Bays and mobile units

Summary

Bays represent the physical work spaces in your garage. Each bay appears as a column in the Scheduler calendar, so appointments can be assigned to a specific bay. The Settings → Bays page is now structured as Locations & Bays, with one card per physical location.

Bays are free. Your subscription is a flat price, so adding or removing bays never changes what you pay. Only users with the settings.bays.manage capability can access this page (Owner and Manager by default).

Prerequisites

• You are signed in to Torqueflow.
• Your account has the settings.bays.manage capability (Owner or Manager by default).

Permissions

Only users with the settings.bays.manage capability can access the Bay Management page. Advisors and Technicians do not see this option in Settings.

Steps

Viewing your bays

1. Go to Settings in the main navigation.
2. Click Bays.
3. If your organisation has a single location, a card at the top shows the location name and address. These fields are read-only. If your organisation has multiple locations, a location selector appears instead.
4. Below the location details, you see a card titled “Workshop Bays” with a count (for example, “3 bays configured. Drag to reorder.”). Each bay in the list shows:
   • A drag handle (grip icon) on the left for reordering.
   • A number showing the bay’s position in the order.
   • A colour swatch (a circle filled with the bay’s assigned colour).
   • The bay name.
   • The bay type, if one has been set.
   • The default technician, if one has been assigned. Inactive technicians are shown in red with “(Inactive)”.
   • Edit and Delete buttons on the right.

Adding bays (one or several at once)

1. On the location card you want to add bays to, click Add Bays.
2. The dialog opens with a stepper showing how many bays to add. Defaults to 1. The maximum is 20 minus the bays already at this location.
3. Under the number, a note reads: “Bays are free. Your subscription price is flat and does not change when you add or remove them.”
4. Click Add 1 Bay (the button shows the number you chose).
5. The new bays are created straight away with placeholder names (“New Bay 1”, “New Bay 2”, etc.). There is no second confirmation step.
6. The dialog closes and the new bays appear at the bottom of the location’s list.

You can edit each bay’s name, type, technician, and colour later. See Editing a bay below.

Editing a bay

1. Find the bay you want to change in the list.
2. Click the pencil icon next to that bay.
3. A dialog opens with the bay’s current values pre-filled. Update the name, bay type, default technician, or colour as needed.
4. Click Save Changes.

Setting which days a bay works

A bay follows your normal opening hours until you tell it otherwise. If a bay only works some days, for example an MOT bay that is closed on Saturdays, set its Working days in the edit dialog. Online booking, the customer portal and the AI stop offering it on its days off. Staff can still book it by hand. A What this means panel under the switches shows the next two weeks as a customer would find them.

For one-off bay closures and special openings, and how the rules combine, see Set which days a bay is available.

Marking a bay as a mobile unit

If you run a van, it is a bay too. Torqueflow treats it as a mobile unit rather than a fixed bay.

1. Open the bay for editing, or add a new one.
2. Under Service mode, choose Mobile unit. A fixed bay is at your workshop; a mobile unit is a van that travels to the customer from its own home base.
3. Fill in the Home base: a base label (for example “Allan’s van, Castle Douglas”) and a base address. Mobile booking, coverage areas and callout pricing all use it.
4. Answer Where do your mobile units go?. This applies to the whole garage and you only answer it once. Until you answer it, mobile visits are not offered on your online booking page.
   • Only the areas I list. The customer’s postcode is checked against your coverage bands. Anyone outside is offered the workshop or a callback.
   • Anywhere, do not check coverage. Every customer can book a mobile visit. Their postcode and address are still captured.
5. Select Save Changes. The bay now carries a Mobile unit badge in the list.

The scheduler’s bay columns and every bay picker mark what kind of bay it is. A mobile unit has a van icon and a workshop bay has a building icon, each tinted with the bay’s colour. A bay with no colour set still shows its icon, in plain text colour. Screen readers announce the van as “Mobile unit”.

If one person runs both the van and the workshop, give the van and the workshop bay complementary Working days (van Monday, Wednesday and Friday, ramp Tuesday and Thursday). Customers then only see van slots on van days. See Set which days a bay is available.

Marking the van is the first of three steps. Next you list the areas it could cover, then you group and price them. See Serviceable areas for mobile units and Coverage bands and callout charges.

Reordering bays

1. Grab the drag handle (grip icon) on the left side of a bay.
2. Drag the bay to its new position in the list.
3. Release. The new order is saved automatically. A “Bay order updated” confirmation appears.
4. The Scheduler reflects the new column order.

Deleting a bay

1. Find the bay you want to remove in the list.
2. Click the bin icon next to that bay.
3. A confirmation dialog appears. It checks how many appointments are linked to this bay:
   • If appointments are linked, a warning shows the count. For example, “3 appointments linked. These appointments will be unlinked from this bay but will not be deleted.”
   • If no appointments are linked, a message confirms this.
4. Click Delete Bay to confirm. The bay is removed. Your subscription price does not change.

Linked appointments lose their bay assignment and can be reassigned later.

Deleting several bays at once

1. On the location card, click Select bays. Tick the bays you want to remove, or use Select all.
2. Click Delete 2 bays (the button shows how many you ticked). To clear a whole location in one go, click Delete all bays instead.
3. The confirmation lists the bays, shows how your bay count changes, and says how many appointments will be unlinked (not deleted).
4. If these are the last bays in your organisation, the dialog also warns: “This removes every bay in your organisation. Nothing can be scheduled and online booking will have no capacity to offer, until you add a bay back.”
5. Confirm to delete. This cannot be undone.

Expected Outcome

Your bays list reflects the physical layout of your garage. Each bay appears as a column in the Scheduler calendar, letting you assign appointments to specific work spaces. Colours help your team distinguish between bays at a glance. The display order in the list matches the column order in the Scheduler.

Troubleshooting

Problem: I cannot delete a location. Cause: A mobile unit is parented to that site as its home base. Fix: Reassign the van to another site, or remove the van first.

Problem	Cause	Fix
Bay Management is not visible in Settings	Your account does not have the settings.bays.manage capability.	Ask the account Owner to check your role.
Cannot edit the location name or address	These fields are read-only by design.	Contact Torqueflow support to update your location details.
Deleted bay but appointments disappeared from the Scheduler	Appointments are kept but unlinked from the deleted bay. They may not appear under a bay column until reassigned.	Open each affected appointment and assign it to a different bay.
Bay type dropdown is empty or shows “Loading…”	No bay types have been configured for your organisation.	Ask your Owner or Manager to set up bay types in the organisation settings.
A service stopped being offered online, or the AI says nothing is available for it	You have not set up capabilities, and the service’s Bay Type under Settings > Services does not exactly match the bay type of any bay. A service with a Bay Type and no capabilities only goes into bays of that type.	Make the bay type on the bay and on the service match, or set the service’s Bay Type to “Any / No preference”.
New bay does not appear in the Scheduler	The Scheduler may need to refresh.	Reload the Scheduler page. The new bay should appear as a column.
Drag-and-drop reorder does not work	Another reorder operation may still be in progress.	Wait a moment and try again. If the problem persists, reload the page.

Notes

• Bays map directly to columns in the Scheduler calendar. If you have three bays, the Scheduler shows three columns.
• Deleting a bay does not delete any appointments. Those appointments simply lose their bay assignment and can be reassigned later.
• The bay type you give a bay matters for booking. If you have not set up capabilities, a service with a Bay Type only goes into bays whose bay type matches it exactly (capitals aside). A service with no Bay Type can go into any bay.
• Choose distinct colours for each bay so they are easy to tell apart on the Scheduler. The preset palette provides common choices. You can also enter a custom hex code if you need a specific colour.
• The bay cap is 20 per location (a UI constraint to keep each location’s list readable). Multi-location garages can exceed 20 bays in total.
• Adding bays has no confirmation step because it costs nothing and is easy to undo. Deleting keeps its confirmation because it unlinks appointments and cannot be undone.
• If your organisation has multiple locations, the page shows one card per location with its own Add Bays button.