MPS Web Software User December 2017 SHILLONEDRIVE

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Passenger Services Web Software
User Notes

Contents

Passenger Services ................................................................................................................................4
Starting the Program ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Logging In...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Getting Started ......................................................................................................................................5
Terminology ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Getting Around ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Accordion Menus............................................................................................................................................. 5
Main Navigation Menu ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Opening Forms ..............................................................................................................................................19

Forms and Subforms ............................................................................................................................19
Searching For and Finding Data ............................................................................................................19

Find Box........................................................................................................................................................20
Using Quick Search ........................................................................................................................................22
Database Navigation ............................................................................................................................23
Customer Services Menu – Today’s Passengers .................................................................................................23
Customer Services Menu – Today’s Trips ..........................................................................................................24
Grouping Data ...............................................................................................................................................25
Today’s Exceptions.........................................................................................................................................26
Timeline ........................................................................................................................................................27
General .........................................................................................................................................................27
Grouping Routes by Venue..............................................................................................................................28
Using the Calendar Control .............................................................................................................................28
Themes ..................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Plastic Blue:.......................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Office 2010 Black ...............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Changing Passwords ...............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Sitemap...............................................................................................................................................30
Browser Navigation ..............................................................................................................................31
Editing existing Data ............................................................................................................................32
Jobs ....................................................................................................................................................34
Routes ................................................................................................................................................38
Add New Route..............................................................................................................................................38
Adding extra data to a new route ....................................................................................................................40
Adding New Passengers to a Route..................................................................................................................40
Passenger Statistics............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Passenger General Information .......................................................................................................................43

Notes ............................................................................................................................................................................... 43
Route Details .................................................................................................................................................................... 44
Route Times ..................................................................................................................................................................... 44
Vehicle & Driver ................................................................................................................................................................ 45
Route Mileage................................................................................................................................................45
Journey Distance .............................................................................................................................................................. 45
Journey Distance – Mileage ............................................................................................................................................... 46
Route Escorts ................................................................................................................................................47
Route Schedules ............................................................................................................................................47
Definition.......................................................................................................................................................................... 47
Exceptions........................................................................................................................................................................ 49
Schedule .......................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Routes Schedule Form ....................................................................................................................................50
Routes – Tasks Menu .....................................................................................................................................51

Schedule - Diary dates in MPS ..............................................................................................................54
Venues..........................................................................................................................................................54
School Routes................................................................................................................................................55
Routes - Mapping...........................................................................................................................................58
Routes – Optimising Maps...............................................................................................................................59
Route Costs ...................................................................................................................................................60

SLA Route Costs – Cost & Time Periods.................................................................................................61
To create a new charging period .....................................................................................................................62
Accounts – Standard Per Day Charging ............................................................................................................63
SLA – Monthly Spreadsheet.............................................................................................................................64
Monthly Spreadsheet – Viewing Data ...............................................................................................................65
Sla Monthly Spreadsheet Reports ....................................................................................................................66

Accounts - Billing .............................................................................................................................................................. 66
Accounts – Sales Invoices................................................................................................................................................. 66

Processing & Printing Sales Invoices ................................................................................................................68
Accounts – Providers Invoices............................................................................................................................................ 70
Accounts – Purchase Orders .............................................................................................................................................. 70
Accounts – Purchase Order Variations ................................................................................................................................ 71

List Forms ...........................................................................................................................................72
Agencies .......................................................................................................................................................72
Clients...........................................................................................................................................................72
Depots ..........................................................................................................................................................73
Drivers ..........................................................................................................................................................73
Escorts/Attendants .............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Jobs..............................................................................................................................................................74
Other Addresses ............................................................................................................................................75
Passengers ....................................................................................................................................................75
Routes ..........................................................................................................................................................77
Suppliers .......................................................................................................................................................78
Vehicles ........................................................................................................................................................78
Routes ..........................................................................................................................................................78

Passengers ..........................................................................................................................................79

General Information .......................................................................................................................................79
Alternate Addresses........................................................................................................................................80
Special Education Needs – Pupil Details............................................................................................................80
Special Education Needs – School & Journey ....................................................................................................81
Special Education Needs – Passenger Type Info................................................................................................82
Special Education Needs – Schedule, Exceptions, Lockouts ................................................................................83
Passenger Request Form ......................................................................................................................84

Venues ................................................................................................................................................ 85
Venue Open Dates ...............................................................................................................................86

Drivers ................................................................................................................................................87
General .........................................................................................................................................................87
Agency..........................................................................................................................................................87
Training Courses ............................................................................................................................................87
Disciplinary .................................................................................................................................................... 87
Holiday & Sickness .........................................................................................................................................88
Emergency Contact ............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Technical Details ............................................................................................................................................90
Licences ........................................................................................................................................................90
CRB ..............................................................................................................................................................91
Drivers Analysis .............................................................................................................................................92

Escorts ................................................................................................................................................93
Agency Details ...............................................................................................................................................93

Drivers & Escorts Timesheets................................................................................................................94
Drivers & Escorts Timesheets Reports ..............................................................................................................95

Providers .............................................................................................................................................96

Providers Rates ..............................................................................................................................................97
Manage Providers Rates – By Vehicle Type .......................................................................................................98
Manage Providers Rates – By Mileage ..............................................................................................................99
Providers – Bulk add rates ............................................................................................................................ 100
Providers Rate Calculator.................................................................................................................... 101
Providers Rate Calculator when planning trips...................................................................................... 102

Providers Conformance ...................................................................................................................... 103
Vehicles............................................................................................................................................. 104

Accidents........................................................................................................................................... 105

Clients............................................................................................................................................... 106
General ....................................................................................................................................................... 106
Charging ..................................................................................................................................................... 106

Stats Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 107

Software ........................................................................................................................................... 108

Passenger Services

The Passenger Services web software (MPS) has been developed in association with several London Boroughs and
community transport operations, to meet the specific needs of SEN passenger transport organisations.
By including sophisticated statistical reporting and route optimisation it allows passenger services operations to
manage budgets, vehicles, passenger special needs and their SLA’s
Starting the Program
Start the web browser on your computer the following screen will be displayed

Logging In
You will need a username and password to login.

Simply type your first name in the User Name field, press TAB and then type your password. Then either press
Enter or click on the Log In button to continue. Two people cannot log in to the system using the same user name
and password at the same time.

Getting Started

We are really pleased that you have decided to use MPS to manage your transport operations. To get the best out
of the system there are some conventions and features that you need to know.

Please take some time before starting to use the system to familiarise yourself with the notes shown here. The
first section contains general information and the second section is a much more detailed description of each
screen and its functions.

Terminology

In this software screens of data are referred to as Forms, so there is a Route Form, a Passenger form etc. Forms
display data and each entry is called a record – so each passenger or venue has their own record. A record is
broken down into bits of data (phone, age, email, notes) which are called fields. So, for example, a passenger form
displays each passenger’s record and the data fields on the form display each bit of data about that passenger.

A report is a printed document showing records and fields of data. The system does not really produce screen
prints – just reports. If you are in a form and you click on File, Print from the menu – it will not print all records in a
list - just the screen that is being displayed at the time. You should use the reports menu not File, Print for
reporting.

Getting Around

The system uses a top menu, an accordion menu and buttons to navigate between forms and reports.

Accordion Menus

Accordion menus group related items together and expand to display data and contract to hide data that may not
be needed.

Click to expand or
hide this section



Main Navigation Menu

The main navigation menu is positioned on the left-hand side of the screen and is designed to give very quick
access to all the common tasks carried out by a transport operation. Regardless of what you are doing in the
system you can instantly switch to a common task without having to back up through multiple forms or reports.

Full List of choices

Instantly create new jobs, recurring routes or print route sheets
for your existing jobs and routes.

This is a list of common tasks:

The reminders system allows you to leave a diary based not for
any other person regarding vehicles, drivers, things to be done
etc.

Move a passenger allows you to very quickly switch a passenger
from one vehicle/trip to another on any day.

Use the Add New menu to very quickly create a new job, route
or other key component of the MPS system.

List View allows you to view, sort, filter and search your data. As
the system uses hyperlinks throughout – you will be able to
very quickly pop up information about these and all other
related items.

All the common accounting tasks can be accessed from here

System utilities to manage your working environment, users
and passwords.



















Opening Forms

A menu is used to navigate to the other forms in the database (Routes, Passengers, Vehicles, Accidents etc.).
Menus and Sub-menus are also used for navigation through the system.

Forms and Tabs

In most cases more data is stored than can be displayed on a single screen, most forms in the database have tabs to
logically sub-group additional data. Important data is generally stored above the tabs, so that it is always visible, and
less often used data or related data are displayed in each of the tabs.

This example shows extra passenger data Tab Controls

Simply click on the tab heading to view the other data.

Forms and Subforms

A form contains the fixed information about your data. A subform shows lists of information relating to that data – e.g.
A route has fixed data such as the venue that it goes to, but it might pick up many passengers on the way. Therefore the
fixed form data would be the route and the subform would be the passengers – see below

Passenger Sub Form

Main Passenger Form

Searching For and Finding Data

Every form has labels next to each field. Most of these are hyperlinks and, if they are underlined, when you click
these labels it is possible to search for any data that may have been entered. You do not have to type the whole
word, as it will try to match for you.

Example of a search

Find Box Then type to search
for data

When you have typed what you want to find you can press enter or click Search to see the results.
The full list of results will then be displayed:

Searching Data Grids

You can do extra searching by clicking the search criteria and amending the search rules

Using Quick Search
On the right hand side of the blue menu is a search box for very quickly querying your data. In the example below
we are searching for the word George in the whole system. You do not need to type the whole word as the system
will start searching after 4 letters have been typed. You can keep typing to narrow down the results found.
After typing 4 letters or more there will be a short pause while the system searches and then a list of items found
will be displayed. This list shows whether the items are Venues, routes, passengers etc. – simply click on the item
that you want to view.

To see a more detailed set of results, simply click the search button and a new screen will be opened:

What to search for & The results of the
where search

This form will allow you to be more precise about exactly what data you want to find and from which tables.

Database Navigation

Customer Services Menu – Today’s Passengers
Click this button on any screen to view the Customer Services Menu -

Navigation and
menu system

This has been designed to show all current routes, jobs, passengers and trips.

All current Click to view Drop Down
passengers & driver or the list for
route data more options
trips,

click here to
view additional

pages

Customer Services Menu – Today’s Trips
Click this tab to change view -

Click to view Type here to click here to
passengers filter sort

When viewing data like this you can click the column headings to sort by that
field. To filter the list simply type in the filter field.
For any trip the shortcut menu on the right has the following options:

Click the small black triangle sign to view the passengers on the trip:

Grouping Data
MPS uses a drag and drop grouping system for these lists. Simply drag the column that you want to group by up
into the top banner and the system will automatically group the items.
In this case we have dragged the Route field into the banner to show all passengers by route.

Click on the + signs to expand the detail.

Today’s Exceptions
An exception occurs when something that was planned to happen is cancelled. For instance a passenger cancels
due to sickness, a trip is cancelled because a vehicle breaks down or a set of trips is cancelled because of an issue
at the venue – perhaps a flood or closure due to bad weather.
Click the tab labelled Today’s Exceptions to see these.

A passenger exception has a single entry for that passenger not travelling.
For a route exception – the system will automatically except the route and all the passengers that were due to be
on that route.
For a Venue exception - the system will automatically except all of the routes for that day and all of the passengers
that were due to be on those routes.
When making exceptions, always try and give detailed explanations of why there was an exception as this can
affect billing, SLA, stats analysis amongst other things.

Timeline

General

The timeline is used to show all trips for any day you choose – unlike the Customer Services menu which is just for
“About to start” trips.

The timeline form has many more tabs and also has a filter section on the left hand side to choose which day and
time you wan

t

to enquire about. Click the tabs to
change your view
Choose your date
& start times

Type here to Click here to
filter sort

The number of
trips on this day

going to this
venue

Grouping Routes by Venue
Click the routes tab to display all routes for the chosen date and start time. Then drag the Venue field up into the
header bar. Use the + sign to expand and display all routes going to any venue.

Using the Calendar Control
Click any date field to see the calendar control:

Click the header
to get this date
selector pop up



Changing Passwords

Click on the Change Password link in the footer menu.
You need to first enter your current password and then choose a new password – that must be entered twice to
check for correctness.

Sitemap

The sitemap shows all features of the software in one go, simply click the option of your choice from the list:

Browser Navigation

MPS is a web application, which means that you can use the recent browser windows to move around within the
program. Right-Click on the forward or backward buttons of your browser to display a shortcut menu:

Then click on the item that you want to go back to. MPS will always display the most up to date data when a form
is selected.

Editing existing Data

Whenever you are in a form you can simply type into a field to update existing data. You do not have to press a
save button as the system will automatically save as you work. After you have changed data, this message will
appear in the top left of the screen:

As you keep changing the data the number of changes will increase. You cannot “step back” through your changes
but you can undo all changes before leaving the form that you are on.
Should you not select Undo All, the system will automatically save all of your changes.
There are some specific features in the system to help you work:



Jobs

In the MPS system, bookings & trips which occur once or only repeat on a few occasions are called Jobs. These are
sometimes called DRT jobs, Bookings, CT Jobs etc. A job is typically booked by a customer after receiving a
quotation for the work. Once the price, availability and dates have been agreed, MPS can easily turn the quotation
into a job – a confirmed booking.
This job will then be added to the jobs list and a diary entry made in the schedule so that it appears in the MPS
timeline. Once the job is complete an invoice can be raised for the job and it is then flagged as complete.
The MPS system also records BSOG details in order to assist the operator to recoup allowable fuel costs.
H atypical

Here is a typical job

This job occurs once and we do not know the names of the passengers – we do know that there are 3. There are
no requirements for wheelchairs and no requirement for attendants/escorts. The customer has requested an 8
seater Minibus.

After clicking on the “Return” tab we can see there is no return trip booked – this is a one way trip.

By clicking on the trip details we can see that our own driver is going to do the trip in our own vehicle FLT1. There
is no provider so we have not sub-contracted out the trip.

No BSOG details have been filled in as the job is not yet complete:

The MPS system support full BSOG analysis of eligible and ineligible parts of the trip.
There are also reports for drivers to cover vehicle checks, passenger incidents and full mileage analysis.

The accounts tab stores the initial information about the recharges for this trip.

The list section at the bottom of the accounts screen lists the individual costs to us of actually doing this job.
The Processed and Unprocessed invoices tabs show lists of sales invoices waiting to be raised and also those that
are now complete.
The MPS system also has a facility for checking all jobs where an invoice has never been raised to ensure that no
re-charges are ever missed.

Routes

Trips which occur often and change very little are called “Routes” in the MPS system. School trips are A good
example of this. They can be set up at the beginning of the school year and will change little until the end of the
school year.
Add New Route
When creating these routes use the Add New Route option from the Accordion menu on the left hand side of the
screen.

All of these fields are compulsory and you can search for existing routes by clicking on the blue Code and Name
labels. A red label signifies a compulsory entry.

Once you have completed your entry click save to continue. You will then be taken to the full details of this new
route to carry on adding information. To avoid this remove the tick in the field marked “Open item when finished”.

Adding extra data to a new route Click tab Add or remove
The full route form will now be displayed: to view passengers from
extra data
this route

Main Data Click to

view The start date and end dates are the dates
extra data that the child travels on this route. A diary

entry will be made in the schedule for all the

corresponding travel days, making a full

travel schedule for each passenger.
The outward time is the time that the passenger will be picked up
for the AM trip, the inward time is the pick up time for the return
trip.

This shows whether the passenger travels AM
(A), PM (P) or Both (B). The mps scheduler

will create all of the diary travel entries based
on the code here

Adding New Passengers to a Route
In the Route form click the ADD button on the right hand side of the screen.

This is a compulsory field
must have been created on
the system before they can

be added to a route
Choose when this passenger

travels day

on each

The system will then add the passenger to the route and create a full schedule:

Passenger General Information

Notes

Click the expand button on the General bar to display the Route General information:

Free typing areas for notes
about this route.

Hold down the SHIFT key while
pressing Enter, to start new
lines of text.

Route Details

Click the Route Details tab to see additional fields about this route.

Route Times

Vehicle & Driver

This is an important tab as it stores details of the vehicle, provider and driver normally used for this route.
You should enter the Provider details if this route is run by a 3rd party sub-contract provider.

Route Mileage

Journey Distance

Journey Distance – Mileage

Click the next tab to display Mileage information. When calculating mileages it is not uncommon to have an actual
mileage for the route but an “agreed” mileage for working with sub-contractors. This screen allows you to enter
both of those figures for both the outwards and the return journeys.

Use the Start and End Dates to maintain a full history of the mileages for the route at different times during the life
of the route.
Click the ADD button on the right hand side of the screen to add new entries to this section:

Route Escorts
Should you use escorts/attendants on routes their details can be entered here:

There is also a full system for the agreed times each day for the route:

Route Schedules

Definition

Typically A school route will run whenever the school is open, this is shown by the entry below. No start and end
dates for the route are required.



Exceptions

If a route is cancelled for any reason you should create an exception – these will appear here:

Schedule

A full analysis of the exact days that the route is running:

Routes Schedule Form