Getting Started - Guided Set-Up
You can get back to this Getting Started help topic at anytime. From the main window Help menu, select 'Getting started with Guided Set-Up'.
Mouse-activated help tips: Try it! Don't click, just hover the mouse pointer over a field or button you are interested in, and a small pop-up help message appears for several seconds. These pop-up help tips tell you about the button or area of the screen your mouse is on.
Status Bar Help is always there: FleetVIP also displays ongoing help tips on the status bar at the bottom left side of the FleetVIP window.
Online Help always available: Click the Help button on any screen or press the F1 key to access more detailed online help about the screen you are on.
FleetVIP Guided Set-Up - just three steps and not much time needed. Here is a quick overview.
FleetVIP's Guided Set-Up feature automatically walks you through whenever adding a vehicle. It also walks through adding the first scheduled task and the first maintenance history item for a vehicle. Here are the three steps it takes you through:
Step 1 - Add a vehicle profile:
Enter the basic info on a vehicle you want to track. More info on adding a vehicle.
Step 2 - Setup a maintenance schedule:
Enter the regularly scheduled maintenance tasks you want to keep track of. You can enter just a few or as many as you want. You can always add more later. After you have added one or two items, you should be up to speed. This should take about a minute or so per task. Guided Set-Up prompts you when to add the first scheduled item for a vehicle. More on Step 2.
Step 3 - Enter maintenance history:
Enter the latest completion dates and mileage for the scheduled tasks you are tracking. Once the program knows the last time you did something, then it can figure the next time it should be done again. If you have never done the item, FleetVIP tells you to do it soon. Guided Set-Up prompts you when to add history items for a vehicle.
Once you have entered completion dates for one or two tasks, you should be up to speed. It should take about a minute or so per item to enter the completion date and mileage. (You can post all the completed maintenance ever done on the vehicle if you want it all online. A very good idea, but not required just for getting started. You can add more history later or now.) More on Step 3.
Other ways to do the same thing: There are also other ways to add scheduled tasks and completed work history. Once you are familiar with the Guided Set-Up methods, try other View menu options and read more Help topics to learn about advanced features and options.
Related topic: How to avoid unnecessary maintenance expenses
Turning off mouse-activated help tips: Once you are familiar with the layout of the program, you can turn off these pop-up messages from the Help Menu.
Click on the main window Help menu and click on 'Suppress Pop-Up Help Tips'. They will go away. If you change your mind and want them back, go there and click on the same menu option again. It is like an on-off switch.
To turn off Guided Set-Up messages: Click on the Help menu and click on Turn off Guided Set-Up. If you are an expert user, you may prefer to turn off these messages. You can always turn them on again by clicking the same menu option. It is an Off/On toggle. A checkmark appears next to it when Guided Set-Up is turned off.
More about Status Bar Help:
FleetVIP also displays help tips on the status bar at the bottom of the FleetVIP window. These messages relate to the button or area on the screen that has 'focus'. You can try this out by using the tab key to move (or change focus) from button to button and notice the messages on the status bar. These messages are similar to the pop-up help tips. If the status bar is too small for the message being displayed, simply make the FleetVIP window bigger which makes the status bar larger, too.
You can also click on any of the main menu categories (like File, Edit, View, Reports, Options, Arrange and Help) and move the mouse over the various pulldown menu options and a description of each menu option appears in the status bar.
Special Navigation Features can be very useful:
There are several features that are available on scrollable lists. Scrollable lists are any of the screens that let you scroll through a list of vehicles or maintenance tasks. Here are some of the features you can find on any of these scrollable list screens.
Pop-Up Menus: When your mouse is over any scrollable list of vehicles or tasks, you can right-click and a pop-up menu appears showing available actions you can take for the line item your mouse is over. You can use either the pop-up menu or the various action buttons on the screen.
Locate a line item: Whenever a scrollable list has focus, simply type a letter and the highlight bar jumps to that letter in the scrollable list. (This works when the list is sorted by Description. If you have sorted by another column, locate may not apply.)
Sort Columns:
Adjust Column Widths:
Center a Window: From the Arrange menu: click 'Reset/Center Window'.
FleetVIP uses what is called a 'multiple-document interface'. That means you can have several windows opened at the same time and move them, resize them, etc. If you want to get a window back to the center of the main FleetVIP window and resize it to the original (default) size, the reset window feature is very handy.
Multiple Windows Open: Switch to any opened window (within FleetVIP) by selecting it under the View menu or press Control-F6 to jump to the next open window. (Tip: You can always switch between different application windows in Windows using Alt-TAB.)