Overview

Using Groups

A lot may only belong to one group and there are no parameters around validity beyond the grouping.

An example of using a group might be a physical parking lot that is chopped up into virtual smaller lots. Consider we have a huge parking lot that we don't want to put physical barriers into and the lot can accommodate 100 staff and 500 students.

In summary, one big physical lot with 600 parking stalls:

Virtual lot #1: Red staff - 100 permits
Virtual lot #2: Red student - 500 permits

When we are doing enforcement, if we select either of these lots we will get misses or "valid permit but wrong lot" type messages. This will slow down enforcement and is unusable in a automatic chalking scenario. We want to be able to group these lots so that anyone parked in this large area with a valid permit in the listed lots, is seen as valid. We'll call the group "RED Group".

We can call the group whatever we want, it is just a way to link lots as a textual category.

Create a Lot Group

Adding the group designation is easy, as we just type the words as seen here...

Once the text has been recorded, the next one (here we see the Red Staff lot) prompts with text that is already in the database.

That's it. Now we have our Red lots grouped on the system.

Notice that grouping is just a very simple way to group lots, there is no validation around day or time. It allows an enforcement patrol to select the group of lots that they are patrolling.

There is definite similarity to Groups and Zones. Groups are a simple grouping mechanism, while Zones offer more flexibility.

Please Note:

groups and zones are free text and not bound by the items they group
a lot can only be a member of one group
a lot can have many zones
grouping is a method to track similar lots

Enforcement allows the selection of: lot group, specific lot, zone or a mix of lot group and zone designation

Visual: Adding Groups to a Lot

Using Zones

Generally use is tied directly to enforcement and the handhelds
A lot may belong to many zones
Different zones can supply different time/date validation parameters (ie. after-4pm, day care, weekend, evenings,...)
Zones are not required and are unnecessary if a permit is valid all day every day with no other validation requirement

It is important to keep in mind that zones are useful to designate times and days and/or a date range when a zone is valid; or really when a lot is valid in a zone.

When creating a lot, the administrator can specify what zones a permit is valid in.

Please note that permits must have one, and only one lot.

This discussion refers to permits and lots interchangeably, but keep in mind that a 'parker' owns a permit, not a lot. Therefore when a lot has a zone, it implies that a permit has a zone since a permit is one of many entities within a lot.

Zones allow us to solve a complex issue such as:

Different zones can supply different time/date validation parameters (ie. after-4pm, day care, weekend, evenings,...)
Zones are not required and are unnecessary if a permit is valid all day every day with no other validation requirement

Example:

Permit #1234 belongs to the Green Lot (we'll call these users Green Parkers)
Green Parkers can park in the Green Lot any day of the week
Green Parkers may also park in the Red Lot on Fridays

So we could create a zone and understand that it refers to the Red Lot .

We can call this the "RED Zone" to allow admins, patrols, etc. to connect its use to the Red lot.

We can add the "RED Zone" to the Green Lot's zones through the lot admin tool. We can also specify the days, date range or time when Green Parkers can use this zone.

Create a Zone

At this point, our Green Lot has no zones. This is completely valid since the lot would simply fall under a "Any zone" type designation.

On the handheld during enforcement, there is no requirement to select a zone, as "Any Zone" can be selected. Perhaps validation is at the specific lot or lot group level, with no concern around zoning.

Now since we want users to be able to park in the "Red Zone" on Fridays, let's add it to the zone list.

So for completeness, we should also add the "RED Zone" to the Red lot, and select that anyone in that zone can park any day all day.

Remember the name "RED Zone" has no real connection other than the word "RED" to the Red lot.

We also have a RED staff lot, so we should add the zone to that lot as well.

In Summary

users with RED permits (Student and Staff) are allowed to park in the "RED Zone" any day of the week all day
Green Staff permit holders can also park in the "RED Zone" but only on Fridays

Visual: Adding Zones to a Lot

Supporting Zones in Other Lots

Lot 5	Support a zone in other lots but not in the current lot.
Lot 5	This configuration shows Lot 5 supports the zone elsewhere and not in this lot. This stops Lot 6 permit holders from having access to Lot 5 due to zone configuration.

Lot6	Support a zone that is linked with another lot.
Lot6	Since Lot 5 supports "Day Care", Lot 5 permit holders can park in this lot on evenings and weekends.