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Understanding & Controlling Active Vehicles

Active vehicles in OPS-COM are license plates registered and marked as eligible to be assigned to parking permits. Its primary purpose is to help administrators understand how vehicle status functions, how it interacts with permit renewals, and how to manage potential discrepancies between active vehicle counts and active permit counts. This article is intended for OPS-COM administrators responsible for managing permit allocations and user accounts.

Setup and Configuration

The primary control mechanism for preventing excessive vehicle registrations is governed by user type configurations.

Admin Side: Administrators must ensure that user type settings are correctly configured to limit the maximum number of vehicles a user can register. Detailed setup instructions can be found in the Limiting Active Vehicles article.

User Side: End-users can self-manage their active vehicle list through the public-facing user portal, provided their assigned user type grants them the necessary permissions and limits.

Using this Feature

Administrators can use the following concepts and instructions to monitor user accounts, ensuring vehicle counts remain consistent with permit requirements.

Understanding Active Vehicle Status

An active vehicle is defined as any license plate the system recognizes as ready to be assigned to a parking permit.

  • Ready Status: This status indicates the vehicle is registered and eligible; it does not confirm that the vehicle is currently assigned to a valid, active permit.

  • Sticky Status: Vehicle status is considered "sticky," meaning it persists from year to year. During permit rollovers, the system does not automatically deactivate vehicles even if a user's permit count decreases. This behavior can lead to a mismatch where a user has more active vehicles than active permits.

The maximum number of vehicles a user can have marked as active is strictly determined by their assigned User Types.

Managing Vehicle and Permit Mismatches

Administrators must regularly monitor accounts to catch discrepancies between vehicles and active permits.

  1. Hover over the main menu and click Reports.

  2. Click the Active Vehicle Report.

  3. Review the generated report to identify all customers who have a higher number of active vehicles than active permits.

  4. Contact the affected users to request they deactivate any excess vehicles, or manually deactivate the extra vehicles through the User - Vehicles Tab if organizational policy allows.

Feature Active Vehicle Count Active Permit Count
Definition Number of license plates marked as Ready. Number of valid permits purchased for the current period.
Rollover Status Sticky (Carries over year to year). Reset (Only current permits count).

Best Practices and Considerations

  • Conduct proactive auditing: Regularly run the Active Vehicle Report to identify and resolve discrepancies. This is especially critical following permit renewal or annual rollover periods when users may drop permits but forget to deactivate old vehicles.

  • Establish strict permit rules: Organizations requiring one permit per active vehicle should establish a firm business rule for managing these discrepancies during the annual rollover process.

  • Communicate with users: If a user has more active vehicles than permits, reach out to the user to have them clean up their account. Maintaining an accurate, pruned vehicle list ensures that your enforcement and permit allocation data remains precise.

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