GPS Insight Blog

Jan 17 2012

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

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

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 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 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,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,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

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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.

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,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”

How to customize a Landmark Alert

Then it instantly starts checking, once per minute:

Alert is running now to notify my wife when I leave work automatically

Just to make sure the landmark definition includes where I would normally park, I’ll check that also:

Ensuring the landmark is accurate to where I park

Now when I leave, an automated text and email will go out to home, letting them know I’m on the way (e.g. save me some dinner…).

And I won’t need to be distracted on the road while heading home any longer.

Rob.

Here’s the first message, within a minute of me leaving the office:

"I'm Coming Home" Alert through GPS Insight

And the stop report to back it up:

Rob leaves the office at 5:35 and the alert is delivered at 5:36

Rob.

Tags: cell phone usage while driving, coming home alert, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, landmark alert, safe driving, Vehicle Tracking

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Apr 05 2011

3 BILLION alert checks and still checking!

Category: Alerts,Identifying and eliminating speeding,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 11:11 am

We just hit our 3 billionth alert check yesterday. Alerts have become a preferred way of using GPS Insight for many customers. All you do is set your alert up, and we will let you know when someone triggers it.

Of all those checks, only 3,573,734 yielded an actual email/SMS message to the supervisor or driver, or about .118%. You set it, and we check it — and about once every 847 times we check for you (on average), we’ll let you know that something isn’t right.

GPS Insight alert types

We have very configurable alerts – you can combine most in order to be really specific:

Alert drivers when their vehicles idle > 7 (or whatever you specify) but ONLY when the vehicle is not at a maintenance yard, and only during business hours
Alert security whenever a take home vehicle is started, but ONLY if it leaves the driver’s home
Set a speeding alert which is different for daytime hours than nighttime hours
A nighttime warehouse landmark alert — for when your vehicles should not be “getting supplied”

And we are almost ready to release our posted speed limit alert. It’s been ready for a while and available in beta, but due to the occasional inaccurate piece of posted speed/road data, we don’t want to send out false alerts and are working on a system to ensure each alert is “triple-checked” before it goes out. That will be available soon, along with the ability to “override” certain speed limits where you know better than the data we have.

We are also working on route-based alerts to let you know when a vehicle is “behind schedule” — more to come soon!

Rob.

Tags: 3 billionth alert checked, Alerts, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, Vehicle Tracking

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Jan 03 2011

New Alert tells you that your drivers forgot to log in (or that your vehicle is being stolen…)

Category: Alerts,Driver Accountability,Driver Assignment to Vehicles,Driver to Vehicle Mapping,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 11:20 pm

We have had a few customers who use our Driver ID Fobs and want to be alerted when the vehicle is moving but the driver forgot to use their Driver ID Fob to “sign in” to the vehicle. Either it causes them frustration when trips go unassigned to a driver, or worse yet, the vehicle may be getting stolen.

Some of our customers choose to install optional buzzers or LED’s which remind the driver until they place their keyfob on the reader to tell GPS Insight who is driving the vehicle.

But this alert may help anyone who uses GPS Insight’s DriverID Functionality.

Here’s how you set an alert:

Launch the Alerts Manager:

Creating a Driver ID alert

Create a new “Driver Login Alert”

Creating a Driver ID alert

Then change the vehicle group/vehicle, the number of minutes until the alert goes off and emails/SMS text messages the recipient, and optionally that of the vehicle in question to remind the driver him or herself:

Modifying a Driver Alert

In this case, it will continue to alert me via email every 10 minutes until the driver either logs in or the vehicle finally stops.

Tomorrow I will “forget” to log into my vehicle, and will get this alert sent twice in 6 minutes (and every 10 minutes thereafter if I don’t log in using my key fob). I’ll post that alert once I get it.

This is our 9th alert, and as usual, comes from direct customer requests.

We have a list of more which we will be bringing in 2011.

Happy New Year!

Rob

Tags: driver ID Fobs, driverid, Fleet Tracking, gps fleet software, GPS Tracking, new alerts, truck tracking, Vehicle Tracking

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Dec 18 2010

Use it or lose it! (ROI that is…)

Category: Alerts,Driver Accountability,Extreme Return on Investment,Identifying and eliminating speeding,reduced idling,Scheduled Reports — rdonat @ 2:38 pm

I was looking at one of our customers’ accounts the other day. They have 23 vehicles. Many people with that many vehicles think they “have a handle” on what’s going on.

I was thrilled to see that this company was using GPS Insight to see what was going on with their fleet.

Specifically, they were using our:

Alerts
Scheduled Reports

I call these 2 features “Unattended ROI” since you don’t have to do anything except let US monitor your fleet for exceptional situations and alert you to them, as well as run a summary report automatically and look at it in your inbox in the morning.

Scheduling Reports to alert to exceptions

You can see there are landmark, idling, speeding, and “long stop” alerts set up here. This customer wants to know every time a vehicle gets to the office “late” which is between 6 PM and 5 AM. That can be used to identify people working late as well as people sneaking into the office when it is not manned in order to load up on parts for side jobs.

We have checked this for them 728,641 times since they set up that alert. We’ve alerted them only 820 times (which is typical — usually 1 in 1000 alert checks results in an alert).

They have also set up a number of scheduled reports:

Scheduling fleet tracking reports to automate your job

Just by setting up these 8, we have sent them 1300 reports and all they have to do is read them in their email every day. They come as .html, Excel/CSV, and associated maps (for speeding, idling, and odd-hours violations).

I wish all our customers (and users of GPS Tracking in general) were this diligent about setting up MEANINGFUL alerts and reports. It drives significant ROI knowing in real time what is going on with your fleet. If you don’t use them, you are throwing away this return on your investment.

Use it or Lose it!

Rob.

Tags: Alerts, Extreme Return on Investment, fleet tracking devices, GPS Tracking, scheduled reports, vehicle tracking software

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Nov 26 2010

GPS Insight introduces new remote panic switch capability

Category: Alerts,New Features,New Features,Safety,Switches — rdonat @ 12:04 pm

We had a customer who needed to allow their drivers to remotely trigger a panic alarm which would go to their dispatch/safety personnel instantly.

We found a good hardware vendor for the wireless keyfob component, and programmed the necessary parts to make this work with our existing panic alerts.

Here is the hardware:

GPS Insight introduces wireless panic switches

This is a $50 one time hardware option which includes the wireless keyfobs (2), receiver, and a bright LED to let anyone in the vehicle know that the panic switch has been turned “on.”

It can be canceled by pressing the “off” button on the keyfob.

This new option is available immediately, and the service is a free upgrade.

Rob.

Tags: Alerts, automated vehicle tracking, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking trucks, gps vehicle tracking, remote panic switch, Vehicle Tracking

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