Scheduling Services

Scheduling services is a proactive approach to keeping your fleet running smoothly and safely. By following a planned service schedule, fleet managers can reduce costs, prevent unexpected breakdowns, and extend the life of their vehicles or assets.

Overview

Motive’s services scheduling automates service intervals for your fleet, reducing manual effort and minimizing downtime.

• Automate service intervals: Set recurring maintenance schedules to ensure vehicles receive timely upkeep without requiring extra manual tracking.
• Centralized management: Manage and track maintenance tasks for your entire fleet in one convenient location, helping you stay organized.
• Timely alerts: Receive advance notifications before service is due, allowing you to plan ahead and avoid unexpected downtime.
• Multi-condition triggers: Configure schedules using any combination of Miles, Days, and Engine Hours. Reminders trigger based on whichever condition is met first.

• Vehicle and asset support: Manage maintenance for both your vehicle fleet and powered/unpowered assets in one place.

Proactive vs. reactive services

Scheduled services refer to planned service activities performed at regular intervals. Unlike reactive repairs, which occur after a problem arises, scheduled maintenance aims to prevent issues before they impact operations or cause costly damage.

• Proactive (preventive) services: Regular inspections and tasks based on time, mileage, or engine hours to prevent failures.
• Reactive services: Repairs are made only after an issue or breakdown occurs, often leading to higher costs and extended downtime.

Types of scheduling

Motive’s Service Schedules enhance maintenance management by allowing fleets to trigger service reminders based on multiple conditions. This ensures maintenance aligns with actual vehicle usage rather than a single static threshold. 

• Time-based: Service is performed after a set period (for example, every 6 months).
• Mileage-based: Maintenance is scheduled after a certain distance traveled (for example, every 10,000 miles).
• Engine-hour based: Ideal for vehicles or equipment with low mileage but high operational hours (for example, every 200 engine hours).
• Multi-condition Triggers: You can configure schedules using a combination of miles, days, and engine hours. The service reminder triggers as soon as the first condition is met. For each condition, you can also set an upcoming threshold, a value less than the frequency, so reminders surface before the service is actually due.

Benefits of a preventive maintenance program

• Reduce unexpected breakdowns and emergency repairs, minimizing stress on operations.
• Extend vehicle lifespan and improve resale value, providing long-term savings.
• Improve driver safety and satisfaction by keeping vehicles in a safe condition.
• Ensure compliance with local and federal regulations to avoid penalties.

Services tab

The Services tab helps fleets manage preventive maintenance by tracking recurring services based on time, mileage, or engine hours. It provides fleets visibility into upcoming and overdue services so they can plan maintenance before issues lead to unplanned downtime. It shows all upcoming and overdue services in one view, so you can prioritize work and act before issues escalate.

To access it, navigate to Maintenance > Services.

Search and filters

Use the search bar and filter options at the top of the tab to narrow down your view.

• Vehicles, assets search bar: Type a vehicle ID or asset name to locate a specific unit instantly.
• Next service: Filter the list by service status; use this to surface only overdue or upcoming services depending on what you need to act on first.
• Type: Narrow the list by service category, such as Tires, Engine, Oil change, or DOT Annual Inspection.

On the right side of the filter bar, two controls let you organize how results are displayed:

• No grouping: Group services by vehicle or asset to view related entries together. Select No grouping to see a flat, unfiltered list.
• Next due (most urgent): Sort the list so the most time-sensitive services appear first. This is the default sort order and is recommended for day-to-day triage.

Services details

The list displays one row per scheduled service per vehicle or asset. Each row contains the following information:

• Scheduled Service: The name of the service along with its configured frequency, shown directly below the name. Frequency is displayed for each active condition. For example, 120 d / 18k mi means the schedule is set for every 120 days or every 18,000 miles, whichever comes first.
• Vehicle or Asset: The specific vehicle or asset assigned to this service, identified by its ID.
• Type: The service category (for example, Tires, Engine, Battery, Oil change).
• Last Completed: The date the service was most recently completed. Use this to gauge how long a service has been running since its last cycle.
• Next Scheduled Service: Shows how close each condition is to its due point. Each configured condition such as days, miles, and engine hours is listed separately and color-coded:
  • Red indicates the condition is overdue (for example, Overdue by 196 days or Overdue by 250 eh).
  • Yellow indicates the service is upcoming and approaching its threshold (for example, Due in 71 mi or Due in 400 eh).
• Multiple conditions appear side by side separated by a slash, giving you a complete picture of where a service stands across all its triggers at a glance.

Editing Availability

To edit availability of a vehicle or asset:

1. Log in to the Motive Fleet Dashboard and click Maintenance.
2. Click the Services tab to view a complete list of vehicles and assets that require maintenance.
3. To edit availability, click the three dots on the required service and select Edit availability from the dropdown.
4. Select the required availability status.

5. Click Confirm once done.

Creating a Service Schedule

1. Log in and navigate to Admin settings > Maintenance > Schedules.
   Note: This requires the Maintenance Admin > Maintenance Schedules permission. Fleet Managers cannot access Admin settings by default and cannot create or edit schedules.
2. Click the Create service schedule button in the top-right corner.
3. From the Type dropdown, select the service category (for example, Tires, Engine, Oil change, or DOT Annual Inspection).
4. In the Service field, enter a name for this schedule. 
5. Under Applies to field, select Vehicles or Assets depending on what this schedule is for.
6. In the Service frequency section, check the box next to at least one interval condition:

• Time: Service is due after a set number of days.
• Distance: Service is due after a set number of miles or kilometers.
• Engine hours: Service is due after a set number of engine hours.

7. You can select any combination of the three. The service reminder triggers as soon as the first condition is met. 

8. In the Service Frequency section, from the Service schedule status to trigger an alert dropdown, select when the alert should fire, for example, when the service is Upcoming, Overdue, or both.

9. In the Alert recipients section, click Select... to choose the fleet users who should receive this alert. Check Notify relevant driver if the driver associated with the vehicle should also be notified. Any driver linked to the alert will receive it automatically.
10. To send alerts to someone outside your organization, expand External recipients and enter their contact details.

11. In the Alert delivery section, select the Frequency of how alerts are sent:
    • Immediate: The alert is sent as soon as the trigger condition is met.
    • Scheduled: Alerts are batched and sent at a set time.
12. Under Method, select one or more delivery channels: Email, Notification, SMS, or WhatsApp. You can select multiple. Check Label alert as "Important" to flag this alert as high priority for all recipients.
13. Click Save and Next in the top-right corner to save the schedule and continue to the next step.

Assigning Vehicles to a Schedule

1. Follow the steps mentioned in the above section on Creating a Service Schedule. After clicking Save and Next on the Create service schedule screen, the Assign vehicle to service schedule screen opens. The table will be empty until you add vehicles.
2. Click Manage vehicles to open the assignment modal.
3. In the Assign service schedule to vehicles modal, select the vehicles you want to include:
   • Use the Search bar to find a specific vehicle by ID or make/model/year.
   • Use the All dropdown to filter by a specific status.
   • Switch between the Groups and Vehicles tabs to browse by vehicle group or individual vehicle.
   • Check All entities to assign every vehicle and asset in your fleet at once. Any new entities added in the future will be included automatically.
   • To add specific vehicles, check the box next to each vehicle you want to include. The counter at the bottom tracks how many are selected (for example, 3 vehicles selected). Click Clear to deselect all.
4. Click Select to confirm your selection and return to the assignment screen.
5. The selected vehicles now appear in the table. For each vehicle, review and set the baseline values:
   • Next Service Due: Use the calendar picker to set the date by which this service should first be completed.
   • Current Reading (MI.): Displays the vehicle's latest odometer reading synced from Motive. This is auto-populated and read-only.
   • Next Service Due (MI.): Enter the odometer reading at which the service should first trigger. Use the current reading as a reference. For example, if the current reading is 119,821 MI., you might set the next due date at 120,442 MI.
6. Click Save in the top-right corner to finalize the assignment and activate the schedule for all listed vehicles.
7. A green banner at the top of the screen confirms the action, and you are returned to the Schedules list in Admin settings.

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