ToolFleet helps you to organise your assets, by sorting them into categories. To understand why ToolFleet won’t let you have two categories that are identical, you first need to understand what categories are – click on this link to read the instructions page for setting up categories.
The reason duplicates are not allowed, is to help you to organise your assets properly. This will not be a problem, so long as categories are used in the ‘proper’ way. Things to avoid:
- Don’t list asset ‘Models’ or ‘Types’ as Manufacturers. For example, it would be a mistake to list “Ford” or “Van” under the Model heading. The Model in this instance would be “Transit”, “Ford” is the Manufacturer, “Van” is the Type.
- Don’t list asset ‘Types’ under the Model category. Using the same example as above, it would be a mistake to list a “Transit” as the ‘Type’. You would be better to use “Vehicle”, “Van” or suchlike for the Type.
- Don’t list asset ‘Types’ under the ‘Model’ category. For example, someone has a petrol hedge trimmer, a Stihl HS45. This is made by Stihl, so they list the manufacturer as “Stihl” – so far so good. But they’re not sure of the model number, so they use “Hedge trimmer” as the model, and also list “Hedge trimmer” in the Type category. This will work fine so long as they only have one set of hedge trimmers. However, they then buy another set of hedge trimmers a couple of years later, this time an electric set, a Bosch AHS 54-20. They list the manufacturer for that one as Bosch – no problems so far. But when they again input “Hedge trimmer” as the model, the system rejects it. Why…?
ToolFleet organises servicing and inspection intervals based on the “model” category.
When you have several identical machines, this saves you from having to set up your service-interval plan over and over again for each individual asset. But obviously, this means that when you have completely different models (for example petrol machines vs electric ones), they need to be listed under different names, because they will have completely different maintenance patterns.
In the examples above, the Model for the Stihl should have been listed as “HS45”, and the Bosch model listed as “AHS 54-20”.
