. It exists because the export is a genuine obstacle and there is no honest reason to make you clear it before you know whether any of this is worth your time.

1. 1

   Step 1. Write down twenty registrations. Off the last fortnight of job cards, off the diary, off the top of your head — it makes no difference which.

   checked against their documentation

2. 2

   Step 2. Paste them into the box on our front page. About a minute, no account, and every line shown in full.

   checked against their documentation

3. 3

   Step 3. Deal with the export later, or not at all. If we end up working together, the offer to sit on a screen share and find the export button with you stands either way.

   checked against their documentation

CSV first, Excel second, anything else third. We would genuinely rather have an awkward file than no file.

Do not retype anything into a tidy new spreadsheet to be helpful. Whatever came out of the system is easier for us than a cleaned-up version of it, and retyping introduces errors into the one column that has to be right.

If it is a PDF, send the PDF. If it is a fixed-width text file from 1998, send that too and tell us where it came from.

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.

Try the vehicle side of the system rather than the customer side. The registration lives on the vehicle record, and plenty of customer reports never touch it.

Failing that, the MOT reminder list is the report most likely to have registrations in it, for the reason above: 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.

And if none of it works, twenty plates typed by hand is a completely legitimate way to start. Nobody will think less of you for it.

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

• TechManTechMan GMS, Northampton
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• Garage HiveGarage Hive, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central