This article covers vehicle inspections (DVIRs), the defects they raise,
maintenance records, work orders, preventive maintenance (PM) schedules and
what a mechanic sees. Everything here is for your trucks and trailers. Repairs
to rental units (toilets, sinks, containers) happen in Inventory's
Equipment Workshop, not in Fleet Management.
Where things live in Fleet (the left-hand menu of Fleet Management):
| Section | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Service Due | Every active PM schedule, sorted by how soon it is due. |
| Work Orders | Repair and service jobs for your vehicles. |
| Issues | Open work orders and open driver-reported defects in one backlog. |
| Service History | Maintenance records (page title Maintenance History). |
| Mechanics | Your shop roster (under Shop Setup). |
| Scheduling | A weekly grid of mechanics and the work orders due each day. |
| Repair Time Goals | Response and resolution targets for work orders (page title SLA Policies). |
A vehicle's own profile also has a Maintenance tab with three sub-tabs:
DVIR, PM Schedules and Work Orders.
DVIRs (vehicle inspections)
How drivers submit a DVIR
Drivers inspect their truck in the driver app. The step-by-step driver guide
is in Driver App; the short version:
Post-Trip DVIR from quick actions, and picks Pre-Trip or
Post-Trip.
Assignments. With no assignment the form says No vehicle assigned for
today and asks the driver to contact dispatch.
the day's starting mileage on a pre-trip, or from the truck's tracker when
one reports mileage.
Sanitation Equipment (vacuum pump, waste tank, hoses, PTO and more) and
Safety & Compliance (fire extinguisher, spill kit, PPE and more). The
driver marks the items that fail, adds a note and can attach photos. Photos
are stamped with the time and GPS location like job photos.
The driver does not choose a severity. PortaPro sets it from the item:
and stop lights, the engine, the vacuum pump, waste tank, hoses, the fire
extinguisher, spill kit and PPE. A failed critical item is recorded as a
major defect, and the report is flagged out of service. The driver sees
Vehicle Out of Service before submitting.
Required pre-trip and post-trip inspections
Two company settings are on by default: a pre-trip inspection is required and
a post-trip inspection is required.
route map without a pre-trip DVIR for that truck today, the app shows
Pre-Trip Inspection Required with Start Pre-Trip DVIR. Not Now
closes the sheet without starting the route.
post-trip DVIR and can be put off for 10 minutes at a time. If the driver
still hasn't submitted one 30 minutes after their last completed job, a push
reminder is sent.
"Today" is your company's time zone (Settings → Company). There is no screen
to change these two settings yourself; contact PortaPro Support if you need
either one off.
What the office sees
inspection problems. The Defects sub-tab lists every open defect with
the item, vehicle, the driver's note, severity (major or minor), a
Linked WO column and when it was reported. The band at the top counts
Open Work Orders, Overdue, Open Defects (with how many are
major) and Out of Service. Filter narrows to overdue work orders,
major defects or out-of-service vehicles.
plus open defects.
open each one's defects and create work orders from them. See
Troubleshooting Fleet before relying on it.
Defects
A defect has two states: open and closed. A defect is created open,
one per failed item, when the DVIR is submitted. A work order created from a
defect does not close it, and completing that work order does not close it
either.
Out of service
There are three separate out-of-service markers, and they don't change each
other automatically:
a work order. An out-of-service work order shows a red Out of Service
badge and asks you to Return Vehicle to Service before you close it.
vehicle read Out Of Service in the vehicle list, counts toward
Out of Service on Issues, and keeps route planning from picking the
truck as a driver's default vehicle. Completing an out-of-service work
order with Return Vehicle to Service on clears this flag.
Submitting a DVIR does not by itself change the vehicle's status.
Maintenance records (Service History)
Fleet → Maintenance → Service History lists maintenance records across
the fleet. The band at the top shows Past Due, Due This Week,
Due Today and Year-to-Date maintenance costs.
Overdue, Marked Completed), a vehicle picker and search.
Mark Not Completed, edit, and Delete. The details show the service
type, scheduled and completed dates, priority, the service provider, and
labor hours, labor cost, parts cost and total cost.
Export Maintenance Records as PDF. Pick a time period and report options,
then Generate PDF Report opens the report in a new window to print or
save as PDF.
menu.
Work orders
Create a work order
Fleet → Maintenance → Work Orders → New Work Order. You can also start
one from a vehicle's Maintenance → Work Orders tab (the vehicle is filled
in) or with Create work order on a Service Due row.
Create Work Order asks for:
priority suggests a due date, and +1d, +3d and +1w set one.
cost. If stock is short, PortaPro warns that the work order may be set to
Awaiting Parts.
Click Create Work Order. If your company has a repair time goal for that
priority (Fleet → Shop Setup → Repair Time Goals), the response and
resolution due times are set on the work order automatically.
Statuses
Work orders use these statuses: Open, In Progress, Awaiting Parts,
Vendor, On Hold, Verification (ready for verification),
Completed and canceled.
Awaiting Parts and Completed, plus a list view. A work order in any
other status appears only in the list view.
for every status and you can drag a card to change it. Filters there
include Overdue only, Out of service and, for mechanics,
My work only.
time for the repair time goal.
Assign a mechanic or vendor
Open a work order. Its Work tab starts with Assignment & SLA: choose
Mechanic, Vendor or Unassigned, pick from your active mechanics or
active vendors, then Save assignment. Suggested mechanics can appear when
nobody is assigned. Scheduling (Shop Setup) is the other way to assign:
drag a work order onto a mechanic's day.
Mechanics come from your shop roster (Fleet → Shop Setup → Mechanics →
Add mechanic: name, email, phone, Hourly rate ($), weekly capacity,
working days and shift). Giving a team member the mechanic role adds them to
the roster automatically. A mechanic who has a PortaPro login gets a
notification when a work order is assigned to them; a roster-only mechanic
does not.
See Troubleshooting Fleet: saving a mechanic
assignment currently fails.
Labor clock
Once a mechanic is assigned, Assignment & SLA offers Clock in and
Clock out for that mechanic. Clocking out records the hours (minus any
paused time) on the work order at the mechanic's hourly rate from the roster.
This labor clock is job costing only. It is a different clock from the time
clock that pays people, and the two are never added together. See
Close a work order
At the bottom of an open work order:
optional.
to clear the vehicle's out-of-service flag.
The work order then reads Work Order Completed with the date and time.
Add parts and labor entries when you create the work order. Changes made to
Parts & Fluids or Labor on a work order that is already open are not
saved yet.
Completing a work order does not close DVIR defects and does not move a PM
schedule's next due date.
The other tabs on a work order are Notes (not available yet),
History (status changes) and Costs (parts, labor and total).
Preventive maintenance (PM) schedules
PM works in two steps: a template says what the service is and how often;
a schedule puts a template on one vehicle with a starting point.
Create a PM template
On a vehicle's Maintenance → PM Schedules tab, open PM Templates →
New PM Template:
Description.
Time-Based (Days), Engine Hours, Job Count or Pump Hours.
and Parts List.
See Troubleshooting Fleet: today only
Mileage-Based templates save.
Assign a template to a vehicle
Use Assign to Vehicle on a template. Choose the vehicle and enter the
Baseline Date and, for a mileage template, Current Mileage, then
Assign Schedule. The next due mileage is the current mileage plus the
interval.
Active Schedules lists each schedule with its Next Due Date,
Next Due Mileage, Next Due Hours and Est. Cost, a badge
(Overdue, Due Soon within 7 days, or No Due Date), and pause or
delete actions. A paused schedule leaves this list.
Service Due
Fleet → Maintenance → Service Due shows one row per active PM schedule
with Overdue, Due Soon and On Track filters and counts:
days.
within 500 miles.
Each row links to the vehicle and has Create work order. With no
schedules the page says to add one from a vehicle's Maintenance tab.
Tracker mileage alerts
For a truck with a PortaPro GPS tracker that reports its odometer, PortaPro
compares the new mileage with each active mileage schedule. Within 500 miles
of due, or past due, it sends a bell and email alert to admins, dispatchers
and mechanics, at most once a week per schedule.
What a mechanic sees
A mechanic signs in to Work Orders and can open all of Fleet Management,
Inventory (including the Equipment Workshop), Team Chat and their own
time clock. They don't see customers, financials, dispatch or settings.
My work only (on a vehicle's Maintenance → Work Orders tab) starts
switched on for a mechanic and shows only work orders assigned to them. The
main Work Orders page shows every work order.