To add a VIN, click the Vehicles tab at the left of the page. Enter a valid VIN number (exactly 17 characters long and consisting only of alphanumeric characters) in the Vehicle Name field, and click the Add Vehicle button. If the addition was successful, the newly added VIN will appear in the list at the bottom of the page.

You might need to let SOTA know about the software packages and hardware components already installed on a particular VIN. To do so, click on any VIN from the vehicles page, and click Add Installed Package or Add Component.

SOTA has a filter syntax to create these filters; currently the valid terms are vin_matches, has_package, and has_component, and the boolean operators NOT, AND, and OR. vin_matches, has_package, and has_component take regular expressions (enclosed in quotes) as arguments.

To create a new filter, click the Filters tab at the left of the page. Enter a unique alphanumeric name in the Filter Name field, and enter your expression in the Filter Expression field. Click the Add Filter button. If the filter was successfully created, you should see the filter appear below.

From the Filters tab, click details next to the filter you wish to edit. Edit the filter expression in the box, then click Update Filter to save it.

From the Filters tab, click details next to the filter you wish to delete. Click Delete Filter on the details page.

From the Filters tab, click details next to the filter you wish to associate. At the bottom of the page you will see a list of all available packages under "Add Packages". You can click on the packages you wish to associate with this filter. To de-associate a package, click on it under "Current Packages".

To add a software package, you will need to upload a package file and give it a unique Package ID. A package ID consists of a package name and a version number. The name must be alphanumeric, and the version must consist of three digits separated by periods. (For example, 3.0.4 and 0.115.33 are both valid version numbers, but 1.3 and 2.7.22b are not.)

Click the Packages tab at the left of the page. Enter a Package Name, Version, and optionally a description and vendor name in the appropriate fields. Then, select a file to upload. Click Add Package. If the upload was successful, you will see the package added to the list at the bottom of the page.

To add a hardware component, go to the Components tab and click New Component. Enter a part number (alphanumeric, 30 characters or less), optionally add a description, and click Add Component.

You can search for packages by regular expression. As you type a regular expression in the Filter field, the list of packages below is dynamically updated.