GPS Insight Blog

Jan 28 2013

New landmark alert feature lets you notify your customers a delivery is coming

Category: Alerts,Landmarks,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 8:35 pm

We have a potential customer who wanted to set up landmark alerts in advance for certain days to notify certain customers their delivery was almost there.

The problem was they had several different customers who all use the same corridor which served as the landmark for the alert.

The only way to solve this problem was to allow for landmark alerts to be scheduled for ONLY certain days in advance.

Here’s what the screen looks like for setting up a landmark alert, with an option to choose a starting and ending date range:

New Date Range functionality for Landmark Alerts

Now they can create one landmark alert per customer and activate it for just the day scheduled shipments are on their way.

And their customers are notified in advance so they can be ready to receive the shipment, without needing anyone to monitor the truck’s whereabouts, or expect the driver to know who to call in advance.

Rob.

Tags: customer requests, date range, delivery alert, delivery notification, GPS Tracking, landmark alert, landmark alerts

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Sep 11 2012

New Time Format Preference (17:00 vs. 5:00 PM)

Category: Ad Hoc Reports,Alerts,Custom Reports,New Features,New Features,Reporting,Reports,Scheduled Reports,User Preferences — rdonat @ 5:42 pm

We’ve been asked to add this capability for a long time, and finally went through the entire product and added the ability for customers to choose which time format they prefer — 12 or 24 hour (military). We used to ONLY allow military time across the entire site.

Just open up user preferences, and choose your time format preference:

Change your Time Format user preference

And all Reports, Administration, Alerts, Maps, etc. will show the proper time format moving forward:

GPS Insight Activity Alert with AM/PM time

AM/PM Time in Administration Screens

And here are side-by-side alerts (different alerts), one with an account which chooses military time (the default) and one with 12 hour format AM/PM time:

2 different time formats in GPS Insight

This is probably the longest-standing customer request we had, and we finally took the time to make all the customers who wanted this feature happy.

Sorry it took so long, but now you can have your time format your way!

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking system, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, time format, user preferences, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking systems

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Jul 03 2012

Unsafe Golf Cart Usage by Rob (with alert follow-up)

Category: Ad Hoc Reports,Alerts,Arizona,detecting unauthorized vehicle usage,Driver Accountability,GPS Fleet Tracking,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Tracking,Identifying and eliminating speeding,Reports,Safety — rdonat @ 5:59 pm

We have a golf cart and our house is near a really steep hill.

Doing 16 MPH up to the top of the hill in my golf cart

The golf cart is limited to 25 MPH, even downhill (it engine-brakes to keep you from going too fast).

Unless you turn the ignition off…

Then you can zoom down as long as you have guts before stomping on the brake or turning the car back on:

racing to the bottom of a hill in my golfcart

But when you turn the ignition off, you lose your speedometer, so you don’t know how fast you’re going.

I was curious how fast I could get it to go down the hill, & realized I could just look it up in GPS Insight:

Running an Activity Detail Report for my golfcart

And I can easily see the max speed of 45:

Going 45 MPH in a golf cart meant for 25

The reason the device keeps reporting even though the ignition is off is because I wanted an easy install & just wired it straight to the battery and programmed it to only report when the vehicle is moving.

This helps me to see that my golf cart hit 45 MPH max on the way down the hill. And notice that it interprets 5 minutes of non-movement in my garage as “Off” and stops reporting.

And the next step? Create an alert to let me know any time this is happening so that if my kids try it, they’re in huge trouble:

Alert to let me know any time the golf cart goes > 30 MPH

Any time “Rob Gemcar” goes > 30 MPH (only possible down a hill with the ignition turned off — otherwise it hits 28 or so absolute max), WITHIN our subdivision called Forest Highlands, I will get an SMS text message instantly, as well as an email, alerting me to this fact (along with a map of the location in the email). I included it in our subdivision so that if it’s ever put on a flatbed for transportation to the dealer or something, it won’t alert as it’s going > 30 MPH on surface streets outside our community (it’s not licensed for streets > 35 MPH).

By the way, we’ve worked with companies in the past to prove that their vehicles were going DOWNHILL when they exceeded the supposed maximum set by them in their rig — they did it by putting the truck in neutral and coasting to more than the max allowable speed. That’s where I got the idea to check GPS Insight to see how fast the vehicle was actually going (it felt more like 50!). I promise, it wasn’t that unsafe though… I value my life.

Don’t try this at home!

Rob.

[Update: I was late for dinner last night & at a friend's house, & in a hurry, so I performed the "go fast downhill" trick and predictably, got an alert emailed and via text to my phone -- here they are:]

GPS Insight alert email for speeding down the hill

And here’s the text I got:

GPS Insight SMS alert for speeding down the hill

Note that the actual reporting time of the point as 6:47:32 PM, and it was sent at 6:48:30 PM, which is why the alert appears to be 2 minutes later [it was only 58 seconds, which is typical]. We round “down” and the email/sms round “up” with dates:

Raw GPS Data for golf cart speeding event

Running an alert report shows it was sent at 18:48:30:

Running an alert report

Alert sent at 18:40:30

Just a good example of how much information we have available to support the alerts we send.

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, golf cart tracking, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, gps vehicle tracking, speeding, unsafe driving, vehicle tracking system

Comments (1)

Apr 04 2012

Get notified of inbound messages even when you’re not paying attention

Category: Alerts,Garmin Integration,Garmin Messaging,GPS Fleet Tracking,GPS Tracking,User Preferences — rdonat @ 4:06 pm

Earlier today I was showing how to send messages to multiple vehicles’ Garmin devices to a partner company.

I sent a couple vehicles (our employees) “This is a test, disregard please.”

Then an hour or so later I was composing an email when my browser screen went dim, behind my email, which got my attention:

GPS Insight interface dims to let you know there's a new message

So I went to that window and saw the notification that I had a new inbound Garmin message (from Ray, telling me he “Rec’d” the test message):

Inbound message notification

Once I click “OK” the screen lights up again. It is still easy to see which message is new, since it’s highlighted in pink:

Inbound message notification

Clicking it once clears its color so it doesn’t stand out any longer:

Clearing an "unread" message

And if you prefer that we NOT behave this way to notify you whenever we detect an inbound message, all you need to do is clear that option in the properties of the Garmin dashlet:

"Display new message alert" option

This is an option which we introduced some time ago, but since we rarely dispatch or communicate with our own employees (since we’re not really a fleet-oriented company like our customers) it’s rare that I see this capability do its thing, which is why I thought I would show how it works for you.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: Alerts, fleet messaging, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking system, Garmin, garmin integration, garmin messaging, GPS Tracking, messaging, tracking systems

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Jan 17 2012

It took less than 3 minutes to make my wife happy using GPS Tracking

Category: Alerts,CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT,Driver Accountability,Landmarks — rdonat @ 4:28 pm

I was getting some work done today when my wife sent me this email at 3:35 PM:

Request from my wife to fix an alert

I bought a new car, so my old car (Rob 4000) doesn’t alert her like it used to when I set it up to text her automatically whenever I leave the office (blog article about that here).

I have a new car and new device (Rob 3900) and sometimes drive another car (Rubicon) now so instead of a single car notifying her, I thought I would do the following:

Make a group called “Robs Cars”
Change the Landmark Alert from a single vehicle (Rob 4000) to a Group of vehicles (RobCars) containing these 2 vehicles (devices)

So here’s how I did all that in less than 3 minutes (1 minute of it was just opening a window and signing in):

3:36:15 PM: I opened up Vehicle Administration to add a new vehicle group: [the screen capture program I use timestamped the files so that's how I can get the timeline easily]

Open Vehicle Administration in GPS Insight

Open Vehicle Administration in GPS Tracking Dashboard

3:36:27: I clicked on “Create New Vehicle Group”:

Create new vehicle group

3:37:02: Add the vehicles to the new RobCars Group

Add 2 devices (vehicles) to new RobCars group

3:37:24: Open the Alerts Manager:

Open the GPS Insight Alerts Manager

3:37:43: Open up the “Coming Home Alert” for edit:

Edit an alert in GPS Insight

3:37:56: Change the single vehicle “Rob 4000″ to the Group of vehicles “RobsCars”:

Change vehicle to a group

All done in less than 3 minutes:

3 minutes to make a change in GPS Insight

Now I don’t need to call my wife when heading home to see if she needs anything — she’ll get an email and text message every time now (again).

And because it takes just a couple minutes to make substantial changes within GPS Insight, I did it right away — just like our customers can make changes to ensure their alerts, reports, groups, etc. are always up to date. And if the GPS tracking system is easy to administer, it actually gets used properly and to the full extent.

If it only took me less than 30 minutes to fix up the images and write the blog article about it…

Rob.

Tags: ease of use, family, Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, gps vehicle tracking, powerful alerts, vehicle tracking alerts

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Oct 02 2011

Send driver alerts in THEIR time zone now

Category: Alerts,Driver Assignment to Vehicles,Driver to Vehicle Mapping,Ease of use,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 7:54 am

Since alerts are sent in the USER’s time zone, and can be “copied” to the driver him or herself, there is sometimes a time zone conflict with the alert.

We have enhanced GPS Insight to ensure that alerts are sent to the driver in the time zone they are associated with in the system.

Here is a typical alert which has been set to send straight to the driver when they idle for more than 15 minutes:

Copy a driver with a generated alert

Here is the driver admin screen, where you can set the time zone:

Set a driver's time zone

And when the alerts come in, they will adjust depending on which time zone the driver or user (depending on who is receiving it) prefers:

Time zone adjusted alerts

Bear in mind that our choices ALSO compensate for daylight savings time (DST) which is why Arizona and Indiana are choices, as they do not celebrate DST.

This will help to ensure that when drivers receive data, it isn’t an hour or two “off” from the time they actually were idling/speeding/entering landmarks/etc.

Learn more about our fleet tracking alerts.

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking devices, gps tracking software, gps vehicle tracking, idle alerts, time zone adjustments, Vehicle Tracking

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Aug 14 2011

I got caught speeding to Sedona

Category: Alerts,Driver Accountability,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,Identifying and eliminating speeding,Safety — rdonat @ 6:54 pm

Thankfully not by the police, but by GPS Insight.

I was heading to Sedona this afternoon with my family and got this alert by email, showing that I was doing 61 in a 35 MPH zone, along with a map showing I’m coming up on a curve:

Posted Speed Limit alert for me

I thought there was no way I would go that fast over the speed limit so when I got home from my trip, I checked GPS Insight to see if we had the right posted speed for that area.

We have an internal-use-only “pincushion” tool we use which shows the various speed limits based on which direction you’re traveling, relative to the roads nearby and some reasonable assumptions.

The pin says it changes from a 55 to a 35 a little way before my vehicle location was sent with instantaneous speed of 61:

GPS Insight "pincushion" posted sped limit tool

I thought that was unlikely, so I went down to street view, and found a 35 MPH speed sign right there (above, it’s the yellow pushpin):

Proof that it's a 35 MPH zone

I guess I was speeding.

So what’s my defense? I didn’t see the sign? At least I can measure the distance until the turn and see that there was LOTS of room to slow down before the curve that 35 MPH zone was put there for:

Rob speeding (61 in a 35)

You can see I measured 600 feet before the BEGINNING of the curve, which is plenty of time to get from 61 to 35. That’s 2 football fields. And since my prior max was 65 (in the info bubble) I was slowing — just not fast enough for the speed limit… But at least you can drill down and get some better context for the posted speed alert. That’s ideal — without the ability to easily drill down for more information, you don’t know the context of the speeding alert, and can’t make good decisions on how to approach (or not to approach) your drivers about these alerts.

So even GPS tracking company owners speed. Maybe it was so I had some good material for a blog article? Yeah, that was it.

Here is a picture from Sedona, by the way:

Sedona, Arizona

And I didn’t speed on the way home, as evidenced by the alerts report I ran for today for my vehicle (Nav2):

Run an alert history for my vehicle for today

But I did idle for 8 minutes while we stopped for snacks for the ride home (and my device went out of range when I pulled into the garage, since I live in the middle of nowhere, and my oil change and rotate tires maintenance items never got updated…):

My alerts for today

This is the point of having a GPS fleet tracking solution — set the alerts, and wait for your drivers to do something you want to be alerted to.

I’m paying for my own tickets and gas, and I know I’ve got a 4×4 and 600 feet to slow down before a curve in a pretty desolate area, so no real issues here. But you certainly want to know these types of things about your drivers.

Especially if it’s your money for fuel, drivers’ licenses at stake, and your liability should they be driving too fast.

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, gps speed tracking, gps tracking devices, posted speed alerts, truck tracking, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking systems

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Jun 27 2011

2 new alerts (DTC’s and Maintenance due)

Category: Alerts,Ease of use,maintenance,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 3:47 pm

We have added 2 new alerts, bringing the total we provide to 12!

2 new GPS Insight Alerts

The DTC alert will send you an email (or SMS text) when your vehicle experiences a diagnostic alert (diagnostics devices only).

The Maintenance alert will send emails (or SMS text) whenever you are X miles/hours/days within a mileage/hours/calendar-based maintenance alert for a vehicle’s scheduled maintenance (within GPS Insight’s maintenance module).

You set it like this, and can override the number of miles/hours/days:

GPS Insight Maintenance Alert

When you receive the alert, it looks like this:

GPS Insight Maintenance Alert email

As with all our alerts, you can specify “push” as the recipient address (or one of them) and we will “push” that data to your system for you to work with it programmatically. This requires your developers to expose a web service and provide us the details, and then all your alerts can be automatically populated in your systems (ERP, dispatch, maintenance, etc.).

If you’re not using our alerts, you’re missing a key benefit of GPS Insight. They’re available to all customers.

Enjoy!

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: DTC Alert, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, GPS Tracking, gps tracking devices, gps tracking software, Maintenance Alert, new alerts, New Features, Vehicle Tracking

Comments (0)

Jun 18 2011

The ROI of tracking road signs

Category: Alerts,Extreme Return on Investment,Mapping,New Features,New Features,Reporting,Reports,Stolen Vehicle Recovery — rdonat @ 11:20 am

Some ROI models are harder to define than others. In the case of a road-sign customer, you really need to dig before tracking your assets saves you more than it costs (which is typically only $15/month).

Here’s what drives ROI in that world (and many like it):

Daily inventory, as well as any time the asset is moved, once it stops
Changing sign batteries JUST BEFORE they die (due to solar panels not keeping up in cloudy weather)
Catching thieves in the act of stealing rechargeable batteries
Low power and data consumption to keep batteries from being used unnecessarily and to keep costs low
Backup Battery within the device to report in case of battery theft
Weatherproof device

First, we set each device to report its location and voltage ONLY once a day in the AM.

Then we detect if the road sign is being moved using a motion detector switch, and once it stops for 15 minutes, we report the NEW location and voltage.

We added several voltage capabilities recently which allow us to meet these requirements.

To help customers visualize their assets’ voltage, we added a new “location and voltage” dashlet which color-codes each vehicle based on its voltage (green/yellow = good, orange/red = bad, grey = really bad). The assets show these colors along with the actual voltage on the map as well, shown below:

Tracking Road Signs

Then we modified our device performance report to add voltage, which is sortable. This report is then scheduled to arrive daily to let the customer know which devices need to be visited with fresh batteries to ensure they don’t stop working — here is that report:

Voltage tracking report

Last, we added a voltage alert which is initiated by the device itself (to save on transmission costs). Any time the voltage drops below 11.7 V (the magic number where the sign has only a few more hours left) the device initiates a transmission, and our alert notifies the right person to go out and change out the batteries. Additionally, if the voltage is ZERO, you know that the asset’s batteries have been disconnected, and if that isn’t due to a worker changing them, it’s a theft in progress (apparently a big problem in this industry as the batteries are very expensive).

Here is that alert within GPS Insight:

Low/No Voltage alert for road sign tracking

This particular customer worked with state troopers to immediately identify a theft in progress, and 4 official-looking individuals in hard hats and road-crew vests were arrested for stealing their competitor’s road sign batteries.

All these things combined really help to drive ROI.

Fewer road sign outages due to dead batteries (improved customer satisfaction)
Less time spent changing out batteries proactively before it is necessary (fewer miles/less gas/fewer labor hours)
Theft prevention and deterrent to future thieves due to immediate arrests
Automated inventory of highly mobile assets

These voltage capabilities have many other applications in GPS and asset tracking, and are ready for our customers at this point.

Rob.

Feel free to contact us if you are interested in seeing a more in-depth demonstration of our GPS fleet tracking solution.

Tags: asset tracking, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking software, road sign tracking, Vehicle Tracking, voltage

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Apr 16 2011

Automating ‘I’m coming home’ messages to avoid calls while driving

Category: Alerts,Arizona,Ease of use,GPS Insight Employees,Landmarks,Safety — rdonat @ 11:15 am

Most days I leave work around 5:30-6:30 and call my wife to let her know I’ll be home in 10 minutes or so (nice commute, huh?).

I typically call her on Scottsdale Rd., which is busy, and it’s obviously distracting to do so. I shouldn’t be calling people while driving (nor should your drivers be).

I am finally just going to automate an email/text message to her which tells her I’m leaving the office between 4-7 so she’ll have a heads up (e.g. I can pick up a kid from baseball, get home in time to eat with everyone else, etc.).

You can do this for any landmark arrival/departure in an effort to make fewer calls and be proactive about telling someone you’re on your way/arrived/etc.

This is SUPER-EASY to do in 1 minute and may save me from getting into an accident or getting a ticket for talking on the phone while driving.

Here’s how you do this in GPS Insight:

Choose Account: Schedule: Alerts:

Open GPS Insight Alerts Admin Area

Add a Landmark Alert:

Add a Landmark Alert

Then customize the particulars:

Only my vehicle (Rob 4000)
My wife’s email AND cell phone (note this is a true SMS, not an email to an @txt.att.net, so you don’t need to know the carrier)
Only during weekdays between 4 PM and 10 PM
All day during the weekends (so she knows when I’m heading home all day Saturday/Sunday)
Only when I LEAVE (not enter) the landmark “GPS Insight Headquarters”