Digital MPI and DMS integration guide

What to check before you decide

Follow a finding. A technician marks a brake pad red and attaches a photo.

Does that create an estimate line with a labor operation and a parts list? Are prices drawn from your matrix?

Can an advisor edit it and send it to the customer? Look at how much of this happens without retyping.

Look at approvals. When the customer approves some items and declines others, the repair order should show it.

Approved work becomes labor and parts. Declined work should be stored against the vehicle so it can be offered again.

Ask how long a declined item stays on record.

Check completion. When the technician finishes, are labor and parts posted back to the repair order, and do they match the approved estimate? Differences should be flagged for the advisor.

Ask about media and records. Where are photos and videos stored, who can see them, and for how long? A warranty or goodwill claim may need them later.

Test with a real day. Run ten repair orders through, including a partial approval and a warranty job. Check each record in the DMS afterward.

Check who supports the connection, since inspection vendors and DMS vendors may point at each other when it fails.

Sit with an advisor and a technician through one full repair order and note every moment either of them retypes, retakes or relabels something, because those moments are the real cost of a weak connection, and listing them gives the vendors a precise set of problems to solve instead of a general complaint.

Photograph the screens an advisor uses for one repair order, in both systems, and mark each field they retype, then use the marked pages in the vendor conversation as a precise list of what to fix.