Admin Reference

Admin Setup Guide

Set up your fleet management system from scratch. This guide covers company configuration, user management, fleet records, service workflows, operations modules, and alert settings.

Current release

These guides reflect Motrix Cloud v2.15.1, released September 9, 2026, including Fleet Readiness, defect verification before return to service, driver qualifications, and assignment safety checks.

System Overview

Motrix Cloud uses a multi-tenant architecture — each company's data is completely isolated from other organizations on the platform. As a Fleet Manager, you have access to all configuration features and are responsible for setting up the system for your fleet. (A separate Global Admin role exists for platform-wide administration, but it is reserved for Motrix staff.)

Key areas you will configure as a Fleet Manager:

Trial & Onboarding

New organizations can start a self-service 60-day free trial at app.motrix.io/trial — no credit card required. Trial signup walks you through a 5-step setup wizard that creates your company and your Fleet Manager account, after which you can work through the configuration steps in this guide.

Managing Users

New users join via the self-service trial signup or through email invitations sent from the Team Members page. Each user is assigned a role that determines their permissions and navigation visibility. Roles are permission presets — individual permissions can also be customized per user. Motrix currently includes 6 built-in roles:

Role Access Level Navigation
Global Admin Platform-wide access across all companies, bypasses all permission gates. Reserved for Motrix staff. Full nav + Admin panel
Fleet Manager Full company-scoped access: all 22 permissions including fleet, service, operations, reports, dispatch, shop, and administration Full nav (Fleet, Service, Operations, Reports, Dispatch, Shop)
Department Manager Full access scoped to assigned departments Full nav (filtered to department data)
Shop Manager Shop board, service bays, work orders, parts inventory, time tracking Fleet (view), Service (view), Shop, Work Orders
Dispatcher Trip dispatch, driver/vehicle assignment, trip board Fleet (view), Dispatch, Inspections (view)
Driver File DVIR inspections, view assigned trips, update trip status Dashboard + Inspections + My Trips + My Runs
Info

Roles are permission presets. Each role maps to a set of 22 granular permissions across 11 groups (Fleet, Service, Work Orders, Dispatch, Shop, Inventory, Fuel, Budgets, Reports, Inspections, Administration). Fleet Managers can customize individual permissions per user from the Team Members page.

Team Members & Invitations

Navigate to User Menu > Team Members to manage who has access to your company. From this page you can:

Two guards protect your account from lockout: you cannot remove yourself from the company, and you cannot remove the last Fleet Manager.

Company Profile

Navigate to User Menu > Company Profile to manage your organization's information — company name, phone, contact email, and address. You can also upload a company logo (JPG or PNG, up to 2MB).

Motrix changes the navigation based on the signed-in user's role. Fleet Managers and Global Admins see the full application, while Drivers see a simplified workflow focused on inspections.

Which Dashboard You See

The operational dashboard (Fleet Health Score, 30-day costs, cost-per-mile, and the reports hub) is shown only to users who hold the complete fleet and financial permission set. Users with a narrower permission set — including Department Managers, whose view is scoped to their departments rather than company-wide totals — receive a permission-based task dashboard with direct links to the work they are allowed to do. No company-wide financial totals are built or sent for those sessions. Drivers get their own task landing page.

Fleet Manager / Global Admin Navigation

Driver Navigation

Drivers do not see the Fleet, Service, Operations, Reports, or Shop menus, or the Quick Log button. On mobile, the driver menu is intentionally reduced to a simple task flow so operators can file inspections and work trips quickly without sorting through admin features.

Adding Your Fleet

Navigate to Fleet > Vehicles > Add Vehicle to begin building your fleet inventory. Motrix tracks vehicles through their full lifecycle from acquisition to disposal.

Decode VIN

Enter the VIN on the add-vehicle form and click Decode VIN. Motrix queries the free NHTSA vPIC database and fills in year, make, model, body type, and engine — but only into fields that are still empty, so nothing you typed is overwritten. It also shows the GVWR class and warns when a VIN fails its check digit, which catches typos before they become bad records. Only the VIN itself is sent to NHTSA; results are cached for 30 days.

Required Fields

Optional but Recommended

Extended Specifications

Insurance & Registration

Compliance

OEM Warranty

Vehicle Photo

Upload a photo in JPEG, PNG, or WebP format up to 5MB. Photos help drivers confirm they are inspecting the correct unit.

Vehicle Statuses

Status Meaning
Active In service, available for dispatch
Inactive Temporarily out of service
Out of Service Failed DVIR inspection, needs repair before returning to service
Sold Removed from active fleet; preserved in history
Deleted Soft retirement — hidden from active lists, history preserved. Pending scheduled services are removed and future trips are returned to the dispatch pool

An out-of-service vehicle stays restricted until a manager explicitly returns it to service — see Fleet Readiness. Direct edits to a vehicle's status go through the same checks.

Setting Up Drivers

Navigate to Fleet > Drivers > Add Driver to create driver records. Driver profiles track operator credentials separately from user accounts.

Key Fields

License expiration alerts appear on the Dashboard automatically once the expiration date falls within your configured alert window.

Driver Qualifications

Open a driver's detail page and go to Qualifications to record credentials beyond the license — for example a passenger-assistance course, a defensive-driving certificate, or a medical card. Fleet Managers configure the qualification types for the company, and each type has a required for dispatch toggle. Required types apply to every driver in the company. Each driver qualification records an expiry date and can carry private evidence as a PDF, JPEG, or PNG (5 MB limit).

Drivers missing a required qualification, or whose qualification or license has expired, are flagged on the Readiness page and blocked from new trip and run assignments (see Assignment Checks).

Info

Qualification types are operator-configured requirements. Motrix does not supply or interpret legal rules — your agency decides which credentials are required and keeps them current.

Tip

Driver records and user accounts are separate. A driver can be selected on an inspection form without having a Motrix user account. Only drivers who need to log in and file inspections themselves require a user account with the Driver role. Fleet Managers can also file inspections on behalf of a driver.

Vehicle Assignments

Navigate to Fleet > Assignments to assign drivers to specific vehicles. Assignments include a start date and optional end date, providing a historical record of which operator was driving each unit and when.

Current and historical assignments are listed per vehicle, making it straightforward to determine who was operating a vehicle on any given date — useful for incident reviews and compliance audits.

Configuring Service Templates

Navigate to Service > Service Templates to define recurring maintenance schedules. Templates are the foundation of the Service Planner — they tell the system when each vehicle is due for each type of service.

What Each Template Defines

Both mile and day intervals can be set simultaneously. The Service Planner triggers on whichever threshold is reached first.

Pre-Loaded DOT Templates

Template Mile Interval Day Interval
Oil & Filter Change 5,000 mi 90 days
Tire Rotation & Inspection 7,500 mi 120 days
Brake Inspection 15,000 mi 180 days
Wheelchair Lift PM — 90 days
Annual DOT Inspection — 365 days
Transmission Service 30,000 mi 365 days
HVAC System PM — 180 days
Tip

Templates drive the Service Planner. Set accurate intervals and the system will automatically track when each vehicle needs service. Add templates before entering your vehicles so the Service Planner populates immediately.

Configuring Inspection Templates

Navigate to Service > Inspections > Manage Templates to configure DVIR checklist templates. Templates define the items drivers check during pre-trip and post-trip inspections.

Pre-Loaded Templates

Three standard templates are pre-loaded for immediate use:

Item Categories

The template builder offers 16 category options for organizing checklist items:

You can create custom templates for specialized vehicles or agency-specific requirements. Each item includes a name and an optional description to guide the driver during the inspection. Items are organized by category within the checklist form.

When a template's type is Preventive Maintenance (PM), each item gains PM-specific fields: a PM level (A, B, or C), a value type (pass/fail, numeric, text, or dropdown), unit labels and min/max thresholds for numeric items, and a comma-separated options list for dropdown items (e.g., "Good, Fair, Poor, Replace").

Work Orders

Navigate to Service > Work Orders to manage repair and follow-up activity. Work orders can be created manually by a manager or generated automatically when a DVIR defect is submitted.

What a Work Order Tracks

Minor DVIR defects keep the vehicle active and generate a normal-priority work order. Major defects immediately place the vehicle out of service and create a high-priority work order until repairs are closed out.

If your company uses the Shop module, work order creation also supports Smart Bay Assignment suggestions so the system can recommend the best available bay for the job type before the repair starts.

Return to Service

Completing a work order does not automatically put an out-of-service vehicle back on the road. The vehicle stays restricted until a manager verifies every major defect in Vehicle Readiness, all open repairs are complete, and the manager explicitly clicks Return to Service on the work order page. The same checks apply if someone edits the vehicle's status directly. Reopening a completed repair invalidates its prior defect verification and restricts the vehicle again when a major defect is involved. While the vehicle remains out of service, a red warning banner on the work order shows the vehicle status, and a Related DVIR Inspection card links back to the originating inspection report with the driver name, defect count, and inspection date. See Fleet Readiness for the full defect workflow.

Fleet Readiness

Navigate to Readiness (linked prominently from the manager dashboard, route /readiness) to see what is and is not ready to roll for a chosen operating date. The page defaults to tomorrow. Fleet Managers and Department Managers can open it; company and department scoping still apply.

What the Page Shows

Important

Missing inputs are not proof of compliance or availability. If a DOT inspection date was never entered, Readiness shows that as something to review — it does not assume the vehicle is compliant.

Owners, Acknowledgment, and Follow-Up

On each vehicle's readiness page you can set an owner, an acknowledgment, and a follow-up date for every active issue. Overdue follow-ups are visibly escalated on the vehicle and fleet pages. Acknowledging an issue records who is handling it; it does not remove the restriction. Escalation is visual only — it does not send additional emails.

Defect Workflow and Return to Service

Every inspection defect moves through four states: unacknowledged → acknowledged → repaired → verified. Marking a defect repaired or verified requires the linked work order to be completed and manager permission. Notes, the acting user, timestamps, and each transition are recorded in a separate append-only readiness history — the original filed inspection is never modified. Companies with readiness history cannot be hard-deleted from the platform admin.

An out-of-service vehicle remains restricted after its repair is completed. The explicit Return to Service action checks every major defect and every open repair before clearing the vehicle, and the same guard applies to direct vehicle status edits. Reopening a completed repair resets its verification back to acknowledged, records an event, and restricts the vehicle again when a major defect is involved.

Seven-Day Service Planning & Maintenance Windows

The Service Planner links to Readiness, and each vehicle on the planner shows its next seven days of generated trip commitments alongside any service bookings, so you can see when a unit can actually come into the shop.

Reserve a named maintenance window of up to seven days for a vehicle. Motrix rejects the reservation if it conflicts with an existing trip or run, and once booked, the window prevents new overlapping dispatch assignments. Removing a booking releases the window — it does not create or complete a maintenance record or work order.

QR Labels & Vehicle Audit Packets

QR Vehicle Labels

From a vehicle's page, print a label with a locally generated QR code and post it in the cab. Scanning the code opens the inspection form with that vehicle pre-selected. The link never bypasses login, tenant isolation, or inspection permissions — a driver still has to be signed in to the right company with permission to file.

Vehicle Audit Packets

For an FTA review or an internal audit, generate a vehicle audit packet: a ZIP containing an evidence-index PDF plus the authorized private attachments that are available. The index covers inspection items, signatures, measurements, defect resolution, maintenance records, work orders, and an attachment manifest.

Info

A packet is supporting evidence, not a compliance certification. It shows what your agency recorded; it does not assert that the vehicle met a regulatory standard.

PM Inspections (Preventive Maintenance)

Technician-driven preventive maintenance inspections filed from within a Work Order. PM inspections use cascading A/B/C levels with measurement fields, threshold auto-flagging, and automatic defect-to-work-order generation.

PM vs. DVIR

AspectDVIRPM Inspection
Filed byDriverShop Technician
Entry pointInspections → New InspectionWork Order → File PM Inspection
TypesPre-Trip / Post-TripPM-A / PM-B / PM-C
Item fieldsPass/Fail onlyPass/Fail + Numeric + Text + Dropdown
MeasurementsNoYes (brake thickness, tire tread, voltage, etc.)
Threshold auto-flagNoYes (out-of-range auto-marks as defect)
Linked to WOCreates WO on defectFiled under parent WO; defects create child WOs

PM Levels (Cascading)

LevelScopeTypical IntervalItems
PM-ABasic serviceEvery 6,000 miles / 45–60 days~21 items (fluids, filters, walk-around, basic ADA)
PM-BIntermediateEvery 12,000 miles / 90–120 daysPM-A + ~16 items (brakes, drivetrain, suspension, electrical, HVAC)
PM-CMajor serviceEvery 24,000–36,000 miles / annuallyPM-A + PM-B + ~10 items (fluid flushes, chassis, frame, emissions)

Selecting PM-B automatically includes all PM-A items. Selecting PM-C includes all items.

Filing a PM Inspection

  1. Open a Work Order and click File PM Inspection.
  2. Select a PM template and PM level (A, B, or C).
  3. Complete the checklist — items may be pass/fail, numeric (with unit labels and min/max thresholds), or dropdown (e.g., Good/Fair/Poor/Replace).
  4. Out-of-range numeric values are automatically flagged as defects with an "Out of spec" warning. The technician can override back to pass.
  5. Mark defect severity (Minor or Major), add notes and photos (up to 5 per defect).
  6. Sign with the canvas signature pad and submit.

PM Defect Handling

PM Compliance Report

The PM Compliance Report (accessible from Reports menu) tracks preventive maintenance inspection compliance for FTA audits and shop management. It includes:

Operations Modules

Navigate to the Operations menu to manage day-to-day cost, energy, and inventory controls. These modules connect operational data back to the dashboard, reporting, and alerting system.

Fuel Tracking

Fuel records capture date, station/location, odometer, gallons, total cost, and price per gallon. MPG is calculated automatically, and CSV import is available when you need to load historical transactions in bulk.

EV Charging

Use Operations > EV Charging to log charging sessions for electric vehicles. Charging records capture kWh added, cost, odometer reading, start/end battery percentage, charge duration, charger location, and charger type. Motrix calculates cost per kWh and battery gain automatically, and higher odometer readings keep preventive-maintenance planning current for EV units. Charging spend is included in dashboard cost totals, cost reports, fleet-health cost figures, and fuel budgets; gallons and MPG remain liquid-fuel metrics.

Budgets

Navigate to Operations > Budgets to create monthly spending targets. Budgets give you a real-time view of fleet spending against plan.

Configurable Thresholds

Once budgets are set, the Dashboard automatically shows a Budget vs. Actual comparison. Variance is color-coded for quick interpretation:

Color Meaning
Green Under budget
Blue On track
Orange Over budget
Red Significantly over budget

Parts Inventory

Use Operations > Parts Inventory to track stocked items and replacement components. Part data supports low-stock alerting, cost visibility, warranty reference, and the Parts & Warranty report. Stock status (In Stock, Low Stock, Out of Stock) is derived from quantity and reorder level on every save.

Departments

Use Operations > Departments to group vehicles and spending by organizational unit. Departments make it easier to review utilization, costs, and maintenance patterns across programs or divisions.

Quick Log

The Quick Log (+) button provides fast fuel and maintenance entry without leaving the current page. It is permission-gated rather than tied to a role: any user with the fuel.manage or service.manage permission sees it — by default, Fleet Managers and Department Managers. It is intentionally hidden for Drivers.

Alert Settings

Navigate to User Menu > Alert Settings to configure maintenance alert thresholds. These settings control when the system flags upcoming and overdue service across the dashboard, Service Planner, and daily email summaries.

Configurable Thresholds

Critical Alert Types

Alert Email

Optionally specify a dedicated email address for maintenance alerts. If left blank, alerts are sent to all Fleet Manager users in your company.

Where Alerts Appear

Dispatch Module

Navigate to Dispatch > Trip Board to manage paratransit trip scheduling. The Dispatch module handles trip creation, driver/vehicle assignment, and real-time status tracking. Users with the Dispatcher role can also create and manage trips.

Trip Lifecycle

Step Status Action
1. CreateScheduledFleet Manager creates trip with passenger info, pickup/dropoff, times
2. AssignAssignedAuto-transitions when driver + vehicle are selected
3. DispatchDispatchedClick "Dispatch" — vehicle is rolling
4. CloseCompletedClick "Close Trip" — capture actual mileage
—CancelledCancel with a reason (Fleet Manager)
—No ShowPassenger no-show (Fleet Manager or Driver)

Key Features

Assignment Checks

Whenever a trip or run assignment is created or changed — and again when a trip is dispatched or a run is started — Motrix checks:

Scheduling is deliberately conservative: a trip without an end time reserves 30 minutes; an AM run reserves midnight to noon and a PM run reserves noon to midnight; separate runs cannot reserve the same driver or vehicle in the same half-day. A shared passenger belongs to one run, and capacity is checked against all active passengers in that run. Motrix does not perform route optimization or travel-time prediction. Run manifests have an assignment form that updates the run and all of its active trips together, and a run requires both a driver and a vehicle before it can start.

Passenger Transport (Clients & Runs)

For agencies with recurring riders, the Passenger Transport module builds on Dispatch with saved client profiles, standing schedules, and automatic daily trip generation.

Client Profiles

Navigate to Dispatch > Clients to manage rider profiles. Each client record stores phone, emergency contact, home address, default destination, funding source, and a wheelchair-required flag. Clients with any trip history are deactivated instead of deleted, so ridership and billing history is preserved.

Standing Schedules

Each client can have one standing schedule, edited inline on the client detail page: days of the week, AM and/or PM legs with per-leg pickup times, a run label that groups clients onto the same run, and an effective date window. The AM leg runs home → destination; the PM leg returns destination → home.

Schedule Exceptions

On the client detail page, open Schedule exceptions to handle a one-off change without editing the standing schedule: cancel one or both legs for a single date or an absence window of up to 60 days, or replace the pickup time for specific occurrences. The recurring schedule itself stays unchanged.

If a staffed run becomes unsafe (for example the driver's license expires), trip generation keeps the trip demand, does not copy the invalid assignment, and raises a readiness warning.

Run Manifests

A run groups trips for one date, direction (AM or PM), and run label, with an assigned driver and vehicle, odometer start/end, and facility arrival/departure timestamps. Navigate to Dispatch > Runs to see all runs for a date; drivers see their own manifests under My Runs.

Automatic Trip Generation

Every day at 4:00 PM, Motrix generates tomorrow's trips and runs from all active standing schedules. Generation is idempotent — any client who already has a trip for that date and direction is skipped, so re-runs and manual edits are never duplicated.

Driver Tap-to-Stamp Workflow

On the run manifest, drivers work the run with single taps: Start Run (starting odometer), Picked Up per client, Arrived at Facility (AM runs — one tap auto-completes every on-board trip), Departing Facility (PM runs — one tap boards everyone), Dropped Off per client, No Show with an optional reason, and Complete Run (ending odometer). See the Driver Guide for the step-by-step workflow.

Client Attendance Report

Completed runs feed the Client Attendance report — per-client monthly ridership with CSV export for billing and funding-source submissions.

Auto Shop Management

Navigate to Shop > Shop Board to manage in-house maintenance operations. The Shop module extends work orders with service bay tracking, technician time tracking, and parts requisition workflows.

Shop Board

The Shop Board is the primary workspace for shop foremen. Each bay card shows the current work order, vehicle, technician name, and a running clock. Unassigned in-house work orders appear in a sidebar for bay assignment.

Service Bays

Navigate to Shop > Service Bays to create and manage bays. Bay types include Lift, Flat, Pit, Wash, and Other. Bays are automatically released when a work order is completed or cancelled.

Smart Bay Assignment

When creating a work order, the system suggests the best available bay based on keyword matching against 60+ maintenance terms (e.g., "brake inspection" → Lift bay, "battery" → Flat bay).

Technician Time Tracking

Navigate to Shop > Time Tracking for per-technician, per-work-order time entries. Clocks start automatically with the "Assign & Start Clock" option on work order creation. Running clocks are visible on the Shop Board.

Parts Requisitions

Navigate to Shop > Parts Requests to manage the parts requisition workflow. Technicians request parts from inventory against work orders. Fleet Managers approve or deny with stock levels visible. Approved requisitions automatically decrement inventory.

Shop Metrics

Navigate to Shop > Shop Metrics for throughput analysis: jobs completed, jobs per day, average hours per job, bay utilization, and technician hours breakdown.

Data Import & Export

Motrix supports bulk CSV import for vehicles, drivers, and fuel transactions, plus one-click CSV export from every major entity index page. Entity imports and CSV exports require fleet.manage permission, included in the Fleet Manager and Department Manager presets. Report exports require reports.view; Client Attendance also requires dispatch management. Company and department scopes still apply.

Upload → Preview → Confirm

Every import runs in two steps. After you upload a file, Motrix shows a preview of the first 20 eligible rows plus validation and rejection totals — no records or odometer values change during preview. Confirming revalidates the file and imports the eligible rows. Confirmation is bound to your user, company, and session, expires after 30 minutes, and a confirmation token cannot be reused. Custom column mappings can be saved per company and import type so the next file maps itself. Rejection reasons (with source row numbers, first 100) are downloadable as a formula-safe CSV; this is a rejection summary, not a copy of every rejected row. Abandoned preview files are removed automatically after one day.

Vehicle CSV Import

Click Import CSV on the Vehicles index page (route: /vehicles-import) to bulk-create vehicles. Only Year, Make, and Model are required — optional columns include VIN, License Plate, Mileage, Status, Color, Engine, Body Type, Seating Capacity, GVW, Wheelchair Lift, and Fleet Number. Column headers are matched case-insensitively with common aliases, and vehicles with a duplicate VIN are skipped with a clear error message.

Driver CSV Import

Click Import CSV on the Drivers index page (route: /drivers-import) to bulk-create driver records. Name handling is flexible — either separate "First Name" and "Last Name" columns or a single "Name" / "Full Name" column ("Last, First" format supported). Drivers with a duplicate license number are skipped.

Fuel CSV Import

Click Import CSV on the Fuel Records index page (route: /fuel-import) to bulk-import fuel transactions. Vehicles are matched by VIN first, then the dedicated unit/fleet number, then an unambiguous vehicle name; ambiguous identifiers must be corrected rather than guessed. Duplicate records (same vehicle, date, and gallons) are skipped, and price per gallon is calculated automatically.

Each import page includes a downloadable CSV template with sample rows, and every import ends with a summary showing total rows, imported count, skipped count, and a detailed error list.

CSV Data Export

Every major entity index page includes a green Export CSV button for one-click data export. Exports are available for vehicles (32 columns), drivers (13 columns), work orders (17 columns), fuel records (11 columns), maintenance (14 columns), and parts inventory (14 columns, honoring the index page's filters). A date-ranged QuickBooks transaction export is available from the Budgets page. All exports are company-scoped and formula-injection-safe.

Recall Compliance (NHTSA)

Navigate to Reports > Recall Compliance to see open safety recalls across your fleet. Every night Motrix matches each active vehicle's year, make, and model against NHTSA recall campaigns; a Sync Now button runs the check on demand.

Available Reports

Motrix includes 13 report entries accessible from the Reports menu. All reports are automatically scoped to your company's data — the 11 core reports support CSV, PDF, and print, while Recall Compliance and Client Attendance export to CSV. Every CSV export preserves the on-screen filters, so the file always matches the filtered view. Reports require the reports.view permission; Client Attendance additionally requires dispatch management.

Reading the Cost and Utilization Reports

The Cost Analysis and Fleet Utilization pages explain the metric they compute and show your fleet's current field-presence coverage — how many vehicles have the inputs the metric depends on. Assignment-day utilization is explicitly distinguished from engine hours or actual passenger service. Coverage indicates that a field is present, not that it is accurate, fresh, or a complete transaction history. Cost figures count actual spend only: maintenance is counted when completed, a work order that completes a maintenance record is counted once, and EV charging spend is included alongside fuel.

Tip

All 11 core reports support one-click PDF export with automatic dark-to-light theme conversion, producing clean output suitable for FTA audits, board meetings, and shop posting. Recall Compliance and Client Attendance export to CSV. For a per-vehicle evidence bundle, see Vehicle Audit Packets.

Admin Tips