Integration
Mechanica and Shop-Ware
The Shop-Ware connector is in build. Here is the workflow it follows and what setup asks of a shop before it goes live.
Shop-Ware at a glance
- Connection
- In build
- Vendor
- Shop-Ware
The Shop-Ware connector is in build. This page covers the workflow it follows and what setup asks of a shop, so a shop running Shop-Ware can tell whether the shape fits before the connection lands.
Key takeaways
- Status is in build. Tekmetric is the connection running today.
- The workflow is the same on every system: inspection complete, draft, human review.
- Setup is mostly a pass over how the shop already quotes.
- Nothing reaches a customer without a person sending it.
What workflow does every connector follow?
A technician finishes the inspection and marks it complete. The findings are read and scoped into jobs. Labor comes from the shop's own canned jobs where one matches, and from published book time where none does. Parts are quoted at the shop's own suppliers and marked up the shop's way. The draft lands on the repair order and waits for an advisor.
How does Shop-Ware build an estimate today?
Service by service, on the ticket. Shop-Ware's estimating page says the system "creates each service separately on the repair order, with completely flexible components you can edit."
That structure matters more than it sounds. One job per piece of work, priced on its own, sold or declined on its own, is exactly the shape a drafted estimate has to arrive in. An advisor selling three of five recommendations needs the other two to come off the ticket cleanly, and declined work that stays attached to its own line is work you can re-quote in six months.
What does canned jobs first mean for a draft?
Shop-Ware is direct about the order: "When you have a canned job for a service, you know it's going to be right", and the system "presents canned jobs first." It also states that a canned job learns which other vehicles match it as the shop keeps using it.
Mechanica works the same way round. The shop's own job wins whenever one exists, because it carries your hours, your markup and the wording your customers have read before. What is left over is the unfamiliar operation with no template behind it, and that is where the afternoon goes: book time for the exact engine, parts quoted at your own suppliers, markup applied, every line keyed in. Canned job vs labor guide time covers which one should win and when.
Does the shop's own history count as a price?
Shop-Ware thinks so, and it is right. The system lets a shop search past services by description, by part and even by customer name, filtered to the vehicle in the bay.
A service advisor doing that by hand is consulting the most under-used pricing authority in the building: what this shop charged for this work the last four times it came through. A drafted line can carry that same source, so the history an advisor would have searched has already been read by the time the ticket opens. The estimate provenance entry covers why naming the source on the line beats a number with no story behind it.
What does the technician side look like?
Shop-Ware's TechApp exists so technicians can add findings quickly from the bay. Nothing about that changes.
The trigger for a draft is the technician marking the inspection complete. Same app, same checklist, same notes. What a clean finding looks like is covered in the write-up on inspection notes, and it is worth reading whether or not any software is going to be reading them.
What does setup ask of a shop?
Two things. Access to the shop management system, and a conversation about how the shop quotes: labor rate, parts markups, canned job library, preferred brands. The second one is the work. Running the canned job audit worksheet first makes that conversation shorter.
On Shop-Ware, the canned job library is the piece that repays the effort. The system already ranks those jobs to the front of an advisor's screen, so a stale entry is a stale price that gets picked first, every time, by both a person and a draft. Pull the twenty jobs you sell most and check them against your current labor rate before anything else.
What does this page deliberately not say?
Anything about how the connector behaves on an unusual ticket. Named failure modes come from running a connector against real repair orders, and inventing them for a system nobody has run yet would be vendor marketing with our name on it. The Tekmetric page lists real ones, because that connection has real history.
Where to read next
The integrations hub has the rest of the roster with its current status. The pricing workflow is in how an estimate gets priced, and the vocabulary is in the glossary.
Where should you read next?
The same shortlist usually carries Shopmonkey and Tekmetric. The integrations hub carries the rest of the roster.
Sources
Questions shops ask
- Is the Shop-Ware connection live today?
- No. It is in build. The status line on this page is rendered from the connector roster itself, so it changes the day the connector does. Tekmetric is the connection running today.
- Will the estimate be written onto the existing repair order?
- That is the design, and it is the same design every connector follows. Drafted jobs belong on the ticket the technician was already working. Put them somewhere else and you have added a copy step between two systems, which is where prices drift.
- Will anything be sent to customers automatically?
- No. That rule does not vary by system. Mechanica writes the draft and a person at the shop reviews it and sends it.
- Will our own canned jobs and markups be used?
- Yes. Matching the shop's own pricing setup is what makes a draft read like the shop wrote it, and it is the first thing the setup pass covers on any system.
- How do we get told when it is ready?
- Book a demo and say which system you run. Shops on a connector still in build get told when it lands rather than being quoted a date nobody can hold.
- Shop-Ware already puts canned jobs first. What does a draft add?
- The lookup and the pricing for everything the canned job library does not cover. Shop-Ware presents canned jobs first when an advisor builds a service, which is the right order and the same order Mechanica uses. The work left over is the unfamiliar operation with no template behind it, and that is the work that eats an afternoon: book time for the exact engine, parts quoted at your suppliers, markup applied, lines typed.
- Does Shop-Ware's service structure suit a drafted estimate?
- It suits it well. Shop-Ware creates each service separately on the repair order with editable components, which is the shape a draft needs: one job per piece of work, priced on its own, accepted or declined on its own. A draft that arrived as one undifferentiated block would be worse than useless to an advisor trying to sell three of five jobs.
- We rely on searching past services. Does that go away?
- No. Shop-Ware lets a shop search past services by description, by part and by customer name, filtered down to the vehicle. That stays exactly where it is. What a shop has charged for a job before is also one of the sources a drafted line can carry, so the same history a service advisor searches by hand is history the draft has already read.
- Do technicians change anything in the TechApp?
- No. Shop-Ware's TechApp exists so technicians can add findings quickly, and the trigger for a draft is a technician marking that inspection complete. Same app, same workflow, same notes. Cleaner findings produce better drafts because there is less to interpret, and that is true whoever reads them.