What's New in ShopCommander

This summary describes current product behavior, not planned work. Availability still follows each shop's enabled features, each person’s access, configured providers, and authoritative data sources.

A Home that fits the person using it

Owner, Administrator, Manager, and Service Advisor Home views now emphasize different decisions without exposing work or financial context the signed-in person cannot access. Technicians and Apprentices normally begin in My Work, where Ready and Waiting states make the next safe action visible.

Guided setup without a second source of truth

The optional Setup Wizard writes through the shop’s real Settings and ends in a live readiness record. A shop can explore and resume later, but dismissal cannot manufacture a Ready state. Getting Started, Show me around, and Show me how remain replayable after launch.

Clearer work on a phone

Current responsive flows cover My Work, Repair Orders, DVI, Messages, setup review, and typed inventory operations. Mobile navigation and focused work sections preserve the same lifecycle and permission rules as desktop.

One inventory ledger, four product families

Generic Parts, Tires, Batteries, and Fluids & Supplies now share stock movements, reservations, purchasing, receiving, returns, and repair-order integration while retaining family-specific identity and search. Tire Inventory is shop-owned merchandise; Tire Storage remains customer-owned seasonal property in custody.

More actionable management views

Role-aware Home, Reports, Action Center, Work Opportunities, and business-office workspaces now distinguish current exceptions, posted documents, settlement, cost coverage, productive time, attendance, and sold/credited time instead of flattening them into one score.

Bounded conversational workflows

Configured Voice and messaging workflows can support appointment changes, repair status, current estimate decisions, published DVI explanation, governed reminders/follow-up, and human transfer. These workflows depend on shop configuration, provider readiness, consent, rollout approval, and authoritative data. They are not a generic autonomous phone agent or a universal tire catalog.

Stricter guardrails from the August product audit

A browser-driven audit of the live product tightened several rules. Each one replaces a silent or ambiguous outcome with an exact refusal:

• Closed repair orders refuse new lines with a conflict message that explains the state, rather than a permission error.
• Loaner odometer readings below the vehicle's current reading need an override reason at checkout and at return, and the exception lands in the loaner queue.
• Part returns apply only to Ordered or Received parts, so a repeated click can no longer mint a duplicate return order.
• Timesheet submissions and approvals require a configured pay period covering the dates; the action stays visible but disabled until one exists.
• Customer feedback links answer only for requests that were actually sent; cancelled or never-sent requests are refused.
• Warranty settlements that exceed the remaining recoverable balance are refused with the exact remaining amount in the message (the API answers 422 instead of a bare 409 code).
• Opening a customer record never writes to it: the projected visit and spend figures are computed for the response, not persisted as a customer update.

For operational steps, start with Getting Started, Your First Real Workflow, or Setup & Readiness.