In this video I’ll be showing you a few tips and tricks to help you keep servicing your machines during breakdowns or communication issues. How to handle offline machines in your system, and how to use forecasting for planning and prekitting. I’ll even show you how to get instant notifications for Tech tickets, Machine alerts, Kiosk alerts, Customer Feedback, route progress and more. Let’s get started.
Tip #1 How to Service an Offline Machine
To service an offline machine, Click on Routes, select the route assigned to the location, and click Plan Service Route. The machine will show up under the location name. Click the planned checkbox and continue planning the route as normal. From the stock app, navigate to the machine and select Offline Service. From this page you will input only what the driver had to stock in the machine to bring it to Parlevel, not the physical inventory. This difference is important to note between online and offline because the amount of stock added and recorded by the driver will count as a previous sale. This stock added number is used to determine the daily consumption rate average of that selection or how much that product sells per day. It’s important to bring enough product to stock to the Parlevel amount set every time. For example if the Parlevel is 10, and the driver had to stock 5, the driver will enter 5 were stocked. This means the machine sold 5 units from last service to this service. You will also need to enter the sales meter to calculate the estimated cash to collect. The system then compares the previous cash meter to the current to calculate the “cash to collect” amount. As a note, the machine will have to be serviced at least 3 times in the system before the VMS will generate prekit for an offline machine.
Tip #2 How to view service notes
To view all service notes, navigate to Routes, Service History and click the Options button on the top right, from the dropdown you will see the Notes report, this will take you to the Service Notes Report page where you can select a date range, filter by Service Date, Route, Type Name, location or use keywords in the note.
Tip #3 How to enable breakdown prekitting
Our VMS offers a way to continue routing and prekitting your machines as normal even when there is a communication breakdown or alert on your machine. To enable this feature click on the settings cogwheel, Routing, Routes. Click the edit pencil icon next to the route you want to modify. This will take you to the Edit route page, click on the Advanced Tab, and click the “Enable Breakdown prekitting” checkbox under the Advanced Planning column. This option will add an additional prekit forecast for machines that are currently experiencing communication issues. This is helpful if you have multiple machines or locations in a bad signal area or apart of an outage. This options works for Parlevel or Third Party telemetry devices. Even with communication issues you can continue to service the machine as normal. When the communication issues have resolved you can come back to this page and uncheck this option. Remember to save your changes.
Tip #4 How to plan with Forecast
The VMS offers a robust forecasting feature that uses the average daily consumption of products and adds it to the needed amounts at the moment of planning. This is helpful for planning for a Monday route, on a Thursday or Friday or planning routes in advance without falling short of prekitting. You can set your forecasting options by navigating to Settings, Routing , Routes. Navigate to the Advanced Tab and select the number of days under the Advanced Planning Column. You can select the same day, 1 day or 2 days. You can also enable or disable Plan with Forecast and the Prekit with Forecast option. The days of Operation will also be considered when forecasting. You can check or uncheck the days of operations and save your changes. As a note if you find that the system is calculating too much or too little product you can modify these thresholds to best fit your operational needs.
Tip #5
Using the Business Feed
As a manager or an owner you may want instant insights into your operation even on the go, the Feed app offers just that. To get started you will need to download the Feed app from your App Store. The app is available for iOS or Android. Once installed, you log in using your VMS credentials. Once you are logged in, navigate to the 3 lines on the top left and tap on settings. From this page you can enable or disable the notifications you want to receive then save your changes at the bottom. You can also modify your notification settings in the VMS by clicking the bell icon on the top right and saving. As a note you may need to modify the app notification settings on your phone to ensure you get alerts right away.
Even in emergencies the VMS has you covered with robust tools and features to help keep you informed and run an even smoother operation.
