Setting Up A Lot To Be Visible and Available To The End User

This article outlines the critical factors that determine a lot's visibility and availability to end-users when they are purchasing permits in OPS-COM. Its primary purpose is to help administrators understand and configure these settings correctly to ensure that parking lots are accessible to the intended user groups. This guide is intended for OPS-COM administrators.

Setup and Configuration

Configuring lot visibility requires adjusting system-wide settings as well as lot-specific user type permissions.

Admin Side:

System-Wide Visibility Setting

1. Hover over System Configuration and click System Settings.

2. Click the Permits tab.

3. Locate the Show Only Visible lots setting.

Enable the Show Only Visible lots checkbox to only view lots marked as "Visible" across the system. Disable this checkbox to view both visible and non-visible lots in administrative views.

Lot Visibility and User Type Settings

1. Hover over Parking Management, hover over Lot Administration, and click Pricing and Lot Admin.

2. Click Add New Lot (or click an existing Lot Name to edit).

3. Enable the Visible radio button in the Visibility to User setting on the General tab.

4. Select the appropriate User Types that are allowed to see and purchase permits for this lot in the Lot Access section. Hold the Ctrl key to select multiple user types.

5. Click the Update Lot button.

6. Disable the This lot is for temporary parking only checkbox on the Temporary Permits tab.

Allocate Permits to the Lot

1. Follow the steps in the Adding Permits to a Lot (Allocation) article to add and verify your permits.

Set Up a Permit Sales Window

1. Follow the steps in the Permit Sales Window Management article to setup your Sales Window.

User Side: End-users do not configure these settings. They simply log in and view the lots that their specific User Type has been granted access to during active sales windows.

Using this Feature

Administrators should interact with the system using the impersonation tool to test and verify that the lot is properly visible to the correct user types.

Testing Lot Visibility

1. Hover over User Management and click User Registration to create a new test user, or click User Search to find an existing one.

2. Verify that the test user's User Type (e.g., Full Time Staff) matches one of the user types you allowed to access the newly configured lot.

3. Click the Login as User button for your test user.

4. Navigate to Permits on the User-Side Dashboard.

5. Verify if the lot you created is available to be reserved. If the user type you are testing does not match the lot's allowed user types, the lot will remain safely hidden on the user side.

Best Practices and Considerations

• Test Thoroughly: Always perform a Login as User test with various user types after configuring a new lot or modifying its settings. This ensures that visibility and availability precisely match your intentions.

• Align User Types: The most common reason a lot isn't visible is a mismatch between the lot's User Types setting and the logged-in user's actual user type. Double-check this setting carefully.

• Check Sales Window Dates: Ensure your permit sales windows are always current. An expired sales window will make the lot completely unavailable, even if all other settings are correct.

• Allocate Permits First: A lot without allocated permits, even if marked visible, will not allow users to purchase permits as there is no inventory to sell. Always allocate permits after lot creation.

• Use Clear Naming Conventions: Use descriptive Lot Names and Lot Short Names that clearly indicate the lot's purpose or location to users.