Project Forward is the starting point of the opendms experiment. We have to start somewhere and, after a lot of thought, the opendms stakeholders believed that our “startup” project had to be able to fulfill the following requirements to be acceptable as a “proof of concept”, so the requirements of the chosen project solution needed to;

• be able to “stand alone”;
• prove the opendms application/middleware/portal design precept;
• be of immediate value to any dealer;
• not require integration with any existing DMS product or service although support it if it existed;
• be able to exist in perpetuity if the opendms experiment stalled at this point;
• be deliverable with a very short development lead-time; and,
• offer any dealers’ customers immediate value; a reason to “stick” with the dealer.

On the surface not that difficult; in reality a lot of time was spent looking at various solutions before Project Forward had a skeleton and meat added to the bones.

Once again we stress that it’s critical to remember that the opendms Project Forward is a “proof of concept”; no one really knows if the open source experiment is going to work in the dealership management space. The opendms team has a firm conviction that it will but only time will tell and all the team can do is its best in the most professional manner it can; the community will end up deciding.

STANDING ALONE; but standing tall​

Project Forward had to be able to “stand alone”. It was critical, when picking a “solution” for our pilot project, that the result of the time and effort was a fully functioning business solution that was;

• valuable to dealers from day one;
• provided a modern cloud-based solution;
• gave the dealers’ customers a reason to either choose the dealer or, more importantly, stick with the dealer (often referred to as “stickiness”); and
• be able to provide this value without any reliance on any external products or services.

After a great deal of discussion and equal consideration, the opendms team decided that a service online booking system was the way to go. Project Forwardprovides dealers with a portal that can be;

• integrated into their existing web presence;
• fully customisable to the dealers’ requirements;
• seen as a valuable customer service offering by the dealers’ customers; and,
• seen to provide all this without needing any external products or services.

The opendms service online booking system ticks the boxes.

THE STRUCTURE IS SOLID

It was critical that the service online booking system be able to prove the fundamental elements of the opendms framework discussed in the development section and consisting of the;

• application layer – providing the the user facing solutions to business problems and could be browser based, progressive web applications (PWA) or native platform;
• portal – the administration portal of the opendms project; and,
• middleware – the enterprise layer that sits between the applications and portal.

Version 1.0 of the service online booking system is a browser-based application that may be tailored to suit the specific requirements of a given dealer supporting;

• multiple service centers;
• various service profiles within the service centers (automotive, motor cycle,  boat, truck, agriculture etc);
• customisation at the dealer level and down to the service center; and,
• tapping into a number of third-party applications to provide immediate messaging to service customers through the service online booking process.

A service booking taken by the service online booking system is sent through the middleware to the opendms portal;

• sending a notification of the successful booking request to the customer;
• informing the dealers’ nominated service team that a new service online booking requires processing; and,
• allowing ongoing communication between the customer and the dealerships’ staff for the service booking request.

The service online booking system is the perfect project to start the opendms experiment with.

YOU DECIDE THE VALUE​

We spoke of Project Forward needing to be immediate value to dealers. Of course, that decision sits firmly with you but our value proposition is easily identifiable;

• Project Forward provides a 24/7 customer interface to the dealers’ service booking process;
• customers are able to make a service booking request from any device (browser, tablet, phone) and receive immediate notifications and updates of the service booking request’s progress;
• service advisors are freed from customer phone calls (usually at the busiest times in the service department);
• specially trained service staff can be tasked with administering the service booking request management in the opendms portal so quality assurance will be higher; and,
• customer communication can be event driven or ad hoc through the opendms portal’s messaging forge.

Most importantly, the service online booking system will be designed so that it can be seamlessly integrated with other opendms products and services in the future.

VALUABLE, INDEPENDENT and LONG LASTING

We spoke of Project Forward needing to be of immediate value to dealers. Of course that decision sits firmly with you but our value proposition is easily identifiable;

• Project Forward provides a 24/7 customer interface to the dealers’ service booking process;
• customers are able to make a service booking request from any device (browser, tablet, phone) and receive immediate notifications and updates of the service booking request’s progress;
• service advisors are freed from customer phone calls (usually at the busiest times in the service department) to take service booking requests;
• specially trained service staff can be tasked with administering the service booking request management in the opendms portal so quality assurance will be higher; and,
• customer communication can be event driven or adhoc through the opendms portal’s messaging forge.

Most importantly, the service online booking system will be designed so that it can be seamlessly integrated with other opendms products and services in the future.

Project Forward does not have any reliance on external dealership management systems (DMS) although, if the DMS provides external connectivity through system level communications the opendms middleware can make use of it to provide a seamless integration with the DMS.

It forms part of the opendms brief to build products that can stand independent of any other system and the portal provides a complete management sub-system for the service online bookings and service booking request management requirements of the opendms ecosystem.

Stressing again that opendms and Project Forward are an experiment to see whether open source and cloud funding will work in the dealership space, it’s critical that Project Forward, once complete and released, can continue to provide a valuable product regardless of whether opendms continues or not. That is a cornerstone of the Project Forward development and, with the pilot system in test, we can say categorically that that aim is achievable.

QUICK AND EASY; with a high customer value proposition​

Project Forward is in development testing at June 2020. The application is running and work is proceeding on the portal and middleware layers. Proof of concept has been developed and achieve for the various facets of the service online booking system and the service request management system is in specification development ready for coding to commence.

We mentioned above that, regardless of the long term future of the opendms experiment, Project Forward must be able to be released and be supported. The core dealers that have supported the opendms project are all committed to the Project Forward product and with a small monthly fee to cover support costs, Project Forward can continue to provide the designed features moving forward.

For this reason alone, you can be sure that committing to Project Forward will be a commitment to a long term project.

There is no doubt that the service online booking system will provide a solution that a dealers’ customers will see as valuable, in fact it won’t be considered valuable as much as “expected” as consumers expect real-time customer service from all parts of a business. Online service booking is an important target for any dealers’ customer service and Project Forward fills this space nicely.