VGM Version 3.12

We’re pleased to announce the release of VGM version 3.12, which includes several improvements and one major new addition: the Opportunities module. This powerful new feature is designed to help you capture and follow up on potential future work more easily than ever before.

Introducing the New Opportunities Module
The Opportunities module gives you the tools to manage follow-ups based on MOT advisories, Vehicle Health Check results, and other recommended work. You can set reminders, track potential jobs, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Send quotes directly to your customers via email, SMS, or internal messaging—using parts from GSF, tyres from Group Tyre, your own stock, labour, MOTs, services, and more. Once a quote is approved, it can be instantly turned into a job and booked straight into your VGM diary.

Additional Highlights in This Release

• GSF Quoting in VGM Classic
  A long-requested feature is now live: users can now add parts from GSF to sales quotations in VGM Classic without immediately ordering them. This allows greater flexibility, as parts can now be added during quoting and only ordered once the job is confirmed.

• Real-Time Sync in VGM
  We’ve introduced real-time syncing across open windows and sessions using SignalR. Key records such as job sheets, customers, vehicles, and quotes now stay up-to-date instantly, improving speed, reliability, and overall UX.

• Enhanced Parts & Tyres Grids (VGM)
  We’ve improved both the parts and tyres grids with better filtering, usability enhancements, and new features to make managing inventory more efficient and user-friendly. These now match, and often exceed, the functionality in VGM Classic.

• Bug Fixes & Minor Enhancements
  A range of smaller improvements and bug fixes are also included in this release. Details for these can be found in the sections below.

VGM

Opportunities

The new Opportunities module is designed to help garages capture and convert potential future work with minimal effort. Opportunities are typically created automatically — for example, when entering an advisory during an MOT, job sheet, or booking, a simple checkbox allows the user to flag that item as an opportunity. These can then be scheduled for follow-up at a later date (e.g. 3 or 6 months), helping to drive customer retention and additional revenue. Multiple advisory items logged around the same time are grouped together into a single opportunity to keep things streamlined for both the garage and the customer.

Each opportunity has a detailed view that allows users to assign ratings, statuses (such as "In Progress" or "Won"), and record internal notes. A Won opportunity indicates that at least one quote has been accepted, resulting in a job being booked. The detail view also includes an Overview tab showing the customer and vehicle involved, and an Activity timeline, which logs every key interaction — such as item creation, edits, deletions, communications (email/SMS/phone), and status changes — giving users full visibility over how the opportunity has progressed.

The Items tab within each opportunity shows all associated opportunity items — whether created automatically from advisories or VHCs, or added manually by staff. This allows garages to build out tailored offers for customers (e.g. adding an air-con top-up to a summer-timed opportunity). These items are grouped based on when they were created, reducing clutter and ensuring related items are handled as a single customer-facing transaction.

From an opportunity, users can generate one or more sales quotations, selecting from premium vs. budget options, for instance. Quotes can be built using integrated supplier parts (e.g. GSF or Group Tyre), internal stock, labour, MOTs, services, and more. Once prepared, quotes can be sent to customers for review and approval. If approved, a quote can be converted into a job and scheduled directly into the VGM diary. Alternatively, users can bypass the quote step and create job sheets directly if preferred.

Opportunities can also be created manually — useful for garages that don’t use VHCs or automated workflows but still want to build and send follow-up communications. Finally, the grid view gives a comprehensive, filterable list of all opportunities, with full support for sorting, status filtering (e.g. Won, Lost), and assignment — following the same customisable grid conventions used throughout VGM.

Opportunity Features Summarised

• Opportunity Creation - Opportunities can be created manually, or automatically via advisories and VHC Checklists

• Opportunities Grid - which can be customised a filtered (similar to other grids)

• Opportunity Detail View - an overview for an opportunity with customer and vehicle information, statuses (such as In Progress, Won and Lost), messaging (SMS & Email), configurable tabs and the ability to create jobsheets and sales quotations.

• Opportunity Overview - Configurable overview with cards, including notes.

• Opportunity Activity Log - This is a searchable complete history of everything that has happened relating to the opportunity, including how it was created, edits that are made, items that are added and communication made to the customer.

• Opportunity Messaging - Launched from the opportunity detail view, you can send the customer and email attaching PDFs for all of the generated sales quotations. You can also send messaging via SMS.

Opportunity Documentation

Tyres & Parts

As part of this release, we’ve delivered a set of key improvements to both the Parts and Tyres grids in VGM, bringing them in line with the functionality available in VGM Classic — and going a step further with additional flexibility and filtering options.

For the Tyres Grid, users can now archive tyres and choose to show or hide archived items. We’ve also introduced several new filters, including Product Group, Manufacturer, Bin Location, and a toggle for archived tyres — making it significantly easier to find and manage inventory.

The Parts Grid has received similar upgrades. Users can now archive parts and filter results using Product Group, Manufacturer, Bin Location, and Supplier fields. Archived parts can be shown or hidden as needed, giving users more control over how they manage stock records.

Importantly, these updates don’t just bring parity with VGM Classic — they also take advantage of the Explore Data feature in VGM, enabling users to build their own reports and gain deeper insights into their parts and tyre stock. This makes it easier to identify slow-moving items, spot trends, and support smarter stock management decisions.

Tyres & Parts Features & Enhancements Summarised

• Updated Grids - The parts and tyres grids have been updated with better filters, view selectors and explore data.

• Archiving Tyres - This is now available in VGM.

• Easy Part Creation - If you search for a part and click the 'New' button, the form will be pre-populated with the search term (as per VGM Classic).

Sales Quotations

We’ve introduced several enhancements to the Sales Quotation system in this release to improve tracking, clarity, and workflow — especially in preparation for deeper integration with the new Opportunities module.

Sales Quotation Enhancements Summarised

• Custom Quotation Statuses
  Sales quotations can now be assigned custom statuses, configured per branch in VGM Classic under Branch Settings > Sales Quotation Statuses. These work similarly to job sheet statuses and allow garages to better track the progress or internal handling of each quote.

• Quotation State Tracking
  A new Sales Quotation State has been introduced to indicate whether a quote has been Accepted, Rejected, or has No Response. This state is especially important when managing quotes within the context of opportunities and follow-ups.

These changes pave the way for clearer reporting, better automation, and more structured follow-up workflows within VGM.

Real Time Updates

We've made significant improvements to how data stays up to date in VGM by introducing real-time syncing using a new service called Signal R. Changes to key records like job sheets, customers, vehicles, and quotes will now update automatically across all connected clients. In some views, we've also introduced change conflict warnings, so if someone else updates a document you're working on, you'll be notified and given the option to either reload their changes or continue with yours.

Sales Invoices

Sales Invoice Enhancements Summarised

• Import Job Template - VHC Items are now greyed out during this process, as they cannot be added to a sales invoice.

Customers and Vehicles

Customers & Vehicles Enhancements Summarised

• Customer Deletion - You can now delete customers in VGM. Just like in VGM Classic, the system will first verify if the customer can be deleted. If deletion is not possible, you will receive a list of reasons detailing the restrictions, such as linked documents and other dependencies.

• Vehicle Deletion - Similarly, vehicles can now be deleted in VGM. The system will conduct a pre-check to determine if the vehicle can be removed. If there are any restrictions due to linked documents or other factors, you will be alerted with relevant warnings before proceeding.

Push Notifications

We've now added functionality into VGM so that push notifications are sent to VGM Technician when tasks are assigned/unassigned or a comment is added to a task or jobsheet.

VGM Bugs

Dashboard 

• Widget configuration dialog icon/text displacement issue (in Safari)

Customer Media

• Fixed issue when documents e.g Jobsheet didn't have a customer defined on document. 

• Truncate breadcrumbs navigation text (folder title) to prevent wrapping and overflowing 

• Ensure vehicle registration grouping is working correctly when adding/removing media 

• Server getting a request for media without a customer ID supplied (wasteful) 

• Make it more obvious that media can be uploaded directly against a customer 

• When loading from the context of a customer, group by 'All media' by default 

Jobsheets

• Removed duplicate printing buttons 

• Fixed issue where all users appeared in Service Adviser now only users flagged as Service advisers show in the drop down 

• Prevent sending of VHC Messages from Jobsheet with undefined vehicle (short code in message couldn't be generated) 

• Adding Slot Types to jobsheets now populates Estimated Hours correctly 

• Jobsheet Task Overview Card items wouldn't show when jobsheet was closed 

  • Able to view tasks but not edit them

VHC Checklists

• Change 'Jobs' Column to 'Job Status' 

• Prevent sending of VHC Messages from Jobsheet with undefined vehicle (short code in message couldn't be generated) 

• Sending a VHC via email now updates the related jobsheet event log 

• Ensure list refreshed on re-navigation by removing it from route cache strategy 

• Severity for checklist items - 'Not set' should have a value of '0' instead of 'null' 

• Checklist items - grid not refreshing when advisory data updated

Sales Invoices

• Printing buttons 

  • Removed duplicate buttons 

  • Fixed printing button in action menu 

• Reinstated grid filters that had been removed

Scheduler

• When selecting the 'Scheduler' filter option for the jobsheet list alongside the scheduler then ensure the list updates to reflect the data from the current scheduler date view 

• Context menu bug - menu rendering in wrong direction when close to edge of screen
  

Sales Quotations

• Removed duplicate printing buttons 

• Detail dialog - Maximize/minimize dialog bug 

• Expiry date - when branch setting is '0 months' then do not preset an expiry date 

• Cloning a Sales Quotation will now correctly populate [Net], [Vat] & [Gross] with initial response. 

Tasks

• When creating a task using decimal hours, round to the nearest minute for the task duration field.

Bookings

• Use existing slot availability scrolling issue

Tyres

• Set cost to 0 when adding new tyre

Haynes Servicing Parts

• Fixed quantity of temp parts when building up items for a Haynes service

Forms

• Inconsistent icons on pill dropdown items

Messaging

• Prevent message being sent if relevant customer information is not available across: 

  • Bookings 

  • Jobsheets 

  • Opportunities 

  • Sales Invoices 

  • Sales Quotations 

  • Tasks 
     

• Load defined VHC default template based on branch setting 

VGM Classic

Sales Quotations and GSF Car Parts

We've enhanced the GSF Car Parts integration in VGM Classic to give users more flexibility when creating sales quotations. It's now possible to add GSF parts to a quote without placing an order immediately. This allows users to build accurate quotes using live parts data from GSF, and then order the required parts later — typically once the quotation has been approved and converted into a job. This change streamlines the quoting process while keeping full control over when orders are placed.

GSF Enhancements Summarised

• Add Parts to Quotes, Invoices and Jobsheets without ordering - You can add parts from GSF to documents without placing an order.

• Order Parts - You can order the parts separately from these documents.

Settings

We've added more configuration options relating to some of the new features:

• Enable Opportunities

• Advisory offset months - Default offset when user creates an opportunity from the advisory

• Removed VHC Template Red/Amber - Red Means now, green means all good so can be ignored.

• Opportunity Default Message Template - Default email template for opportunities.

• VHC Template Items - You can now configure when opportunity items at an item level.

• Email Template for Opportunities - New default Email template for Opportunities

VGM Classic Bugs

• Customers 

  • Merging customers now also merges Customer notes 

  • Merge customers was timing out in some cases where a customer had a lot of invoices 

• Jobsheets 

  • Clicking green spanner will now open tech data with the vehicle from jobsheet pre-selected 

  • Right clicking jobsheet in list and selecting Technical Data will now open with the vehicle from jobsheet pre-selected 

  • Adding Slot Types to jobsheets now populates Estimated Hours correctly 

• Sales Invoices 

  • Marking a part for Return will now, if linked to a jobsheet, also update the quantity on the linked jobsheet item 

  • Deleting an invoice item that was previously linked to a jobsheet could fail if the jobsheet item had already been deleted 

• Purchase Returns 

  • It was possible to create a duplicate credit by double clicking the save button

• Message Templates 

  • Copying HTML from a default template to create a new one causes issues as it won't copy over correctly a lot of the time. Now, the default templates are populated in the 'copy from' dropdown when creating a new template, negating the need to try and copy over HTML 

• Tyre work items 

  • Previously when going to add tyres to a document, VGM would always attempt a VRM search to get tyres specific to the vehicle on the document. This causes issues especially for users who don't have VRM credits, as an error would show each time. This has now been changed to default to stock code search by default 

• VHC 

  • When sending a VHC via email, if going to change the selected template, the sender address would be cleared and cause the message to not send 

• Stock Adjustments 

  • Sorting by date is now fixed

Control Panel

There have been a few enhancements to the control panel:

• Introduced document number setting for Opportunities.

• Super Admins are now able to create and edit SYSTEM reports (Branch ID == 0).

• Super Admins can now delete branches along with their associated data.

Company Portal

Company Portal Bugs

• Sage One Export now supports T9 VAT code

Booking System

Booking System Bugs

• Default slot type nominals are now being correctly set when creating a Jobsheet

General

We also have some new features that don't belong to a specific product:

Dojo Payment Links

• Email Address Required - A customer email address is required, as a receipt will be sent to the customer upon completion.

• Apple Pay & Android Pay - Apple and Android pay have now been enabled for all payment links.