An Automan screen related to this article.
The problem
Without a limiter, one technician can “claim” a stack of jobs and run them all half-finished. Units pile up in the In-Progress column, customers wait with no certainty, and the jobs buried at the bottom of the pile quietly go stale.
The tip
Every repair status in Automan carries a maximum job count. When the limit is reached, new jobs can’t enter that status until older ones move on — work is forced to flow instead of stack.
The defaults are sensible out of the box, and every number can be tuned to your shop’s policy.
Practical steps
- Open Settings > Repair > Status — you’ll see each status with its maximum.
- Decide your policy. Example: a technician may hold at most 5 active jobs → set the In-Progress limit to 5.
- Click Edit on the status, set the new maximum, and Save.
- Brief the team: the limit isn’t punishment — it’s how every unit gets finished before a new one is picked up.
When to use it
Shops with more than one technician, or a single-tech shop whose queue is getting long. The busier the shop, the more the per-status limit pays off — the queue stays honest, and no unit “disappears” inside the In-Progress pile.