Basics
Which functions does the message management provide?
The message management provides sending and receiving text messages from and to cars equipped with a display. Besides simple text messages it is also possible to send response messages, where the driver has to confirm the receipt or answer an forced choice question.
Available lists
After starting the messages management there will be visible the sent messages by default. Other states and functions will be available by switching the tabs. The upper tab bar offers the following options:
The tabs
Common list structure
Above each list will be placed some buttons. They provide functionality to refresh the current list, create a new message and (re)send or delete the previously selected messages.
 | refresh | Reloads the current list. |
 | create new message | Opens the window to create a new message. |
| (re)send selected messages | Sends the selected messages to the according car display. If no car assigned to a message draft, there will be shown a list, to assign the cars. |
| delete selected messages | Attention, this deletes the messages with the according state entries from the website permanently |
Depending on your setup the list contains a number of entries per page. The count of entries can be changed temporary directly at the table head or permanently by changing personal settings. Additionally there will be a search field on the upper right to filter the messages by the columns: sender, car, message state and message text. An ascending or descending ordering per column is also available.
The following columns are available:
message created on | date and time when a message was created |
sender | name of the person, who created the message |
car | the car, received the message |
message state | last state message send by car (not available for message pool list) |
message text | the text of the message |
action |
|
Available lists
| send messages | Here are listed all messages, sent from protal to a car. If the message is a canned response message, the answer will be visible too. |
| not delivered messages | The messages in this list, shall be send to a car but the reception is not confirmed or was rejected. Some minutes of delay until the confirmation is received by the portal are totally normal. |
| received messages | It is possible to create a new message directly at the car display. This messages are located here. |
| message pool | If a message just was created without sending, it will be shown here. Such messages don't need a car assignment, can be edited and send in groups. |
search | The search allows to define filters upon all available messages. Compared to the regular search field it is possible to define what you want very precisely. (look at extra paragraph: ' The search' ) |
For all lists except search list, the the count of messages at the list is always visible in the tab list. The tabs except the search tab only considering the data of the latest 2 months. To work with older data you can use the search tab and limit the results by date and state.
The search
On switch to search tab there will be the limitation to the last 30 days of creation active. To search for the filtered data there will be a search button between input area and result list.
The following search filters are available:
create date, state date, message text, car(s), message state and user
The first two parameters are time spans. You can select a predefined timespan from the list or you can define the date range yourself. If a date was set, the filter can be removed with the x (
) behind each field.
All other input fields can handle multiple search terms for filtering. For cars the selection is similar to the create/edit dialog. In all other input fields the filter parameters will be shown as tokens. A token can be set by pressing enter. Each of this tokens can be deleted seperately. A message will be found, if one of the tokens for a filter will fit and all of the filters will fit.
Create/copy/edit message
After clicking create new message (
) the input mask will be opened. The input masks to edit, answer or copy a message similar but with prepoulated data, so the following points apply to all cases.
cars | A message can be send to one or multiple cars. If you only want to select one car, just select it from the list. To specify multiple cars or groups use the first option select multiple cars. This opens a dialog where you can click the desired cars. To directly send a new message you have to select at least one car. |
response selection | Selecting a car with a Garmin display you can predefine responses for the driver. The following response types are available:
|
message text | The regular plain message text. The available length differs by display type so you can see the count of available chars directly below the text box. |
Cancel | Cancels the input and return to the last overview list. |
create message / save changes | saves the message draft and return to message pool list |
send message | If at least one car is defined, it is possible to send the message directly. You should see this message then in sent messages list. |
Chat
The chat is an alternate view compared to the other submodules. Basically the assignment of messages and vehicles was changed here. Instead of an overview of all messages of one type for all vehicles here the conversation per vehicle is shown.
There are 2 main areas. On the left is the foldable vehicles list, showing for each vehicle the following informations:
- vehicle sign
- ignition state
- time and place of latest gps message
- count of unread messages, send from the vehicle
- optional: the currently logged on driver
The search on top of this list allows to limit the visible vehicles.
The main area itself is divided horizontal as followed:
- top row
- optional: the currently selected vehicle
- a free text search for all messages of the currently selected vehicle
- the icon to open the chat in a new seperate window
- center area
- the list with messages itself
- bottom row
- the input area for the message text
- optional: selectable predefined responses
- send message icon
- optional: if a predefined response selected, the selected values
messages list
Each message will be displayed in an independent bubble. Each bubble is marked to divide messages from portal, rti interface and vehicle. Messages created using the portal showing the portal user, who wrote the message. For messages from vehicles the logged on driver at the vehicle is visible, if there was no driver was logged on, the vehicle sign will be shown.
The messages are ordered from oldest to newest one with the newest message visible at bottom position on init. To load older messages, scroll to the top of the list. The list will be refreshed periodically in background, so new messages from vehicles or any other protal user will be added with a little delay automatically.
If a predefined response option selected for the message, the response type and selected answer is visible below the message text. By clicking there, the other available responses sent to the display will be faded in.
On the bottom right edge of each message bubble the send date and the send state will be shown. A Click at the date field will expand the message history details with all state changes For each change there will be added the user, if possible. Additionally the following sending state icons are defined:
 | sending the message to the server |
 | the message was successfully sent to the server |
 | the message was successfully send to the vehicle display |
 | the message was read by the driver |
 | sending the message failed |
Settings
Depending on used hardware and user rights there are different submenus available.
personal settings | always available with the following options:
|
tab settings | Here you can set which tabs are available on top and influence the sequence. The administrator can set a profile to be active for the whole company and additionally lock the change of this setting for regular users. |
display settings | Here you can set up to 8 message texts as draft available at car display. If you are using garmin displays, you can also set a selection of predefined message response texts. The response texts for each message can be defined on create. After changing texts it is neccessary to send the new configuration to your cars. You can set this texts only for cars, where you have the corresponding edit right. |