WMFC User Guide

What WMFC is

WMFC (Wash Movement & Fleet Coordination) is the live board that follows every vehicle from the wash bay to the rental counter. Wash, QTA and the three counters all look at the same board, so nobody has to radio around asking where a car is.

There are two kinds of screen. The apps on iPads, iPhones, Android devices and the Apple TV are used all day by Wash, QTA and the counters. The portals in a web browser are used by managers and system administrators to watch the operation, fix records and pair devices.

The words WMFC uses

Learn these once and every screen reads the same way. The web app, the iPad and iPhone app and the Android app all use exactly these words.

1. Vehicle tracker, or just tracker — the record WMFC keeps for one vehicle's run from the wash bay to the gate. One card on the board is one tracker.
2. Vehicle — the car itself.
3. Stage — how far the tracker has got: Details Given, Cleaning, Waiting on Driver, In Transit, At Counter.
4. MVA is the eight-digit fleet number, RA the rental agreement number, and bay where the car is parked at the counter.
5. An unmatched vehicle is one VARMFC could not find. It works normally and can be corrected later.

The buttons that do the work are Add vehicle (every device, with an Emergency add tick on the form), Move to a stage, Save bay, Gate Exit, and End tracker for a vehicle that is not going out. In the portals a manager uses Correct tracker, and a system administrator also has Void tracker and Reopen tracker. Nothing on any screen calls a tracker a "job".

Set up a device (once)

1. Install WMFC. iPad and iPhone use the direct link (it is not in App Store search): apps.apple.com/au/app/wmfc. Android installs from Google Play as WMFC.
2. Ask a manager for a pairing code. They create it in the portal under Admin → Access, choosing the device's location. Codes last one hour and work once.
3. Open WMFC on the device. An unpaired device opens straight on Pair this device: tap Scan pairing code and aim at the QR the portal shows, or type the six digits.
4. The device says what it is now paired as and asks who's using it. Enter your initials and tap Start. Every change you make is recorded against your initials and this device. Skip leaves it for later; the initials are in Setup too.
5. Tap Allow location, then allow it while using the app. Location is required on every device that can take vehicles: the device can't be used until it is allowed, and if it is ever turned off the device stops on the same screen with a button into Settings. It is read only while the device is carrying a vehicle and WMFC is open. A wall display is not asked.

The device stays paired until a manager revokes it. Its location is fixed by the pairing, so a Red Counter iPad always opens as Red Counter.

Know your screen

1. Live board — every active tracker you are allowed to see, one card each. Filters: Queue, Grouped, Oldest, ETA first, Overdue, Priority. Search reads a plate, MVA, surname or RA number across the whole operation, so a filter left on earlier cannot hide the car you are looking for.
2. Add vehicle (every device) — start a tracker. A car missed at the cleaning stage goes on the board from whichever tablet is nearest; the Emergency add tick, on by default at a counter, is what alerts that counter out loud.
3. Runs (iPhone, iPad and Android) — take a vehicle, share where it is while you drive it, and mark it arrived with its bay.
4. Map — every vehicle In Transit on one map, with the list of them beside it.
5. Stage times — what each stage should take right now, and what it is really taking. In the apps it opens from the board's Queue menu; a wall display keeps it as a tab.
6. Reports (Wash and QTA only) — the last 7 days: volumes, turnaround, overdue rate, ETA changes.
7. Setup — initials, device status, and removing a pairing.

Reading a card

Each card shows the rego, MVA, counter, current stage, and when the vehicle should be ready. The rego is drawn as the car's number plate, the way MTFC draws it: white with the state stacked down the left, yellow for a New South Wales car, blue characters for Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, so a one-way hire stands out at a glance. Stages run Details Given → Cleaning → Waiting on Driver → In Transit → At Counter → Completed.

1. DUE SOON (amber) — the ready time is close.
2. OVERDUE (red) — the ready time has passed. Deal with these first.
3. AT COUNTER (green) — the car has arrived and is waiting in its bay. It is never called overdue, because it leaves by Gate Exit rather than by running out of time.
4. ★ Priority vehicles sit above the normal queue.
5. UNMATCHED means VARMFC did not recognise the vehicle.
6. Counter devices see only their own counter's trackers. Wash and QTA see everything.

The board refreshes itself every 15 seconds. If it says the queue is unavailable, it has lost the connection, not run out of cars.

Working a vehicle

Adding (Wash / QTA): tap Add vehicle, then scan the rego plate or MVA barcode, or type either and tap Find vehicle. WMFC looks the vehicle up in the VARMFC fleet and fills in the details. Choose the destination counter and starting stage, check the ETA, and tap Add vehicle. The card appears on that counter's board at once. A vehicle that is already on the board cannot be added twice.

If VARMFC does not know the vehicle: the lookup says the vehicle was not found, the Registration field is marked required, and Add vehicle stays switched off until you fill it in — "Enter the registration for an unknown MVA before adding it". An MVA on its own is just a number that nobody on the ramp can match to a car. A registration you typed yourself is accepted even though the fleet does not know it: the tracker goes on the board flagged UNMATCHED and can be corrected later.

Double-ups: as soon as you look a vehicle up, WMFC checks the live board. If the vehicle is already there you see the existing tracker — open it rather than creating another, or remove it (with a reason, reopenable by an administrator) if it never got Gate Exit and this is a new movement. A look-alike rego, such as a plate read with O instead of 0, shows as a possible double-up: compare the two, remove the one entered by mistake, or choose Different vehicle to continue. Board cards that look like the same car carry a Possible double-up flag; open either one to remove the wrong entry or Keep both.

Moving it along: open the card and tap Move to the next stage. You can also change the counter or vehicle when supplying an alternate car, add surname, RA number and internal notes, or move a stage backwards if it was tapped by mistake. Any authorised user can do this on any vehicle they can see.

Changing the ETA always needs a reason of at least three characters, or the save is refused — "Give a reason for changing the ETA". You rarely have to type it: tap one of Bay backlog, Waiting on driver, Vehicle needs extra clean or Customer request, or write your own, and a stage move fills in "Moved to" that stage for you. The reason is kept against the tracker and reported back to managers under Why ETAs moved. The first ETA, set when the tracker is created, is the original promise and needs no reason.

At the counter: when the car arrives, tap the Bay field and key in its bay on the keypad — a letter from A to H, then the number (for example C14) — and tap Save bay. Gate Exit: when the customer drives away, tap Gate Exit to complete the tracker and remove it from the live board. The bay must be saved first, so if Gate Exit is unavailable, save the bay and try again.

Ending without a Gate Exit: if the car is not going out (customer cancelled, caught a taxi, alternate car declined, payment issue, created in error), choose End without completion, pick the outcome, and tap End tracker. The outcome stays in the history. If you end one by mistake, it is not lost: a manager finds it under Admin → Corrections, where it is listed as Voided, and reopens it onto the board.

Wall display: the Apple TV shows the live board for the wash area and is read-only. Pair it with a code created as a Read-only wall display. Surnames, RA numbers, notes and staff activity are omitted, and its token cannot make changes.

Notifications

The board refreshes itself every 15 seconds on every device, and that is what WMFC relies on. On an iPhone, iPad or the Apple TV, notifications sit on top of that and only make news arrive sooner.

1. Quietly, without you doing anything — when a vehicle is added, or moved to another counter, WMFC wakes the devices that can see that board and they refresh at once instead of waiting for the next 15 seconds. Nothing appears and nothing beeps; the card is simply already there. A vehicle moved between counters wakes both boards.
2. Out loud, for two things only — a vehicle added for your counter and marked an emergency, and a vehicle at your counter gone overdue (once per vehicle, not over and over). A vehicle that has reached At Counter is never called overdue: it has arrived, and it leaves by Gate Exit rather than by running out of time. Both alerts go to that counter's own tablets. Tap one and WMFC opens that counter's board.
3. Never the customer — no notification carries a registration, MVA, surname, RA number, bay or notes. It says a board changed and which counter; open the board for the detail.

Notifications are required on every iPhone and iPad that works the board. The first time the app opens on a device pointed at the WMFC service, a full-screen notice says what the alerts are for and then the iPhone's own question appears: allow it. If notifications are off, the same notice stays on screen with a button to iOS Settings until they are turned on for WMFC, and it goes away by itself the moment they are. The board keeps refreshing every 15 seconds underneath. Setup → Notifications always says where you stand — on, off, not used on demonstration data, or not needed on a wall display. The Apple TV and a wall-display iPad are never asked, because they are only ever woken silently. Removing a pairing, or a manager revoking the device, stops its notifications immediately.

Android devices refresh on the 15-second poll, the same way they always have. They are not sent notifications, and nothing else about them changes.

Runs and driver phones

Every paired device has every tab, including Runs. A driver phone is a shared phone that goes in the car. A manager pairs it with a code created as a Driver phone in WMFC Access, and it runs the WMFC app on iPhone or Android. It sees every counter's vehicles, customers included, can do everything Wash and QTA can, and opens on Runs. Any other device can take a run from its Runs tab too; a counter device lists only its own counter's vehicles there.

1. Take a vehicle — Runs lists what is ready to go: vehicles Waiting on Driver, and any still Cleaning. Tap Take when you have the keys. The vehicle moves to In Transit and the phone starts sharing where it is.
2. Drive — keep WMFC open on the phone. The counter you are heading to sees a small map on that vehicle's card, with how long ago the phone last reported.
3. Tap Arrived at the counter and key in the bay you parked in on the keypad, then tap Arrived in bay. The vehicle moves to At Counter with that bay saved, the phone stops sharing, and the counter can confirm Gate Exit straight away. If you don't know the bay, tap Arrived without a bay and the counter adds it as usual.

Before your first Take, the device shows a short notice about the location sharing and asks for your initials. Tapping I understand records that you were told, against your initials and the device, and a manager can see who has acknowledged it in WMFC Access. Each driver sees it once on each device.

What is kept — only the latest position for each vehicle, overwritten every time the phone reports. There is no route and no history. The position is deleted the moment the vehicle arrives, whether the driver taps Arrived or a tablet moves it on, and in any case half an hour after the phone last reported. It records which shared phone reported it, not who was driving. A vehicle moved to In Transit from a tablet has no phone carrying it, so it has no map; Stop sharing hands a vehicle back without marking it arrived.

Manager and administrator portals

Managers use portal.wmfc.mtfc.net.au with their approved email address and an eight-character code emailed to them. The code lasts ten minutes and works once. Named system administrators use wmfc.mtfc.net.au, protected by Cloudflare Access with MFA. Both open WMFC with an Admin button on the rail.

1. Overview — one dashboard over the operation for today or the last 7 days: a one-line verdict, pressure by counter, the vehicles furthest behind or heading for a miss, stage targets against what each stage is really taking, and who is updating. Change a stage target here and every new countdown uses it.
2. Live board — add a vehicle or open its card to manage the full flow: edit details, assign a bay, confirm Gate Exit, or end a tracker with an outcome. Change vehicle status corrects any missed stage, including Completed, with a reason of at least five characters. Completed removes the card from the live board; housekeeping changes retain your name and the previous status in Activity.
3. Corrections — the Tracker corrections screen, for fixing a record that is already wrong. Change the fields, give an audit reason of at least five characters, and tap Correct tracker; WMFC keeps the before and after values, who, and when. Ticking Reset ETA here sets a fresh ETA from now, with the correction reason recorded against it. An ended or voided tracker is listed here too, and any manager can Reopen one — that is the way back from a mis-tapped End tracker, and the person on shift should not have to find an administrator to use it. Void tracker removes a vehicle from every board and stays with a system administrator.
4. Access — Fixed devices: every paired iPad, iPhone, Android device and TV with last-seen times. Generate a pairing code for a new device, re-pair a replaced one with New code, or Revoke a lost one instantly. Managers (system administrators only): add or suspend manager accounts.

Managers cannot create users, promote administrators, or change system settings. System administrators are named only in deployment configuration and the Cloudflare Access policy.

Quick answers

1. Pairing code invalid or expired — codes last an hour and work once; ask for a fresh one.
2. Device lost or stolen — Admin → Access → Revoke. Access dies instantly.
3. Gate Exit unavailable — save the bay first, then Gate Exit.
4. Vehicle not found on scan — check the plate or MVA; lookups run against the live VARMFC fleet. With a registration typed in, you can still queue it as an unmatched vehicle.
5. "Already on the live board" when adding — the vehicle has an active tracker. Open it, or remove it with a reason if it never got Gate Exit and this is a new movement.
6. Two cards for one car (double-up) — open either card, then Remove the wrong entry or Keep both if they really are different vehicles.
7. "Give a reason for changing the ETA" — tap one of the four preset reasons or type your own; three characters is the minimum.
8. Board seems stale — it refreshes every 15 seconds; check the device's internet connection.
9. No notifications on an iPhone or iPad — they are required. Setup → Notifications says whether they are on or off; if off, the button there opens iOS Settings, and the full-screen notice stays until they are on. The board refreshes every 15 seconds either way.
10. An Android tablet gets no notifications — it is not meant to; Android refreshes on the 15-second poll, which is what every device is guaranteed by.
11. "Demonstration mode" showing — the device is not paired to the live service; open Setup and pair it.
12. Two people edited the same vehicle — the second save is rejected and the board refreshes. Check the card and try again.
13. Manager code never arrived — only approved addresses receive codes; wait a minute before asking again, then check with a system administrator.