DecisioQ Used Car Dealership Developer Integration Manual

How software developers should incorporate DecisioQ into used vehicle retail systems

This manual explains how to embed DecisioQ decision intelligence into used car dealership platforms, including DMS, CRM, vehicle acquisition, appraisal, inventory management, reconditioning, pricing, online merchandising, desking, F&I, service, and management reporting systems.

Contents

1. Purpose and Scope

2. Where DecisioQ Fits in a Used Dealership Architecture

3. Recommended Integration Pattern

4. Used Car Dealership Decision Templates

5. Data Model Mapping

6. API Workflow

7. Implementation Examples

8. Workflow-Specific Guidance

9. User Interface Design

10. Security, Privacy, and Compliance

11. Performance and Reliability

12. Testing Strategy

13. Deployment Checklist

14. Recommended Rollout Plan

15. Appendix: Example Template Catalog

1. Purpose and Scope

Used car dealerships make high-value decisions every day across vehicle acquisition, trade appraisal, auction sourcing, reconditioning, pricing, merchandising, lead handling, finance approval, inventory aging, and customer retention. These decisions often depend on multiple competing factors such as market demand, days in stock, recon cost, gross potential, lender fit, customer urgency, and sales manager policy. DecisioQ should be incorporated as a decision orchestration layer that evaluates weighted criteria and returns ranked, auditable recommendations to the host dealership system.

This guide is written for developers. It shows where DecisioQ belongs in a used car dealership architecture, how to map dealership data into decision templates, how to call the API, how to display results, and how to preserve audit history without turning DecisioQ into the system of record for legal contracts or accounting transactions.

2. Where DecisioQ Fits in a Used Dealership Architecture

DecisioQ should sit beside existing dealership applications as a decision service. The DMS, CRM, appraisal tool, inventory platform, pricing engine, desking tool, and F&I system continue to own operational records and transactions. DecisioQ receives context and criteria, evaluates alternatives, and returns a recommendation, ranking, score, rationale, and audit ID.

Vehicle / Lead / Deal / Reconditioning Event
        |
DMS / CRM / Appraisal / Inventory / Desking / F&I System
        |
Data Mapping and Criteria Builder
        |
DecisioQ API
        |
Ranked recommendation + scores + rationale + audit ID
        |
Dealership workflow screen, manager queue, or automated batch process

3. Recommended Integration Pattern

1. Define one DecisioQ template per repeatable dealership decision, such as acquisition bid, appraisal path, reconditioning approval, price action, lead routing, lender path, or aged inventory disposition.
2. Build a mapping layer that converts DMS, CRM, appraisal, inventory, and finance fields into DecisioQ criteria. Keep this mapping layer separate from UI code.
3. Use synchronous calls for interactive decisions at appraisal, sales desk, finance, and lead assignment screens. Use asynchronous batch jobs for nightly inventory reviews, pricing recommendations, and marketing prioritization.
4. Display the top recommendation, ranked alternatives, score, reason codes, and confidence level inside the host workflow where the user already works.
5. Persist the DecisioQ audit ID with the stock number, lead ID, appraisal ID, deal number, repair order, or campaign ID so outcomes can be reviewed later.

4. Used Car Dealership Decision Templates

5. Data Model Mapping

The integration should translate dealership records into neutral decision inputs. Send only the data required to evaluate the decision. For customer-facing or finance-related workflows, use internal references instead of raw personal data unless the criterion truly requires it. DecisioQ should store decision context and auditability, not duplicate full customer, finance, or legal contract records.

6. API Workflow

The host application submits a template code, correlation ID, alternatives, criteria, and optional context. DecisioQ returns ranked results with a score, rationale, and audit identifier. The example below evaluates whether a vehicle should be retailed, wholesaled, auctioned, or reconditioned further.

POST /api/decision/evaluate
Authorization: Bearer {access_token}
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "templateCode": "USED_CAR_APPRAISAL_PATH",
  "alternatives": [
    { "id": "retail", "name": "Retail after reconditioning" },
    { "id": "wholesale", "name": "Wholesale immediately" },
    { "id": "auction", "name": "Send to auction" },
    { "id": "decline", "name": "Decline acquisition" }
  ],
  "criteria": [
    { "name": "Projected gross", "weight": 30, "values": { "retail": 88, "wholesale": 55, "auction": 50, "decline": 10 } },
    { "name": "Reconditioning risk", "weight": 25, "values": { "retail": 58, "wholesale": 83, "auction": 75, "decline": 100 } },
    { "name": "Local demand", "weight": 25, "values": { "retail": 92, "wholesale": 50, "auction": 45, "decline": 5 } },
    { "name": "Time-to-sell risk", "weight": 20, "values": { "retail": 70, "wholesale": 90, "auction": 82, "decline": 100 } }
  ],
  "context": {
    "correlationId": "optional",
    "attributes": {}
  }
}
{
  "auditId": "dq-audit-20260625-001142",
  "recommendedAlternativeId": "retail",
  "results": [
    { "alternativeId": "retail", "rank": 1, "score": 77.10, "rationale": "Best balance of projected gross and local demand despite moderate reconditioning risk." },
    { "alternativeId": "wholesale", "rank": 2, "score": 68.70, "rationale": "Lower risk and faster turn, but weaker gross opportunity." },
    { "alternativeId": "auction", "rank": 3, "score": 62.05, "rationale": "Reasonable exit path if recon capacity is constrained." },
    { "alternativeId": "decline", "rank": 4, "score": 48.00, "rationale": "Lowest business value for this vehicle profile." }
  ]
}

7. Implementation Examples

7.1 C# Service Wrapper

public sealed class DecisioQDecisionClient
{
    private readonly HttpClient _httpClient;

    public DecisioQDecisionClient(HttpClient httpClient)
    {
        _httpClient = httpClient;
    }

    public async Task<DecisionResult> EvaluateAsync(DecisionRequest request, CancellationToken ct)
    {
        using var response = await _httpClient.PostAsJsonAsync("/api/decision/evaluate", request, ct);
        response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
        return await response.Content.ReadFromJsonAsync<DecisionResult>(cancellationToken: ct)
               ?? throw new InvalidOperationException("DecisioQ returned an empty response.");
    }
}

7.2 TypeScript Call

export async function evaluateUsedCarDecision(request, accessToken) {
  const response = await fetch('/api/decision/evaluate', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': `Bearer ${accessToken}`,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify(request)
  });

  if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`DecisioQ evaluation failed: ${response.status}`);
  return await response.json();
}

8. Workflow-Specific Guidance

8.1 Acquisition and Auction Buying

Use DecisioQ before submitting auction bids, accepting purchase opportunities, or sourcing vehicles from wholesalers. Criteria should include projected retail value, recon risk, transport cost, auction fee, vehicle history risk, local demand, segment gaps, and floorplan exposure. Return a maximum bid, pass recommendation, or manager-review flag.

8.2 Trade Appraisal

Use DecisioQ while appraisers are still with the customer. The screen should show retail path, wholesale path, auction path, and decline path rankings. Managers should see the drivers behind the recommendation, especially recon cost, payoff risk, book-to-market spread, and expected turn time.

8.3 Reconditioning and Frontline Readiness

Use DecisioQ to decide how much recon spend is justified and which vehicles should be prioritized. A vehicle with high demand and high gross potential may justify rapid parts sourcing and technician priority. A low-demand vehicle with high recon risk may be routed to wholesale or auction.

8.4 Pricing and Inventory Aging

Run DecisioQ nightly for price action recommendations and on demand when a sales manager reviews aged inventory. Include market rank, VDP views, lead count, days in stock, price history, margin floor, holding cost, and aging bracket. Store the recommended action with the stock record.

8.5 Lead Handling and Test Drive Scheduling

Route leads based on vehicle expertise, response availability, prior relationship, customer urgency, and workload balance. For test-drive scheduling, include vehicle availability, salesperson availability, customer preference, and readiness status.

8.6 Sales Desk, Finance, and F&I

Use DecisioQ to rank deal structures and lender paths, but leave final legal and lender compliance rules in the authoritative F&I or desking system. The recommendation should support managers by showing approval probability, payment fit, gross impact, and customer preference alignment.

8.7 Wholesale and Aged Inventory Exit

Use DecisioQ to choose between additional price action, auction, wholesale, dealer trade, or marketing push. The model should consider holding cost, market demand decay, gross protection, reconditioning sunk cost, and sales activity trend.

9. User Interface Design

• Show the recommended option, total score, top reason codes, and ranked alternatives directly inside appraisal, inventory, sales desk, and CRM screens.
• Use clear action labels such as Retail, Wholesale, Reprice, Approve Recon, Manager Review, or Pass rather than abstract decision IDs.
• Provide an override button for authorized managers and require a structured override reason.
• Display warning badges for weak confidence, missing criteria, stale market data, high recon uncertainty, or compliance boundary conditions.
• Save the DecisioQ audit ID silently in the source record so users are not forced to manage audit data manually.

10. Security, Privacy, and Compliance

11. Performance and Reliability

Interactive dealership workflows should have short timeouts and predictable fallback rules. Batch workflows can use queues, retries, and dashboards because inventory and pricing decisions may involve hundreds or thousands of vehicles.

12. Testing Strategy

1. Create fixture data for common used car scenarios: clean trade, high-mileage trade, accident-history unit, high-demand SUV, aged sedan, negative-equity trade, wholesale-only vehicle, and recon-heavy vehicle.
2. Unit test the mapping layer so every source-system field maps to the intended criterion and scale.
3. Integration test API failures, slow responses, invalid templates, missing criteria, stale market data, and duplicate correlation IDs.
4. Run manager acceptance tests using historical appraisal, recon, pricing, and deal examples.
5. Regression test every template change to ensure score movement is explainable and does not break expected dealership policy.

13. Deployment Checklist

• Templates approved by used car manager, general sales manager, finance leadership, and service/recon leadership.
• Authentication configured for development, staging, and production.
• Criteria mapping documented and version-controlled.
• Fallback behavior defined for every user-facing workflow.
• Audit ID persisted in the source system.
• Override permissions, reason codes, and reporting enabled.
• Monitoring dashboards configured for API errors, latency, volume, decision distribution, and override rates.

14. Recommended Rollout Plan

15. Appendix: Example Template Catalog