A function of your portal, in full
A locked file in, a locked file out, and nobody leaves the portal.
Connecting your tools links your portal to the services of the tool makers you already hold an account with, and to the car data your shop works from. For a master on Alientech or AutoTuner it means a file locked to a customer's tool is unlocked for the tuner and locked again for the same tool, inside the job, with one page that says whether each connection is set up and answering.
Start with what needs no connection at all: your portal accepts a file from any tool. A customer uploads what their tool gave them, the job opens, the tuner downloads it. Nothing on this page has to be set up for that. A connection matters when the file is locked to the tool that read it, in the tool maker's own format, which only that maker's service can open and pack again. Without a connection the master signs in on the maker's site, unlocks the file, tunes it, signs in again, locks it and sends it back. With one, the portal does both trips.
Two makers' services do this work on a portal today: Alientech, for files read with a KESS3, and AutoTuner. Each uses an account of your own, in your name, billed by the maker and not by the portal. It is a master's job: the business that tunes the file holds the account, and a dealer portal whose master does the unlocking leaves these fields empty, because one connected account in the network is enough. A field for a bFlash key is there too, and this page says plainly what it does today: it keeps the key, and nothing more yet.
Four screens make up the function. Integrations is a page in the menu that lists every connection side by side: whether your details are saved, how its calls went over the last seven days, and a button to configure it. In Settings, under Tools and connectors, the Alientech section holds the three details of your Alientech API account and the AutoTuner section holds your key and a note of which device it belongs to.
The fourth, Other tools, holds everything else your portal can learn about files and cars: a paid vehicle data service that names the ECU of an uploaded file and gives power figures your own list lacks, a vehicle catalogue key that fills an empty list of cars, a switch that keeps that list growing with each portal update, your own file endings for tools the portal does not list, and a switch that lets the portal learn new ECU types from the files it receives. All of it is in every package; what you buy from a tool maker or a data service, you buy from them.
A shop's day without it
A dealer sends a file locked to its tool at four on a Friday. The master opens the tool maker's site, signs in, unlocks the file, tunes it, signs in again, locks it and emails it back: three places for one file, and the tab stays open all day for the next one. Then a file will not open at all. Was the account ever set up here? Did the maker's service stop answering? Did the subscription run out? The person who set it up left in the spring, nobody in the shop can tell, and the job waits until Monday.
For a master on Alientech or AutoTuner
A locked file, from the customer's tool and back to it.
What the portal does with a file in a tool maker's own format once your account with that maker is connected.
- The customer uploadsExactly what their tool gave them, still locked to it. They are not asked what kind of file it is.
- The portal recognises itEach connection is asked in turn whether the format is its own. The first that says yes handles the file; a plain file needs none.
- The maker's service unlocks itThe portal signs in with your own account and gets the file back in a form a tuner can work on.
- The tuner tunesOn the job, as with any other file. Nobody opens the maker's site or keeps a second tab alive.
- The tuned file is locked againFor the same tool, through the same account, so the customer downloads a file their tool will take.
- The call is countedEach trip to the maker shows on Integrations: how many in seven days, how many succeeded, how long they took.
The service that unlocks and locks is the tool maker's, on your account with them. The portal carries the file there and back.
Integrations
One word on each row tells you where a connection stands.
A row moves through these states as you set a connection up and it starts doing real work. When a file misbehaves, this is the first thing to read.
- Setup neededNo details saved and no calls in seven days. Press Configure and enter what the maker gave you.
- ReadyYour details are saved and the connection waits for its first file. Upload one to prove it.
- HealthySet up and doing real work: calls in the last seven days, and they succeeded.
- Active, check configThe calls succeed, but the connection's own check says something is incomplete. Open Configure and save again.
Set up once
From nothing to the first unlocked file.
The setup guide on the Integrations page, in the order it gives the steps.
- Install the connectionFrom Available connectors, for the maker your customers' tools come from.
- Get access from the makerAPI access on your own account with them. The maker's own terms apply.
- Have your address allowedMost makers answer only addresses they know. Give them your portal's server address.
- Paste your details and testThe check asks the maker with your details and shows the answer.
- Upload a real fileFrom a customer account. The row turns from Ready to Healthy when the first calls succeed.
What you find on it
Integrations
Integrations, in the portal's menu for administrators, lists each connection between your portal and a tool maker's service. The top of the page counts the connections installed and how many are set up. It is in every package; a shop that only ever sees plain files may never open it, and a shop whose customers send locked files looks here before anywhere else when one misbehaves.
- Connectors
- One row per maker's service installed on this portal: its name, whether your details are saved, its state in one word, the calls of the last seven days with how many succeeded and the average time they took, and Configure, which opens that connection's own settings.
- Available connectors
- The maker services published in the Marketplace and not yet installed here, each with Install. One whose service is not working yet is marked Coming soon and cannot be added, so no shop sets up a connection that cannot work. bFlash is shown that way today.
- Setup guide
- The steps in order: install the connection, get access to the service from the maker, have your portal's address allowed with them, paste the details and test, then upload a real file to prove it end to end.
- Questions
- Short answers on the page itself: the maker's service is bought from the maker, your details are stored encrypted on your portal, what a refused address means, that your tuners see the unlocked file and never the account details, and that several connections work side by side.
Alientech
Settings, Tools and connectors, Alientech: the three details of your own Alientech API account, the app ID, the customer code and the secret. With all three saved, the portal unlocks a file read with a KESS3 and locks the tuned file back for the same tool. The server address Alientech must allow is shown under the first field, and a check button asks Alientech with your details.
AutoTuner
Settings, Tools and connectors, AutoTuner: the API key of your own AutoTuner account, which is all AutoTuner needs to unlock and lock files, and a note of which device the key belongs to. A check button asks AutoTuner whether the key is right, and the master dashboard shows the connection with the last day's operations and errors.
Other tools
Settings, Tools and connectors, Other tools: the rest of what your portal knows about tools and cars. A place for a bFlash key, a paid vehicle data service with its key, a vehicle catalogue key for importing cars, whether the car list grows with each portal update, your own file endings, and whether the portal learns ECU types from the files it reads.
How it works
- Decide whether you need a connection: plain files from any tool are accepted without one. You need one when customers send files locked to an Alientech or AutoTuner tool and you are the one who tunes them.
- Ask the tool maker for API access on your own account, and for your portal's server address to be allowed; the address is shown in Settings under the Alientech section.
- Open Settings, Tools and connectors, paste your details in the maker's section, save and press the check button; read the maker's answer.
- Open Integrations: the row for that maker now reads Ready. Upload a real locked file from a customer account.
- The portal recognises the format, unlocks the file through your account, the tuner works on the job, and the tuned file is locked again for the customer's tool.
- The row turns Healthy and counts the week's calls. When a file from that tool misbehaves later, read the row first.
- In Other tools, add what your shop needs beyond locked files: the vehicle data service if files arrive with no ECU named, the vehicle catalogue key if your list of cars is thin, a line per file ending for a tool the portal does not list.
Who it is for
- A masterHolds the Alientech or AutoTuner account and connects it once. From then on the locked files of its own customers and of its dealers are unlocked and locked inside the job, and a connection that is down shows on Integrations before the dealers start writing.
- The ownerEnters each account once, buys what is bought from the makers and the data services, and sees at a glance which connections are set up and answering. Only administrators can open Integrations.
- Your tunersOpens a job with the file already unlocked, the ECU named and the tool recognised, and never sees the account details. Reads the row on Integrations when a file will not open, so the first question is answered without anyone technical.
- Your dealersLeaves these fields empty when its master does the unlocking. Its customers upload what their tool gave them and get back a file the tool accepts; the dealer never hears the word connection.
- Your customersNever sees any of it. Uploads the file from the tool, finds the car in the list, and downloads a file the tool will take.
Every setting, explained
Alientech
3 settingsSettings, Tools and connectors, Alientech: the three details of your own Alientech API account, the app ID, the customer code and the secret. With all three saved, the portal unlocks a file read with a KESS3 and locks the tuned file back for the same tool. The server address Alientech must allow is shown under the first field, and a check button asks Alientech with your details.
Alientech app ID
The client app ID of your own Alientech API account, the first of three details with the customer code and the secret. With all three, the portal unlocks a file read with a KESS3 to work on and locks the tuned file back for the same tool, and File Match can deliver a finished file for that tool by itself. Alientech answers only an address it allows: the server address to give their support is shown under this field. Kept encrypted.
Alientech customer code
The number Alientech knows your account by. It goes with every file the portal unlocks or locks there, and it is the second of the three details: without it the account does not count as connected, whatever the other two say. Kept encrypted. The check button for the whole section sits on this row and asks Alientech with all three.
Alientech secret
The secret of your Alientech API account. Before each unlock or lock the portal signs in to Alientech with the app ID and this secret and gets a short-lived pass for the work. If the sign-in fails once, the portal tries again a couple of times before it reports the file as failed, so one bad moment does not fail a job. Kept encrypted and never shown again once saved; your staff cannot read it.
AutoTuner
2 settingsSettings, Tools and connectors, AutoTuner: the API key of your own AutoTuner account, which is all AutoTuner needs to unlock and lock files, and a note of which device the key belongs to. A check button asks AutoTuner whether the key is right, and the master dashboard shows the connection with the last day's operations and errors.
AutoTuner key
The API key of your own AutoTuner account. One key is all AutoTuner needs: with it the portal unlocks a file from an AutoTuner tool to work on and locks the tuned file back for the tool, and File Match can deliver a finished file for that tool by itself. Kept encrypted. The check button asks AutoTuner whether the key is right, and the master dashboard shows the connection with the operations and the errors of the last day.
AutoTuner device
The AutoTuner device your key works with. It is a note for your staff: the master dashboard shows it beside the AutoTuner connection, and the portal does not use it for anything else. It changes nothing about how files are unlocked or locked.
Other tools
7 settingsSettings, Tools and connectors, Other tools: the rest of what your portal knows about tools and cars. A place for a bFlash key, a paid vehicle data service with its key, a vehicle catalogue key for importing cars, whether the car list grows with each portal update, your own file endings, and whether the portal learns ECU types from the files it reads.
bFlash key
Keeps the API key of your bFlash account, encrypted like the other tool keys, and the master dashboard shows the bFlash connection as set once a key is in. What it does not do yet is talk to bFlash: today no file is unlocked or locked through it, which is why the field has no check button and why bFlash is marked Coming soon on Integrations.
Vehicle data service
Lets the portal ask a paid vehicle data service for what your own catalogue does not hold yet: a car's power figures, and which ECU an uploaded file comes from. The upload wizard uses it to name the ECU, File Match to match the file, the knowledge search to look things up. Each answer is kept for an hour, so the same question asked twice in one sitting is paid for once. If the service does not answer within a few seconds the portal carries on without it. It stays off, whatever the switch says, until a key is saved.
Vehicle data service key
The key you bought for the vehicle data service. The portal sends it with every question about power figures or an ECU, keeps it encrypted and does not show it again. The check button under it asks the service to answer with the account and how much of its allowance is left; a refused key is wrong or has run out, and the check's message says which. One key covers both the figures and the ECU identification.
Vehicle catalogue key
The key from your vehicle catalogue account, for importing makes, models, generations and engines into your list of cars: cars and vans, trucks, agricultural, marine, motorcycles and machinery, each engine with its stages, its ECU, its reading tools and its methods. Your own rows are never overwritten or re-priced: an engine you typed gets only its empty fields filled, an engine you lack is added and marked as imported, and possible duplicates are listed for you to decide. The import first reports what it would do and writes only when told to. Kept encrypted, with a check button.
Update the car list with each portal update
When the portal is updated, the makes, models and engines that are new since the last time are added to the list your customers pick from, and figures that were empty are filled in. A car you removed stays removed; an engine you edited keeps what you saved. Switched off, the list is left alone until you press Update catalogue now in the same section, which runs in the background for a few minutes.
Other tools' file endings
The portal knows the file endings of the tools it lists. For any other tool you tell it: one line per ending, written as the ending, an equals sign and the tool's name. From then on a file with that ending is recognised as that tool's and the job names the tool. The endings the portal comes with are untouched; you only add to them, and two endings may point at the same tool. A file whose ending nobody named is still accepted.
Learn ECU details from tool files
A read from a tool often carries more than the data: the tool writes in which ECU it read, with its hardware and software numbers. The portal reads that, and when the ECU is one it has not met, adds it to your list of ECU types, marked with the tool it was learned from so you can check, rename or merge it. The next request from the same ECU fills its type in by itself. Switched off, the details are still read but nothing is added to your list. An ECU type you already have is never changed.
How shops use it
A master whose dealers all use the same tool
A master with a dozen dealers on one maker's tools
The owner enters the account details the maker issued, has the portal's address allowed and tests. From then on a dealer's customer uploads a locked file, the connection recognises it, and the tuner works on the unlocked read; the tuned file goes back locked for that customer's tool. The dealers' own portals have nothing filled in. The row on Integrations reads Healthy, with the week's calls counted.
One page tells the master the whole network's files are flowing, and no file is carried to the maker's site by hand.
The Friday afternoon file
A busy shop where a file suddenly will not open
The tuner asks an administrator to open Integrations before anyone writes to the customer. The row for that maker says Active, check config: the week's calls succeeded, but the connection reports something incomplete. The administrator opens Configure, fills the empty field from the maker's email and saves. The row turns Healthy, and the file is tried again from the job.
Ten minutes, nobody technical called, and the job is delivered the same afternoon.
Two makers, one portal
A master whose customers arrive with Alientech and AutoTuner tools
Both accounts are connected. When a file is uploaded, each connection is asked in turn whether the format is its own, and the first that recognises it handles the file; a plain file from any other tool needs neither. The owner reads two rows on Integrations, each with its own week of calls, and notes the AutoTuner device on the dashboard so staff know which tool the key belongs to.
One portal for every customer's tool, and no file turned away because it came from the wrong box.
An empty list of cars, filled in an afternoon
A new portal opening up to trucks and agricultural
The owner pastes the vehicle catalogue key and presses the check. The import first reports what it would add; he reads it, then lets it write. The engines he had typed keep their names and prices and gain only the fields that were empty. With the update switch left on, next year's models arrive with the portal's updates.
Customers find their vehicle in the upload wizard, and the owner stops typing engines in the evening.
Where it helps, and its limits
Where it helps most
- A master whose customers or dealers upload files locked to an Alientech or AutoTuner tool: the unlocking and locking happen inside the job.
- A shop where the person who set a connection up is not the person who answers when a file misbehaves: the row says where it stands.
- A portal with both makers' accounts connected, where each file finds its own connection by itself.
- A shop whose files often arrive with no ECU named, or whose list of cars is thin: the data service and the catalogue fill the gaps.
- A shop that takes reads from a tool the portal does not list: one line names its files.
What it does not do
- Unlocking and locking work for a master with its own Alientech or AutoTuner account. For bFlash the portal keeps the key and does nothing with it yet, and for any other tool it accepts and names the file without opening the maker's format.
- The portal is the bridge. The service is bought from the tool maker, on the maker's terms, and the maker decides what it opens and which addresses it answers.
- Integrations reports what a connection saw in the last seven days. It cannot say why a maker refused a call beyond what the maker's service answered.
- The ECU named by the vehicle data service is that service's answer, shown for the tuner to confirm. The tuner decides.
Which package
- Integrations
- In every plan, Start included.
- Alientech
- In every plan, Start included.
- AutoTuner
- In every plan, Start included.
- Other tools
- In every plan, Start included.
Prices in euros, a month, before tax, billed on the 1st. Every price ›
Questions shops ask
- Do I need a connection to accept files?
- No. Every portal accepts a file from any tool. A connection matters for a tool maker's own locked format, so the file is unlocked for the tuner and locked again on delivery without anyone leaving the portal.
- Which tools can the portal unlock and lock files for?
- Alientech, for files read with a KESS3, and AutoTuner, each through your own account with the maker. It is for the master who tunes the files. A bFlash key can be stored, but no file goes to bFlash today.
- Is the account mine or the portal's?
- Yours, in your name with the maker, and the maker bills it. The portal works through it and never lends it to another portal.
- I am a dealer. Do I fill any of this in?
- Not when your master does the unlocking: one connected account in the network is enough. Your customers upload what their tool gave them and get back a file the tool accepts.
- Why does the check say the maker refused?
- Most often your portal's server address is not allowed yet on the maker's side. Send them the address shown in the settings, wait for their word, and press the check again.
- Where are my keys kept, and can my staff read them?
- On your portal, encrypted, never in a log, and not shown again once saved. Your tuners see the unlocked file, not the account behind it. Only administrators can open Integrations.
- Can I use two makers' connections at once?
- Yes. Each works on its own. When a file is uploaded, the first connection that recognises the format handles it, and a plain file needs none.
- Does every look-up on the vehicle data service cost?
- The service counts its calls against the allowance of your key. The portal keeps each answer for an hour, so a repeat inside that hour is not counted again, and the check button shows what is left.
- Will the catalogue import or an update overwrite my own cars?
- No. Rows you made get only their empty fields filled and are never renamed, removed or re-priced. A car you deleted stays deleted, update after update.
- Which package has it?
- Every package. What you hold with a tool maker, the data service or the vehicle catalogue is bought from them separately.
Every function of the portal, each on its own page. All functions
Name your portal. It is ready in under a minute.
Pro: today you pay this month in full, or only the days left if the 1st is less than 10 days away; then €60 on every 1st.
- Your name and logo
- Files from any tool
- Updates done for you
- Moving in free on paid plans
You can change your portal's address from your account at any time, or add another to the same portal, free. More are coming: tunerengine.co.uk, tunerengine.uk and tunerengine.info, then new short ones made for portals.