Product roadmap · where we're headed
STOP TYPING
THE SAME RO TWICE.THE BOARD SHOULD ALREADY KNOW.
Today, dealership systems make people re-enter information that already exists somewhere else. The next stretch of Shop Route Board closes that gap with three connected capabilities — DMS connectivity, VIN intelligence, and an OEM-aware Warranty Story Writer — so the platform increasingly understands what's happening in the shop on its own.
- LIVERunning in production today
- PILOTBuilt and validated in controlled use
- IN DEVELOPMENTActively being built toward
We label every capability by how real it is — and we keep it honest until it ships.
The problem
THE DATA ALREADY EXISTS.
SOMEONE STILL RE-TYPES IT.
The RO is already open in the DMS. The vehicle is already decoded somewhere. The promise time is already set. Then it gets typed again — onto a board, into a screen, across a hallway. Every hand-off is a chance to be wrong, late, or out of date.
- Advisor opens the RO in the DMS.
- Someone re-types the vehicle and RO onto the board.
- The promise time changes — someone has to notice.
- The tech assignment changes — another screen gets updated.
- The car leaves — the board still shows it in a bay.
Five places to keep in sync by hand.
- The RO opens. Shop Route Board receives it.
- The VIN is decoded into one normalized vehicle.
- Advisor, tech and promise time populate themselves.
- The board, the inspection and the story share one record.
- When the car is closed in the DMS, the board knows.
One record, understood once.
READ FIRST. WRITE LATER. Our first goal is simply to stop duplicate entry — read what the DMS already knows before we ever consider writing anything back.
Connect the DMS
IF THE DMS ALREADY KNOWS IT,
WHY TYPE IT AGAIN?
The goal is for Shop Route Board to become aware of repair-order activity without duplicate entry. The RO should exist on the board before anyone re-keys it — starting read-only, so there is no risk to the data in your DMS.
- RO
- 10462
- VIN
- YV4062…34567
- ADVISOR
- 203
- TECH
- 114
- PROMISE
- 3:30 PM
- MILEAGE
- 41,208
Ingest preview · simulated RO and board card
In development — not connected yet. The systems dealers actually run. We'll name one as live only when it is.
- CDK
- Reynolds
- Dealertrack
- Tekion
- Auto/Mate
- DealerBuilt
- PBS
- & more
AND FOR SHOPS WITHOUT ONE — A DMS OF OUR OWN.
Plenty of independent and aftermarket shops don't run a franchise DMS at all — they run on paper, spreadsheets, and memory. For them the direction is different: instead of connecting to someone else's system, Shop Route Board becomes the system of record itself. Repair orders, vehicles and customers, built right into the board the shop already lives on — one platform, not a bolt-on. It's early in development — and that's exactly how we'll label it until it ships.
Decode the vehicle
ONE VIN. THE WHOLE VEHICLE.
DECODE ONCE. USE EVERYWHERE.
A VIN shouldn't be a field someone types over and over. The direction: decode it once into a normalized vehicle record — year, make, model, and the rest — that every part of the platform can read. Today the VIN you capture already ties a car to its own history; next, it becomes shared vehicle data.
- VIN RECEIVEDYV4062PM8S1234567
- VALIDATED Check digit OK
- DECODED
2025 Volvo XC90 B6 AWD · 2.0L · SUV
- NORMALIZED RECORD
YEAR 2025MAKE VolvoMODEL XC90 TRIM B6DRIVE AWDBODY SUV
- Route board
- TopCheck
- Reporting
- Warranty
- Partner API
Preview of a planned capability · synthetic VIN, simulated decode
Write the warranty story
STRUCTURE THE STORY.
DON'T INVENT THE REPAIR.
The Warranty Story Writer is an OEM-aware documentation assistant in development. It takes the technician's own concern, diagnosis, repair and verification and organizes them into a complete, paste-ready warranty story — complaint, cause, correction. It improves structure, completeness and clarity. It does not invent facts.
C: Cust states battery light on, intermittent no-start. scanned, found P0AA6 + B10E8 stored. checked HV interlock, tested 12v, load test ok. replaced HCML, performed software reload. cleared codes, verified no return, road tested.
Complaint: Customer states battery warning light is illuminated with an intermittent no-start condition.
Cause: Diagnostics retrieved stored codes P0AA6 and B10E8. HV interlock and 12V system verified; battery passed load test. Fault isolated to the hybrid/control module.
Correction: Replaced HCML and performed software reload. Cleared codes, confirmed no return, and road-tested with no recurrence.
Simulated example · every fact above came from the technician's notes on the left
- Which DTCs support the diagnosis?
- What verification confirmed the repair?
- Is a campaign or recall in play on this VIN?
- Software level, if the operation requires it?
OEM-aware, and expandable. Complaint / cause / correction organized to the manufacturer's own requirements — strongest today on the most-developed brand, with more added deliberately as supported OEM packs. A companion auditor can review a closed RO before submission and flag risk, with the evidence cited.
How it connects
ONE RO. ONE VEHICLE.
ONE SOURCE OF OPERATIONAL CONTEXT.
These aren't three separate features. They're one connected record moving through the shop — so the board, the inspection, the documentation and the reporting all describe the same car, the same job, the same day.
- DMSthe RO & vehicle arrive
- VIN decodenormalize the vehicle
- Route boardoperate the day
- TopCheckinspect the same RO
- Warranty storydocument the facts
- Reportinglearn across ROs
From a digital route board to a connected fixed-operations layer — less duplicate entry, less chasing, more operational awareness.
The roadmap
WHAT'S REAL, WHAT'S NEXT.
ORGANIZED BY HOW FAR ALONG IT IS.
Maturity, not made-up dates. Here's where each capability actually stands — live today, in pilot, or in active development — and an item moves up only when the work earns it.
- Shop control Live route & status board Every open RO, who owns it, what is promised and what is late — on one board the whole drive shares.
- Shop control TopCheck inspections Digital MPI, walk-arounds, QC and photos tied to the same RO the board already tracks.
- Shop control Estimates & customer approval Build the estimate, present it, and let the customer approve or decline each line online.
- DMS DMS reconcile by export Upload your DMS open-RO export and the board reconciles against it, closing cars that already left.
- Vehicle data Vehicle capture + VIN history Capture the VIN (last 8) with year, make and model — and it already links a car to its own inspection and quote history.
- Integration Vendor-neutral integration engine The engine a DMS connector plugs into: it ingests RO and vehicle events, dedupes and audits them, and recommends the next action. In pilot on our demo tenant.
- Integration Partner API + webhooks Token-authenticated, per-scope access with signed outbound webhooks — so an authorized system can read and react to shop activity.
- Warranty Warranty Story Writer Turns the technician’s own concern, diagnosis, repair and verification into a structured, paste-ready warranty story — and asks for what is missing instead of inventing it.
- Warranty OEM-aware documentation Complaint / cause / correction organized to the manufacturer’s own requirements, starting with the most-developed brand and expandable by OEM pack.
- Warranty Pre-submission RO auditor A companion check that reviews a closed RO’s documentation against policy and flags submission risk — with the evidence cited, before the claim goes out.
- Vehicle data Full-VIN decode → normalized vehicle Decode the full VIN once into a normalized vehicle record the board, TopCheck, reporting, warranty and the API all read.
- DMS Read-first DMS connectors Direct, read-only connectors built on the pilot engine, so the RO exists in ShopRouteBoard before anyone types it again.
- DMS A DMS for independent shops For shops that don’t run a franchise DMS, Shop Route Board becomes the system of record itself — repair orders, vehicles and customers built on the board.
- DMS Direct connectors to major DMS platforms The systems dealers actually run — CDK, Reynolds, Dealertrack, Tekion and more — connected deliberately as the engine proves out. None are connected yet, and we will not say otherwise.
- Shop control Exception & aging detection Surface the car waiting on parts, the car waiting on approval, and the promise time about to slip — before someone has to notice.
- Warranty More OEM story packs Additional manufacturers added as supported packs, each with its own codes and formatting — never a shallow one-size claim.
- DMS Safe DMS write-back Writing updates back to the DMS — deliberately after read, only where it is genuinely safe and supported. Read first, write later.
- Integration Reporting from connected activity Trends, repeat documentation gaps and workflow bottlenecks, drawn from connected operational events.
How we talk about it
WHAT WE WON'T DO.
WANT YOUR DMS ON THE ROADMAP?
We're looking for shops to help shape DMS connectivity, VIN intelligence and the Warranty Story Writer. Tell us what you run and where it hurts — and see the platform it plugs into, live.