Tachograph analysis - What to do with Convey Pending Files
Novadata good housekeeping tips - to keep you legally compliant
What are Pending Files?
When you take on a new driver, or use an agency driver, and download their Driver Card data to your Convey digital tachograph analysis system, you will automatically download all its data. This will include dates for which the driver has worked for you, but also some older data that you don’t need.
This does not give away commercial secrets, but for legal purposes, it does record the hours that the driver has spent driving and the vehicles driven.
Because it contains details of vehicles (and possibly a driver) not logged on your system, this mixture of older and new data is automatically stored on the Convey system in a Pending File. This holds the combination of old and new data until you process it.
What should you do with Pending Files?
Your Convey dashboard will display an icon saying ‘Pending Driver Cards’, to alert you that there are Pending Files which you need to examine. You will also receive an email to let you know that these Pending Files are on your system, and should be cleared.
It is important to open your Pending Files by clicking on the ‘Pending Driver Cards’ icon. You can then delete the information that you don’t need.
You will also be able to import data for any dates for which the driver has worked for you, and for which they used vehicles registered on your system. If you have vehicles not yet registered on your system, the data for these will also go into your Pending Files until you register it. You will be able to extract data for your as yet unregistered vehicle manually from the Pending File. There is a guide to clearing Pending Files in your Convey user handbook.
Why should you clear your Pending Files?
You should examine and process the data in your Pending Files, extracting the data that you need and deleting any that you don’t. This is because:
- Your relevant data from the Pending File will not be analysed until you add it manually to your system.
- Until they are cleared, the Pending Files will also prevent any future data being analysed. This will make it impossible to keep accurate records of your compliance.
- The information in the Pending Files is invaluable for checking that your new driver or agency driver has not breached the Working Time Directive, and is therefore legally entitled to drive for you.
- Pending Files prevent you being charged accidentally for someone else’s data. Separating the wanted and unwanted files will ensure that you can submit only your own data for analysis and that you will be charged correctly for your data analysis.
What happens after you clear the Pending Files?
Once the data in the Pending Files is processed and cleared, you will be able to add the data that you need for analysis to your system. Any future data accumulated on the Driver’s Card will then download automatically into your Convey system for analysis, without a problem.
With agency drivers, you may need to clear the Pending Files each time that they drive for you, as their cards will routinely have data from different organisations stored on them.
Clearing the Pending Files is like unblocking a potential bottleneck in your digital tachograph data analysis, and is part of good housekeeping for tachograph analysis.