Waitlist Host FAQ

Waitlist lets drivers get in line when all charging spots at a location are busy. It notifies drivers when a charging spot becomes available, and gives them time to go plug in.

Waitlist is convenient for station managers and fair to EV drivers. If a charging spot is available, drivers just tap their ChargePoint card or use their mobile app to plug in and start charging. If all spots are full, drivers can join a Waitlist and get notified when it’s their turn to charge. Drivers are offered spots on a first-come, first-served basis; no one can skip the line. Stations are held for a configurable amount of time while drivers move their vehicle.

Station managers can enjoy greater convenience and increased station utilization. Customers using Waitlist have seen an increase in effective station utilization of as much as 45%, even for stations that were already busy. And once it’s set up, Waitlist manages station demand without any intervention, freeing up time for station managers.

Waitlist also offers drivers convenience and the peace of mind that they’ll be able to charge. Drivers can simply go about their day and get notified when it’s their turn to charge, and have the confidence that stations will be held for a reasonable amount of time until they can plug in. They no longer have to drive around looking for open spots, or try to contact other drivers by SMS, email or phone to coordinate charging.

Log in to your account and go to Videos and Manuals in the Help menu to find the driver video and FAQ. These resources are also available in driver accounts.

There is no extra charge for Waitlist. It’s bundled with existing cloud-based service plans. As of August 2016, the CT4xxx Family and CT20xx Family of stations support Waitlist. Other models will be added later. The CT2100 won’t be supported.

Simply create Waitlist policies in your account and apply them to the appropriate stations. To learn how to configure Waitlist Policies, see "How to enable Waitlist on your stations" in Videos and Manuals under the Help section in your ChargePoint account. For additional assistance, contact ChargePoint customer support.

For Waitlist to work best, drivers need to be able to locate the station that’s being held for them. To avoid any confusion when enabling Waitlist, please make sure your stations are precisely pinpointed on the map and that the names are clear and suggest the location. Make sure to name stations by location and in order: Front1 and Front2 or East1 and East2, for example. Please contact customer support if you need assistance. Your drivers will appreciate having Waitlist set up in a way that makes sense to them.

A mix of Waitlist and non-Waitlist stations can confuse drivers, so we recommend enabling Waitlist on all stations at a single site (eg, a building or a parking lot) at once. However, there are some important exceptions: Waitlist should not be enabled for visitor or disabled parking spots, to ensure easy access for people parking in these spots.

We also recommend offering Waitlist on CT4xxx family stations with driver-friendly LCD displays, so it’s easy for drivers to understand how to join Waitlist. If you have CT20xx stations, contact your ChargePoint representative about an upgrade.

Just like with other ChargePoint services, you are in control of Waitlist. Each Organization gets to decide whether to enable Waitlist, and how to configure it to suit specific circumstances. The amount of time drivers have to move their cars, how long drivers can charge on a station and how many times they can defer a spot are all configurable. Please see "How to enable Waitlist on your stations" in the Videos and Manuals section under Help to understand the configuration process.

Under the Reports menu in your ChargePoint account, Analytics tools let you create charts that show how many drivers are waiting right now or at different times of day at any stations with Waitlist enabled. You can also visit the Driver Log in the Waitlist section under Manage Stations to identify the drivers who don’t move when asked, or don’t plug in after accepting a Waitlist update. If many drivers don’t plug in, it might indicate that the "time to plug in" is too short and should be extended.

Drivers must have a ChargePoint account to use Waitlist so they can receive notifications when a charging spot becomes available. Contactless credit cards and other anonymous access methods aren’t supported on Waitlist-enabled stations.

Yes. Log into your account, go to Manage Stations, and click on the station in the table to bring up its property sheet. On the Status and Actions tab, click Mark Under Maintenance and specify which port(s) are not working correctly. When a port is set to “Maintenance Required,” drivers will not be offered those ports through Waitlist but may still be able to use them for regular sessions. After marking a spot under maintenance, please contact Customer Support for help resolving the issue.

Auto-Queuing allows drivers to place themselves on a particular waitlist every day, which is especially useful for busy workplaces. Rather than having to add themselves to the waitlist every day, a driver can automatically add themselves to the waitlist.

Station owners can control how auto-queuing works, in order to reduce down time between drivers and improve the overall Waitlist experience. For Retail and other applications where drivers (generally) don’t do the same thing every day/weekday, station owners will want to disable auto-queuing entirely. In Workplace, Education, and other applications where drivers have more predictable schedules, station owners can choose to automatically disable auto-queuing for those specific drivers who repeatedly ignore notifications that it’s their turn, since these drivers are delaying the ability for other drivers to get a charge.

To configure the auto-queuing behavior, edit your Waitlist Policy(s) by going to Manage Stations > Waitlist > Waitlist Policies, and click on the policy you want to edit, and go to the Advanced section. For most applications, our recommendation is to continue to allow drivers to auto-queue, and to set the successive “automatic snooze” limit to twice the Maximum Snoozes count. As an example, if the Driver can snooze four times before being removed from line on a given day, then set the successive “automatic snooze” limit to eight. After two full days of no response (automatic snoozes), the driver’s auto-queue will be disabled.