Scheduling Tool with DevOps Implementation

TimeHighway is a leader in creating solutions for planning after-sale services in the field of retail car sales. The company was founded in 2004, in Florida. Solutions have been developed by the retail car sales experts in order to facilitate scheduling of appointments, car maintenance, or other car services in real-time. TimeHighway’s solutions also help to organize, computerize, and customize dealer operations. On August 16, 2016, the company was acquired by Affinitiv Corporation.

Since TimeHighway is a dealer management system working with lots of different brands, they needed to have a scheduling tool customers could access on the go using a mobile app. All of the data that was entered into the app must be integrated with both the TimeHighway server and the dealership’s as well. Furthermore, the app needed to have all of the necessary functionalities to help dealers manage after-sale services. There were also specific services that each dealer offered their customers, which had to be factored into the app.

Softwarium took over development from a previous service provider who could not fulfill TimeHighway’s requirements within the set time period. Softwarium salvaged the project and created both Android and iOS mobile apps where dealerships employees can create, transfer and remove scheduled maintenance appointments, to monitor entries on a daily or weekly basis and at any period of time. In this scheduling tool, they can also find a client in the database by scanning their license plate, to photograph car damages, and add the picture to the client’s profile. Softwarium also created an internal employee chat inside the mobile app. All of the features in the mobile app have been created for the web version as well.

Over the course of the project, integration has been achieved with major DMS (Dealership Management Systems) providers in the USA. The webchat mentioned above was available in the retail version as well.

One of the requirements from TimeHighway was that the Agile methodology must be implemented. For DevOps implementation and bringing its CI/CD practices, we set up a TeamCity server to create sandbox and production environments. For test automation, we used Selenium which helped us achieve CI/CD since the developers had to integrate the code into a shared repository several times a day. Every time this happens, it has to be verified by an automated build. 

By bringing in CI/CD practices and other aspects of DevOps implementation we were able to handle all of the development, maintenance, and testing for TimeHighway. The scheduling tool is in its sixth version already.

We started working with TimeHighway back in 2006 when it was a startup. Over the course of the last decade, we helped TimeHighway integrate with various DMS software and create features that would entice dealerships around the country to start using TimeHighway’s DMS to manage after-sale service and maintenance. TimeHighway continued to grow and attract the attention of larger market players. In 2016, the company was acquired by Affiniv Corporation who continued to use Softwarium’s services to handle all of their development, maintenance, and testing needs.