Asking a technician to identify a vehicle

Summary

Service schedules, repair times, technical drawings and OE data need a vehicle identified to its exact manufacturer type. Picking that type often means looking at the car. A 1.5 EcoBoost and a 1.5 TDCi look the same on a screen. When you are not sure, ask a technician to do it. You can ask from wherever Torqueflow tells you the vehicle is not identified, and add a note saying where the car is. The request shows up on the technicians’ My Jobs board. You see when someone has taken it, when it is done and who did it, or why it could not be done. Your screen updates by itself, so you can carry on with a quote or a booking without losing anything.

Prerequisites

• Haynes Pro data is switched on for your garage.
• The vehicle is saved in Torqueflow. A brand-new vehicle that only exists inside an unsaved booking cannot have a request yet.
• To ask: you can open a vehicle record, a work order, a quote, a new booking or My Jobs. There is no separate permission for asking.
• To take and fulfil a request: your role includes Identify vehicles for HaynesPro. Technicians, service advisors, managers and owners have it by default.

Permissions

• Asking follows the screens you can already reach. Anyone who can see a “not identified” message can ask, and anyone who can ask can cancel a request, including a colleague’s. A garage cannot currently stop someone asking.
• Taking, identifying and marking “can’t identify” need Identify vehicles for HaynesPro (vehicles.haynespro.identify).
• If your front desk should never pick a type themselves, give them a custom role without Identify vehicles for HaynesPro. They then see only the ask, never the picker. See Roles and Permissions.

Steps

Where the ask appears

If your role cannot identify vehicles, Ask a technician to identify it replaces the old dead-end sentence at every place that says a vehicle is not identified:

1. The vehicle record header.
2. A standalone quote, beside the not-identified line, and inside its service-due, repair-time and diagrams windows.
3. The Job scope step of a new booking in the scheduler.
4. On a work order: the diagrams card, the quote-preparation chips (diagrams and labour), the repair-time and diagrams windows, and Add service checklist on the Tasks card.
5. The job card’s Vehicle tab, in the Identification section, for staff who can work jobs but not identify vehicles.

If your role can identify vehicles, you see Not sure? Ask a technician beside Identify vehicle in three places: the vehicle record header, the standalone quote and the booking’s Job scope step. Use it whenever you would be guessing. A wrong pick is silent, and every lookup after it uses the wrong data.

Asking a technician

1. Click Ask a technician to identify it (or Not sure? Ask a technician).
2. A note box opens in place, labelled Where is it? (optional). Type where the car and keys are, for example “bay 3, keys at the desk”. The note can be up to 500 characters.
3. Click Send request. A message confirms “Request sent”. To back out instead, click Cancel. Pressing Escape cancels the note only. It never closes a booking or quote window around it.
4. The spot changes to “Waiting on a technician - asked by you” with how long ago you asked.

Only one request per vehicle can be open at a time. If a colleague already asked, you see their request instead, and a message says “A request for this vehicle was already open, so your note was not added.”

Following the request

The request’s state shows in the same place you asked from. It checks for changes every 30 seconds while the page is open.

1. Waiting: “Waiting on a technician - asked by {name}”. Nobody has taken it yet.
2. Taken: “{name} is on it”. A technician has said they will do it.
3. Done: the message disappears and the screen moves on by itself. On a quote, the Haynes Pro buttons unlock. In a booking, the Job scope step moves on to pulling the service schedule. Nothing you have typed is lost.
4. Could not be done: “{name} couldn’t identify it: {reason}”, for example Not on site or No keys. Click Ask again once the problem is sorted.

You also get a notification when the request is done, when a technician could not do it, or when a colleague cancels it. The notification names the colleague but not the vehicle. Click Open vehicle to see which one. If you are already looking at that vehicle, the screen updates in place and the notification has no button, so you are never pulled off an unsaved quote or booking.

Cancelling a request

1. Click Cancel request. On a colleague’s request the button reads “Cancel {name}‘s request”.
2. A message says “Request cancelled” with Undo. Click Undo to put back exactly the same request, including who had taken it.
3. If you cancel someone else’s request, they are told.

Fulfilling a request (technicians)

Open requests appear at the top of the Jobs board in My Jobs, under Open requests ({count}). You can identify the vehicle from the request, take it with I’ll do it, or say you Can’t identify it. The vehicle does not need a job. See Using the My Jobs Dashboard.

However the vehicle gets identified, the request closes. That includes a technician working from the board, the vehicle record or the job card, and the person who asked deciding to identify it themselves.

Seeing who identified a vehicle

Once a vehicle is identified, the vehicle record and the job card’s Identification section show a line under the identity:

• “Identified by {name} - {when}” when a person picked the type.
• “Matched automatically - {when}” when Haynes Pro returned a single match and Torqueflow pinned it.

Vehicles identified before October 2026 show no line. Opening the identify window again and closing it without changing anything does not change the line.

Expected Outcome

• The vehicle shows “Waiting on a technician” until someone takes it, then names who is on it.
• When the technician confirms the identity, your screen moves on by itself and you can carry on quoting or booking.
• The vehicle record shows who identified the vehicle and when.

Troubleshooting

Problem: There is no Ask a technician button. Cause: Haynes Pro data is not switched on for your garage, the vehicle is already identified, or the vehicle in a booking has not been saved yet. Fix: Check the vehicle’s identity on its record. For a new vehicle in a booking, finish the booking first, then ask from the vehicle record.

Problem: The technicians cannot see my request. Cause: Their board refreshes every 30 seconds while auto-refresh is on. If they paused it, the board does not update. Fix: Ask them to switch auto-refresh back to Live, or to reload the page.

Problem: The request says the technician couldn’t identify it because the car was Not on site. Cause: The car had not arrived, or had already left. Fix: Click Ask again when the car is back. Add a note saying where it is.

Problem: The request says No match in HaynesPro. Cause: Haynes Pro has no type that matches the car in front of the technician. Fix: Quote and book this car without Haynes Pro data. Capturing the VIN first can narrow the search. See Capturing a VIN from your phone.

Problem: My request disappeared without a notification. Cause: The vehicle was merged into another record, or deleted. A merge cancels the requests on the vehicle that was merged away. Fix: Open the vehicle that remains and ask again if it still needs identifying.

Notes

• Requests do not expire. Use No longer needed (technicians) or Cancel request (anyone who can ask) to close one you no longer need.
• Asking is free. Identifying is free. Only the Haynes Pro lookups that follow use credits.
• A vehicle that is only partly identified (its repair times are not matched yet) still offers the ask, with the line “Repair times are not matched for this vehicle yet.”
• While Haynes Pro data is switched off for your garage, requests are hidden. They come back when it is switched on again.
• In a new booking, staff who can identify can also do it right there. Click Identify vehicle in the Job scope step, pick from Pick the exact engine and body, and click Confirm identity. The booking keeps everything you entered. Before any credits are spent, the booking shows the identity under Service data for, with Not right? Re-identify if it looks wrong.