GPS Insight Blog » GPS Navigation

Jul 29 2011

New Timestamps in Garmin Dispatch/Messaging Module

Category: Driver Accountability,Garmin Integration,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,GPSI-4000,Landmarks,New Features,New Features,New Garmin Features — rdonat @ 11:44 am

With our new timestamp functionality you can now check the time a Garmin Message or Dispatch Item (stop) was:

Sent by Dispatch or GPS Insight automatically or via text
Delivered to the Garmin
Viewed by the Driver
Accepted by the Driver
Marked as complete by the driver

Here’s how:

The other day I Dispatched myself by texting “gps rob dis robhouse” which is short for “gps [rob 4000] [dispatch] [landmark named robhouse].”

Here are the timestamps of each of the status changes (available under the “Custom->Garmin” menu):

View Garmin Dispatch Status Change Timestamps in GPS Insight

Note all I need to do is “hover over” the “Done” status at the end of the Message field, and the date-stamped statuses are visible.

After dispatching myself at 4:09, it instantly appeared as a stop on my Garmin.

I saw it, but then drove a bit so it would have a different timestamp when it became “active”, at 4:10, as I was about to turn North onto Scottsdale Road. Note the change to “Active” at 4:10. Here is where everything happened, after running a 3D history like this:

Run a 3D Map History for a day for my vehicle

Leaving Work, accepting a stop to go home

It took me until 16:18, and 5.8 miles to get home, where I was prompted by the Garmin to mark that stop as “complete” (we shorten it to “Done”):

Getting home and marking the stop as "complete"

Even if I didn’t mark the stop as complete, we still have the timestamp of when I reach that landmark available in the landmark report, and will eventually incorporate all of this information into a single “dispatch report” which allows our customers to get a single-stop summary of all their Garmin dispatch activity.

Here’s how to run that landmark report:

Running a GPS Insight Landmark Report

Note that our “1 day” landmark report extends backward and forward automatically to show you how long the vehicle was there prior to LEAVING (if it started the day in that landmark) and how long it stayed there through the end of the stop, if it was parked there at the end of the day. These are the kind of “nice to have” features our customers (and we) insist on, so we provide it.

You can easily tell I left (late for the day, really…), then forgot something, came back, then left, and eventually came back, precisely at the same 4:18 PM time I marked the stop complete via the Garmin interface:

Times in and out of my house, matching the Garmin "Done" timestamp

At least I left early the next day to make up for it — 6:22 AM.

This new capability is very helpful for proving service to a customer, determining how quickly your drivers react to dispatch items, and other investigations about your drivers’ daily activity.

Enjoy!

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, garmin dispatch, Garmin Timestamps, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking devices, gps tracking software, Vehicle Tracking

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Mar 19 2011

I’ve (We’ve) Been busy! — lots of new capabilities

Category: Ad Hoc Reports,dashboard dashlets,Garmin Integration,GPS Navigation,New Features,New Features,Reporting,Reports,Scheduled Reports — rdonat @ 1:22 pm

Sorry, it’s been a while since I put any new blog articles up.

I had knee (ACL) surgery 5 weeks ago (the day I dispatched myself to the hospital here).

Not fun, don’t tear your ACL. And don’t think you can play paintball with your 11 year old when you’re 41, not 22 like when you were in the Army.

So, in the meantime though, we’ve added a few new capabilities which I want to let everyone know about.

Dispatch multiple vehicles at once

We had a customer ask if they could dispatch multiple vehicles to the same place (e.g. a fire) using Garmin. The next day we put that in place for them via our “Closest To” dashlet.

Here is how you do that:

Dispatch multiple vehicles at once to an address/landmark/vehicle/lat-lon

Use the familiar “Closest To” dashlet to find the closest vehicles to your site, then sort by the appropriate column (driving distance, travel time, or absolute distance), then choose your threshold (in this case 30 minutes or less) and un-check the ones you wish to exclude (or toggle them all using “Check/Uncheck All” — then just click on “Dispatch Selected Vehicles” and they are all dispatched. Note that ONLY Garmin enabled vehicles are eligible, and you can still click on the Garmin logo (blue triangle) in order to dispatch just a single vehicle. Pretty cool, and convenient (beats clicking 5-20 Garmin icons to dispatch everyone). We are working on allowing you to “un-dispatch” drivers and it will be available in a month or so. This will delete the dispatch items from the drivers’ Garmin.

Run a favorite/saved Report with 2 clicks (maybe more)

We added a “Scheduled Reports” dashlet which allows you to simply click on a saved/scheduled report and run it in the browser at that time.

This is pretty self-explanatory and available in the “Utilities” dashlets, as shown below:

Drag and drop new scheduled reports dashlet to access it

[by the way, note the top right -- as I was writing this in the passenger seat of my vehicle Nav2, I checked quickly to see what exit I needed to take to get to where we were taking the family for the weekend -- we use GPS Insight all the time ourselves, even from a moving vehicle on an aircard while getting some past-due blog articles published!]

list of scheduled reports - filtered to only ones containing the word "Landmark"

Choose one (we chose the bottom one — the rarely used “Unmarked Landmarks Report” which shows stops NOT IN a known landmark:

Choose a report and then change the vehicle group/dates if necessary

Then run the report and out comes your result. This dashlet helps you run frequently-run reports very easily. Here’s the report, 4 seconds later:

Easily run report!

This is available now for all customers to use. You can also edit the settings to show ONLY/BOTH active/inactive reports, as well as how many reports to show per page.

Vehicle Selector filters now change the vehicles shown on the dashboard maps

When you filter the list of vehicles in your vehicle selector dashlet now, any maps it is tied to (via dashlet group letter) now restrict which vehicles are shown. This is convenient if you have a large number of vehicles, but only want to see a certain number of them by either filtering or un-checking them in the vehicle selector dashlet:

Way too many vehicles on the map

Now after filtering by adding “*3000″ (or you could uncheck some as well):

Just the vehicles you want to look at

And of course clicking on one will zoom you straight to that vehicle, as always:

clicking on a vehicle takes you right there

That’s it for this (long) update on what’s new. We have several other features I’ll get around to highlighting shortly as well.

Rob.

Tags: dispatching multiple vehicles, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, Garmin, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, New Features, saved reports, Vehicle Tracking

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Feb 11 2011

Add a stop name to a Garmin dispatched address

Category: Garmin Integration,GPS Navigation,New Features,New Features,New Garmin Features — rdonat @ 6:07 am

We added the ability to “name” your address now within GPS Insight’s Garmin dispatch module.

Add a stop "name" to a Garmin dispatched address

Now your drivers will see the name, as well as the address (so they’ll still know which building to go in).

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, Garmin, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, named addresses, stop name, Vehicle Tracking

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Feb 05 2011

New Garmin Canned Messages interface

Category: Company Efficiency,Garmin Integration,Garmin Messaging,GPS Navigation,New Features,New Garmin Features,Safety — rdonat @ 4:38 pm

We have recently given customers the ability to store “canned messages” on their drivers’ Garmin in the vehicle.

This allows them to choose from a list of commonly sent messages, rather than have to type each one out on the mini-keyboard on each Garmin.

Here’s how you do it:

Open the Garmin page:

Open the Garmin interface

Choose the Canned Messages tab and then create new messages, assign them to message groups, and assign those message groups to vehicles:

GPS Insight Garmin Canned Messages Interface

Create a message:

Create a Canned Message

Assign it to a group of messages:

Assign Garmin canned messages to groups

Then assign them to vehicles:

Assign message groups to vehicles

Then press “Sync Now” and your messages will be “pushed” to the appropriate vehicle’s Garmin.

To send one from your Garmin to dispatch, follow these steps:

Push Dispatch

Push Messages

Push "Quick Message"

Then up comes a list of “your” quick (canned) messages. Scroll through to select the one you want:

Choose a Canned Message

The Garmin will then prompt you if you want to send OR EDIT the canned message, so you can make small changes, such as add an amount, change a time, etc.

This definitely beats using the small on-screen keyboard to send free-form/ad-hoc messages:

Edit a canned message

Keyboard interface for editing a canned message

And here’s the message, in “red” to indicate it’s new and un-read. Once you click on it, it turns back to white:

Canned Message in the Garmin dashlet

This will help our customers enable their drivers to communicate more effectively, and help avoid the potential for distracted texting on their Garmin.

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet management software, gps fleet tracking, gps garmin integration, gps insight garmin tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking devices, gps vehicle tracking

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Nov 08 2010

Torn between two Garmin’s

Category: Garmin Integration,Garmin Messaging,GPS Navigation,New Features — rdonat @ 6:03 pm

I just got a couple new Garmin GPS Navigation device models which are both very cool but neither does everything:

2 new Garmin models

One knows all about Truck Restrictions:

Garmin Nuvi 465 T knows about trucking restrictions

And the Garmin Nuvi 1490 T has “EcoRoute” which helps you know how “Green” you (or your drivers) are driving:

Garmin Nuvi 1490 T tells you how "green" you are driving

So both are cool, and both work with GPS Insight to allow you to send and receive messages, as well as send destinations and routes wirelessly to your drivers.

Both have real time Traffic to help you decide which is the quickest route to your destination (although to make Traffic work with GPS Insight, you should buy the Traffic AND Fleet Management cable from GPS Insight, and buy the “non-T” version of these devices).

If I was a truck driver (I’ll pretend I am for now) I would like the 465 since it allows you to set truck-specific attributes such as width, length, height, hazardous material status, weight, and number of trailers. Then it keeps you from taking incompatible routes where you won’t make it under a bridge, or somewhere you’ll be fined for driving a commercial vehicle:

Truck Friendly Routes

It also helps you to optimize your route for the day (although so does GPS Insight with its Garmin integration):

Optimize your Route using your Garmin

As far as saving fuel the Garmin 1490 with EcoRoute (many other models support EcoRoute) will tell you when you are accelerating, braking, and speeding in a way which either wastes or saves fuel — it does this in real time. You can even purchase a module which plugs into your OBD-II and gives the Garmin real time data about speed, RPM, acceleration, and fuel consumption. I haven’t gotten this yet, but it looks very accurate.

You can pull mileage reports and fuel consumption reports from the Garmin (although again, you can do this with GPS Insight as well without needing to use this Garmin for it).

The “Green” leaf turns yellow and ultimately red if you don’t drive “Green”:

Garmin "Red" leaf shows you're not driving efficiently

If you’re a truck driver, the 465 is a MUST. If you’re worried about fuel consumption and proper driving, the 1490 is ideal.

I like the bigger screen on the 1490 but it’s good to know that the 465 is around for our trucking customers’ drivers – it’s an absolute must have.

Best of all — they both integrate with GPS Insight:

GPS Insight / Garmin integration

You can dispatch your drivers using GPS Insight, and monitor their status in real time, with the assistance of Garmin Personal Navigation Devices (PND’s):

GPS Insight / Garmin integration

Great products — thanks Garmin!

Rob.

Tags: fleet tracking software, garmin integration, garmin nuvi 1490, garmin nuvi 465, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, truck routes, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking solution

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Sep 07 2010

Going to Vegas with some GPS Insight employees!

Category: Garmin Integration,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,Las Vegas,Routing — rdonat @ 10:26 pm

So I head out tomorrow morning to Las Vegas for the AFLA Conference (American Fleet Leasing Association), and probably won’t have much time for documenting GPS Insight in the blog.

So I have to pick up 2 GPS Insight employees tomorrow, & don’t know where they live (I won’t name names — what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).

Easy enough — I just enter their addresses into the GPS Insight Route Dashlet on the dashboard, choosing a Start/End of my house & Sky Harbor Airport (both pre-defined landmarks in GPS Insight’s account):

How to route myself via Garmin to 2 employee homes & the Airport

Press “Get Route” and voila!

Create an optimized route to pick up employees before heading to the airport

Create and send an optimized route to my vehicle's Garmin to pick up employees and head to the airport

Now I am able to send the route named “Vegas” to my Garmin, which will have 4 sequentially numbered stops, and will take me in that order.

Also, I can always map it by pressing “Map This” and it will show the overall route, to include the time (1 hour & 10 minutes) and turn-by-directions (not that I’ll need them — that’s what the Garmin is for!):

Mapped route with a start & 3 sequential stops

Now I need to pack & get some sleep for a very busy conference full of learning and such…

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, gps fleet tracking system, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, gps vehicle tracking system, Vehicle Tracking

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Aug 23 2010

GPS Navigation Humor

Category: GPS Navigation,Humor — rdonat @ 7:53 pm

How true, again from our favorite geek comic strip, XKCD.

GPS Navigation Humor

Original here:

http://xkcd.com/783/

This happens to me all the time, & it drives me crazy. Except then inevitably they live on some crazy brand new street and I wind up calling them for directions anyway…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Humor, xkcd

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May 25 2010

Good LA Times article on the history of GPS & the new system going in soon

Category: GPS Navigation,Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 1:09 pm

Here is a really good article about how GPS works, and the new satellites going up to replace the aging ones out there now:

GPS has become critical to EVERYTHING (to include GPS Insight...)

It’s really worth reading if you are interested in this world-changing technology.

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS System, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking system, NY Times

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Apr 20 2010

Why I hate Microsoft (or why resetting your Ford Sync GPS is a bad idea)

Category: Availability,California,competition,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,Routing — rdonat @ 10:49 pm

Obviously I am pretty dependent on GPS for just about everything when it comes to getting around [also for money...].

I have 3 GPS Navigation devices with me when I drive my car (factory installed, Garmin, & my iPhone) so I never print directions any more.

So, on the way out to Long Beach a couple weeks ago, my family and I took our 3 month old car with Ford’s/Microsoft’s “Sync” system (with GPS Navigation). No directions, just our factory installed GPS navigation unit.

Just outside of town it crashed on us. I figured out how to do a factory reset and get it back up & running.

Here’s the point: AFTER RESETTING IT, I FORGOT TO TELL IT “FASTEST” & NOT “SHORTEST” when optimizing our route. DOH!

We took the 10 out to LA area, but then it took me through some really sketchy, slow-moving areas.

On the way home, I thought about it, & realized I needed to change my GPS setting to FASTEST from SHORTEST.

I was curious how much longer it took me time-wise to get there than to get back, so I ran a 3D history report & saw very quickly that it was twice as long (60 vs. 30 minutes):

Run a week long history for our trip to/from Long Beach

Slow, direct route vs. Fast, indirect route

All I had to do is look at the 2 points where the route deviates then converges again, and compare times and distances:

Where I took a GPS dictated "dumb turn"

The times/mileages are:

Going there: 17:47 & 4571.6 miles to 18:53 & 4602.5 miles

Coming back: 10:26 4618.8 miles & 10:58 & 4656.3 miles

Doing the quick math, it took 31 miles & 66 minutes there the “short” way, & 37.5 miles & 32 minutes (half as long) the “long way.”

So to save 6.5 miles, I wasted 34 minutes of my life, praying we didn’t get car-jacked. At least if we did, I would know where the car went…

Anyway, I thought of this the other day & was curious just how much extra time it took us because of that one GPS setting on my (Factory Installed — not GPS Insight…) navigation device.

Because I track that vehicle, it took me about a minute to figure it out using GPS Insight.

Oddly enough, while I was writing this, my new Microsoft Windows 7 box crashed Google Earth as well. It knew I was badmouthing Microsoft. Sooner or later, all things Microsoft eventually crash.

I’m really glad we don’t run our systems on Microsoft products.

I just checked and our two “primary” servers which our customers rely upon (with lots of auxiliary and backup servers, of course) have been up for two years to two years & 3 months:

GPS Insight servers run for years without incident

I’m glad most of our competitors run Microsoft though…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, microsoft, system availability

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Feb 21 2010

Better GPS Tracking than EZ-1000′s for Skiing

Category: Arizona,EZ-1000,Garmin Integration,Google Earth,GPS Navigation,People Tracking,Skiing — rdonat @ 10:14 pm

I took my boys (7 & 9) skiing (snowboarding they correct me every time…) up to Flagstaff AZ this weekend.

I brought my Garmin Edge 705 (a Garmin for bikes, basically) & put it in my coat pocket to get a really good feel for where we went during the weekend. It logs every 10 seconds for eventual upload (vs. once a minute in real time for the EZ-1000 I brought along as well).

Garmin EDGE 705

They are really nice, and we don’t sell them — I bought mine at the bike shop. [We do sell Garmin's for vehicles and can integrate them with our GPSI-4000 GPS tracking solution though...]

The Garmin is an optimist, and thinks I ran up all those hills & burned 5248 calories in the process (had I brought the wireless heart monitor it would have known better):

Garmin's interpretation of my Skiing with my kids

This is a great image of GPS Insight vs. Garmin (bear in mind we are an “ACTIVE” tracking system whereas the Garmin is “PASSIVE” and needs you to upload the data eventually):

GPS Insight vs. Garmin for ski tracking

The “pins” are EZ-1000 points [every minute while in cell coverage, which is spotty on the mountain]. The yellow circles are Garmin points (a LOT more of them).

Here is the Garmin unit track of where we went (and where I remembered to turn the unit on…):

Skiing at Snowbowl in Flagstaff AZ

It’s nice to have that for sports usage. But if you want to track your vehicles in real time, that’s not an option — you need an active tracking solution like GPS Insight. Both are great products — just for entirely different needs.

And here are my cold kids. Lots of snow this weekend, and way colder than they’re used to living in the desert.

Rob's kids in their cold-weather snowboarding attire

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

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