New vehicle reservation site launches on Feb. 1

Transportation Services' new online vehicle reservation system is intended to be user-friendly (and helpful) as well as efficient, eliminating duplicative efforts among customers and dispatch staff. The new system goes live on Sunday, Feb. 1.

The web-based reservation system provided by industry leader Agile FleetCommander will be specific to Iowa State and allow campus customers to:

• Make, cancel or change a reservations instantly, 24/7
• Use their university Net-ID and password to access the site
• Access their rental history, past and future, to assist with planning or budgeting

"We believe FleetCommander will provide greater efficiency and accuracy," said transportation services manager Kathy Wellik. "I think the transition will go smoothly for our customers, but if there are any bumps, please let us know."

FleetCommander will replace an online system in which customers complete a reservation template that essentially sends the request to dispatch staff in an email. A staff member still needs to process that email request before the reservation is complete.

First-time use

Customers using the new reservation system for the first time will be taken to a user profile template. They'll be asked to provide their own, as well as their supervisor's name, phone number and email address, and a department name and primary account number for billing. This is a one-time requirement and Wellik invites customers to complete this process before Feb. 1. Her staff needs to assign permissions to all system users, so customers should allow up to 24 hours for this to be completed. Once permissions are assigned, reserving vehicles is instantaneous.

Transferring reservations already made

Wellik said her team will transfer into FleetCommander all reservations made prior to Feb. 1 in the old system (for travel Feb. 1 or later). However, user profiles must exist in the new system for those transfers to be completed, so customers with those reservations have been receiving emails inviting them to create their user profiles. Wellik said her staff will follow up with this group of customers so that no reservations unintentionally get dropped.

A few notes

Wellik offered these tips to users of the FleetCommander system:

• The primary account provided in the user profile pops up automatically with each new reservation, but it can be changed
• Reservations that include a special request automatically go into an online queue that Wellik's staff works with to confirm the request can be met
• All reservations are confirmed with an email from transdispatch@iastate.edu. The supervisor provided in the user profile receives a copy of the confirmation.