Workshop Story
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Technician notes, written up for the customer.

Workshop Story is a tool for service advisors. Paste in the technician's notes and it returns clear, correctly written wording to add to the repair order in your DMS or invoicing software.

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What it does

The technician writes notes in their own shorthand. The service advisor pastes them in and gets back wording that is ready for the customer to read.

  • Measurements are kept exactly as the technician recorded them.
  • Nothing is added that the technician did not note.
  • Work still needed is listed as Urgent or Work required, with what it means and what happens if it is left.
  • The wording can be edited before it is copied.

Technician's notes

pads F 8 R 1. tyres LF 5 RF 4.5 rears 4 spare new. oil + filter done, rotated F to R, batt tested ok
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Wording for the repair order

Brake pads remaining: front 8.0 mm, rear 1.0 mm. Tyre tread depth: front left 5.0 mm, front right 4.5 mm, rear 4.0 mm, spare new. Work carried out: The engine oil and oil filter were replaced. The tyres were rotated front to rear. The battery was tested and is in good condition. Urgent: The rear brake pads measured 1 mm and require replacement. The pads are the friction material that slows the vehicle, and at this thickness they are at the end of their service life. Continued use risks reduced braking and the metal backing damaging the brake discs, which would then need replacing as well.
Works beside your DMSNothing is replaced and nothing is installed. It runs in a web browser, and the wording is copied and pasted into the system you already use.
No customer names or phone numbersWorkshop Story does not ask for them. Customer details stay in your own system.
Only your team sees your workEach workshop or service department has its own logins, over an encrypted connection.

Three jobs in the service department

Each one works beside the DMS you already have. Nothing is replaced and no customer names are kept.

Technician notes turned into wording for the repair order

Technician notes

The technician types their story at the workshop PC or the adviser pastes it in. It comes back as clear wording to copy into the repair order, with anything still needed listed as Urgent or Work required.

Extra work reported by a technician, priced by parts and answered by the customer

Extra work

A technician reports what they found from their phone. Parts price it, the adviser calls the customer, and the answer shows back on the technician's screen.

A warranty claim with its evidence list

Warranty claims

The technician is told what evidence the claim needs while the vehicle is still there. The clerk gets the story, the codes from your own manuals, the days left to lodge and a timer on the old part.

In the workshop

Press your car, then type your PIN.

Workshop Story

Workshop PC

Technicians: type your PIN and press Enter.

Today

Start something

Dashboard

Job board

Every repair order on the system that hasn't been written up yet, and where it is up to. Add one here as soon as it is raised, or it appears when a technician opens it. Press a row to see who worked on it and write it up.

Recent jobs

Tech translation

Stories from the workshop

Typed by the technicians and already worded. Press an RO to open it below, check it, then copy it into your DMS.

Job template
Wording that fits As you type, each remark is matched to your phrase book and common workshop work, and anything new is worked out for you. Press the one you want and it goes on the story; leave a remark unpicked and it is worded when you press Translate.

Type or paste the notes as the technician wrote them, however rough, then press Translate (or Ctrl + Enter). Pick a job template to list everything that job involves, take out anything that wasn't done, then add what the technician found. Manage templates is where you change them or make your own. What you are working on stays on this PC until you press Clear for the next job; nothing typed here is kept on the server, apart from the wording you use, which goes into the wording library below. Stories technicians send from the workshop are kept against the RO number for 90 days.

Ready to paste

Oil, sundries and extras from the technician (for the invoice, not in the wording below)

Repeat work: written from your wording library. The AI was not needed for this one.

You can edit the wording here before copying. It is copied with a blank line between each section. If the lines run together when pasted into your DMS, tick the blank line box and copy again.

Always on the story

Work your workshop does on every vehicle. One item per line, shorthand is fine: each is written into every story as a full sentence, after the technician's own work. Saved for everyone at your workshop when you press Save or Translate.

Wording library

Open the library

Every routine line and every fault the AI words is kept here once someone has used it: a technician sent the story or an adviser copied it with that wording unchanged. A fault is kept with the side of the vehicle left blank, so "LHF CV boot split" also covers the right front next time. When every remark in a set of notes is already here, the story is written straight from the library and the AI is not used. When some are new, the AI writes only those. Change a sentence to have it worded your way from then on, add your own, or remove one.

Faults

Routine work

Job board

Bookings for tomorrow

RO numberNameRegoVINVehicleWork bookedWarranty

Type each booking and press Enter. The RO number can be left blank and added when the car is dropped off. Each car with a VIN is checked against the VIN lists on the Australian Government's recall list, and only shows RECALL when its VIN is on one.

Waiting to be dropped off

RO numberNameRegoVehicleWork booked

When the customer hands over the keys press Dropped off, then add the collection time, any notes and the RO number if it wasn't raised. A time with no am or pm, such as 3:30, is read as the afternoon from 1 to 6.

In the workshop

On track30 minutes or less to goPast the timeNo time given
CollectRO numberNameRegoVehicleTechnicianWhere it's up to

Technicians write the story on the workshop PC or under My jobs: they press the car, type their PIN and add the work. Where it's up to fills in as they go. Give jobs to technicians on the Controller screen if you want to.

Ready

CollectReadyRO numberNameRegoVehicleGoing back

Add extra work or a quote

For work the customer asks for, or anything spotted at the counter. It goes to parts to price first, then comes back here to call the customer, the same as a technician's report.

To-do list

The person or team tasked gets a pop-up on whatever screen they're on. To message one person, open Chat and choose Direct.

Workshop controller

Give each car to a technician if you want to: drag the card across, or use the drop-down on it. It's optional, technicians can still open any car. The technician gets a direct message when a job is given to them.

Loan cars

Booked and out

CarRO numberNameGoing outDue backStatus
Recently returned

Parts department

Order a part

RO numberPartPart numberQtySupplierDue inNotes

Fill in the supplier or the day it's due and it goes in as ordered. Leave them blank and it waits under To order. The rego and vehicle are filled in from the job board when the RO is on it.

Part orders

StatusRO numberRegoVehiclePartQtySupplierDue

Warranty helper

Open a warranty job

Enter the number the job is on. The first time a number is used a new claim is started for it.

Claims

Add the manufacturer's documents

Warranty policy manuals, claim procedures, nature and cause code lists, labour time guides and bulletins. The helper reads them so the evidence list, the codes, the labour times and the clerk's steps come from the manufacturer's own pages, each with a link back to the page. PDF, Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), CSV or text, up to 40 MB each.

Only people logged into your account can open these. When a claim is prepared, text from the few pages that match it is sent to the AI service to be read. Check your dealer agreement allows these documents to be kept outside the manufacturer's own systems before adding them.

Your documents

Time limits for each make

These drive the countdown on each claim and the timer on old parts. Type them in from the manufacturer's warranty manual, or press Find them in the manual to have them looked up in the documents above, then check the page before you save.

Search the documents

Workshop screen

In the workshop

This is what the technicians see on the workshop PC, beside the PIN box. Customer names are left off because anyone walking past can see it. A technician presses their car, types their PIN and the RO opens; once they send the story to the service advisers it goes back to the PIN screen.

My jobs

Your jobs

Press a car to open its RO.

Open an RO

New job

The AI isn't connected on this server, so the write-up and vehicle-specific service lookup are off. You can still fill everything in by hand.

1Vehicle and invoice number

No customer names or phone numbers are kept here. Look the customer up in your own system by the invoice number.

2Job lines

One line for each thing the vehicle is in for: a service, a customer concern, a repair. Technician notes and the wording are kept against each line.

Scheduled service checklist

    3Technician notes

    Or write it up by hand

    4Customer write-up

    Wording for each job line

    Findings

    Invoice wording

    This is what you paste into your invoicing program or DMS. You can edit it here first.

    Follow-ups

    Past jobs

    Completed on the job board

    Kept for 12 months. The customer's name is removed 30 days after the job is complete.

    Written-up jobs

    Quotes

    Invoices

    Repair times

    When a technician clocks well over these, the job is flagged so the service advisor knows to ask why. These are starter figures. Change them to suit your workshop.

    Account

    Your licence

    Email alerts

    Shared wording library

    Switched off, your account keeps and uses only its own wording.

    Pay through your Capricorn account

    Have a licence key?

    Quotes

    Your labour rate prices the labour on every new quote. Your own business details print at the top. All prices are entered before GST.

    Invoice wording format

    Choose the program you paste the wording into, so it is laid out to suit. These layouts are starting points: paste a job into your system, then adjust the line width and capitals here until it sits correctly.

    Staff logins

    Give each person their own login. Technicians scan the workshop QR code and type their PIN, and can only open ROs and add notes. A parts login sees only the parts queue: extra work technicians have reported, waiting for part prices and availability. Once you have a parts login, technicians' reports go to parts first and reach the service advisers when parts send them on. A service advisor can do everything except manage logins, billing, the format and the data download.

    Workshop QR code

    One QR code for the whole workshop. Print it and put it up where the technicians work, not where customers can reach it. Each technician scans it with their phone or tablet and types their own PIN to get to their own jobs. Give each technician a PIN in the Staff logins list above. The same link can stay open on a shared PC. A phone or tablet logs out after 30 minutes without a touch, and a shared PC after three minutes.

    Backups

    Keep your own copy of everything in Workshop Story on your own computer, so nothing is lost even if the website has a problem. The records are yours.

    Back up to your own OneDrive or Google Drive RECOMMENDED

    Press Connect, sign in and allow access. A backup goes into your drive every night, even with every computer turned off, and the last 30 are kept. Workshop Story only gets its own backups folder in your drive: it can't see or change anything else there.

    Or keep copies on a Windows PC
    1. Press Download the setup file on the PC that should keep the copies.
    2. Open it within 30 minutes. If Windows says Windows protected your PC, press More info, then Run anyway. A window sets it up, saves the first backup and opens the folder.
    3. Every day that PC saves a fresh backup in Documents, Workshop Story Backups and keeps the last 30. It needs to be on at some point in the day.

    The setup file works once. After it has been run, or after 30 minutes, it's useless to anyone else, so it's safe to delete or leave in Downloads.

    Download the setup file

    Download a backup now

    One zip file you can save anywhere, any time. Works on any computer.

    Download a backup now
    What's in a backup, and keeping it safe

    Every record you've entered: the job board and past jobs, part orders, jobs and write-ups, technician notes and stories, quotes and extra work, warranty claims with their photos and files, repair times, templates, your phrase book, chat and tasks, the activity log and your staff list. Each kind is a spreadsheet that opens in Excel, plus one complete file (backup.json) we can rebuild your account from. It never holds passwords, PINs or login links. Manufacturer manuals you uploaded are left out.

    A backup holds customers' names from the job board, so under the Privacy Act it's information your business must keep safe. Connect a drive your business controls, with two-step sign-in turned on, and don't share the backups folder. On a PC, keep it on a computer that needs a login (BitLocker or device encryption on is best). Don't email backups, and delete old copies you no longer need.

    Disconnecting a drive here deletes Workshop Story's saved sign-in for it straight away; you can also remove access from your Microsoft or Google account. If a PC is lost, sold or no longer used, press Stop beside it and its key stops working straight away.

    Activity who did what, and when