Automatic Cancellation of 'No Show' Bookings

A 'No Show' occurs when a user has booked a car for a certain time then failed to collect the keys. As such, the car has not been used for the booking duration and therefore the car's availability to other staff members has been wasted.

Automatic Cancellation of ‘No Show’ Bookings

PoolCar has the ability to automatically cancel these 'No Show' bookings, via a "5 Minute Robot".

You probably already know that a Robot is a digital housekeeper that runs a certain automated task.

The "5 Minute" variety means the Robot fires every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, and is useful for automating anything that needs a watchful eye, such as users not collecting their keys in a timely manner.

Key Collection

Exactly what is 'key collection'? Put simply its the Check Out event. When a Check Out occurs it tells the system the booking is in progress. A Check Out can happen when:

You have a central kiosk PC set to display the Check Out/In page. A Check Out occurs when the user taps the Check Out button to indicate they have commenced their booking.
Or, when a user taps the Check out button on the mobile website/app.
Or, if you have key cabinets installed, a Check Out occurs when the user removes the key from the cabinet.
Or, if you have Smartrak telematics installed, a Check Out occurs when the vehicle leaves its base [PC] geofence as set in Smartrak App

If your organisation is not using Check Out/In - i.e. staff just make a booking and then take the key of a peg board - then the system does not have any way of determining if the booking is a No Show or not.

For this reason, if you are considering enabling this robot, you must be using Check Out/In.

How much time do they have to collect the keys?

This is an Application Setting, which means you can change it to suit your organisation. By default it is 30 minutes. That means if the user does not Check Out using one of the methods listed above within 30 minutes of the booking start time, their booking will be cancelled.

As mentioned in the screenshot above - IF YOU SELECT 'EVERY VEHICLE' AND YOU ARE NOT USING CHECK OUT/IN FOR EVERY VEHICLE, THOSE BOOKINGS WILL BE CANCELLED. A 'NO SHOW' IS WHERE THE KEY HAS NOT BEEN CHECKED OUT, SO IF YOU'RE NOT USING CHECK OUT/IN FOR EVERY VEHICLE, THE SYSTEM THINKS THEY ARE ALL 'NO SHOWS'

If you are only using Check Out on some of the fleet

That's okay, in the Application Settings page, there is a setting to control if the automatic cancellations apply to ALL vehicles in the fleet, or only those selected. If you use Check Out/In only for certain cars, choose ‘Only selected vehicles’

To specify which vehicles will be subjected to automatic cancellation, go into the Vehicle Register > Edit Vehicle or Asset Register > Bookings tab. Scroll down until you find this section:

Note if you're currently set to 'All Vehicles' then the checkbox will not be displayed. If 'Only Selected Vehicles' then a tick box will be displayed.

Tick the box (or un-tick) then scroll down to click the 'Save' button

Is the user notified?

When a booking is automatically cancelled, the booking disappears from the calendar and the user is sent an email explaining that their booking has been cancelled.

At present there is no notification that their booking is about to be cancelled (i.e. a warning).

Will all types of bookings be automatically cancelled?

The robot only looks for "Staff Use" bookings. Booking types defined in the Booking Types editor (Car Wash, Service, etc) will not be cancelled.

If you are unable to find an answer to your question in here please log a support request via the Smartrak Service Desk