A long journey with technical challenges

My journey with the workshop planner began during my internship. After completing my original assignment, I was given the opportunity to contribute to a larger project: migrating the workshop planner from Clipper to Visual DataFlex (VDF). I had no prior experience with VDF, but thanks to the support of my colleague Luuk, I found my way quickly.

At the time, the planner had been developed for Van Haren Automotive, allowing their branches in Venray and Boxmeer to view each other’s schedules. The transition to Windows brought significant technical challenges. The biggest? Visually displaying the schedule. While textual representations were the norm, we wanted a graphical interface with time blocks per technician—a forward-thinking and important step at the time.

Initially, there was some hesitation among customers about switching to Plan-IT. Many dealers still relied on physical planning boards. But once they saw that all scheduling information was centrally available on screen, that hesitation quickly disappeared. The work process became calmer, clearer, and far more efficient. Work orders no longer had to be tracked manually—everything was managed digitally. The impact on workshop performance was immediately noticeable.

From a technical perspective, we fully committed to Visual DataFlex and used Crystal Reports for reporting. This allowed us to build a stable and scalable system that grew alongside our ambitions for many years.

Plan-IT has been continuously developed ever since. One major milestone was integration with Dealer Management Systems (DMS), which enabled us to better serve larger dealer groups and significantly expand our customer base. Today, virtually all DMS platforms in the Netherlands are integrated with Plan-IT.

The interface became increasingly user-friendly. We introduced drag & drop functionality and made it possible to visually adjust the size of work orders—something unique at the time. The next big step was integration with Plan-IT Online, which allowed automotive businesses to let their customers schedule workshop appointments online. These appointments would appear instantly in the planner and were automatically matched to available capacity and required specialisations. This flexibility proved crucial for dealer groups acquiring smaller dealers, and it allowed us to work seamlessly with various DMS platforms, regardless of brand.

User feedback has always been at the heart of our development process. By truly listening to their needs, we were able to continuously improve Plan-IT. Every few months, we released updates with enhancements—big or small. Today, our web applications run on .NET and Kubernetes, supported by Linux. The desktop version still runs reliably on DataFlex, but our main focus is now on web. This positions us well for the future.

Together with Luuk, I worked intensively on the technical side, while Julian Hendriks (Juul) focused on the commercial side. Two strategic decisions we made together were especially pivotal: first, outsourcing sales to Idégoned to leverage their market presence, and later, bringing sales back in-house to allow for faster decision-making and closer alignment with our goals.

A major highlight was the adoption of Plan-IT by VAG dealers. This brought nearly the entire VAG dealer network on board as customers. Shortly after, Volvo followed, and together with their DMS partner iDas, we developed a custom scheduling system. These steps gave a tremendous boost to our growth.

The future lies in Plan-IT Workshop Web. Our aim is to bring all the essential features of the desktop version to the online platform. We also continue to invest in Plan-IT Online, Plan-IT Test Drive, and Plan-IT Workshop—user-friendly solutions that evolve with our customers’ needs.

Looking back on this journey, I feel above all a deep sense of pride. Plan-IT is not just software to me—it’s part of who I am. And that makes its success feel deeply personal.