Elastic Filters: Dissecting Repair Reports

Tips & Tricks Updated

The problem

A report that can only show “everything, this month” forces the owner into manual math whenever a specific question comes up: how many jobs did technician A finish last month? How many times has this customer been in? How many repairs used parts — and how many were labor only?

The tip

Automan’s repair report carries elastic filters — several slicers that can be combined, so one report answers questions from many angles without exporting anything:

  • Date range — any period you choose, not just calendar months.
  • Customer — repairs belonging to one customer; handy for regulars and complaint tracing.
  • Technician — judge workload and output from data, not impressions.
  • Parts used (Yes/No) — separate parts jobs from labor-only jobs; their margin structures differ.

The power is in combining: “technician A, last month, jobs that used parts” — three filters answering what used to take an hour of manual recapping.

Practical steps

  1. Open the repair report in your Store App.
  2. Set the date range first — narrow the period before adding other slicers.
  3. Add customer/technician/parts filters to match the question you’re answering.
  4. Turn your favorite combinations into routines (e.g., weekly: per technician + parts used).

When to use it

Whenever your question is more specific than “how much did we make this month”: evaluating technicians, auditing a customer’s history, or separating labor margin from parts margin. Elastic filters turn the report from a recap into an investigation tool.