I knew my boys had flag football practice this evening and that my wife was bringing them, but didn’t know where, and didn’t want to have to ask her for directions.
A few text messages (while parked) later and I was on my way to meet them.
Here’s what I did using GPS Insight to get going within a minute (less than asking my wife for detailed directions or an address): [note that 477-477 is "GPS-GPS" and our 6 digit short code]
Using GPS Insight SMS text messaging
- Texted “gps nav2″ to get my wife’s location (she was just pulling in when I talked to her)
- Texted “gps nav2 landmark flagfootball” to create a landmark named “flagfootball” within GPS Insight, corresponding to her location
- Texted “gps rubi dis flagfootball” which told GPS Insight to dispatch my Garmin in my vehicle (Rubi is short for Rubicon) to the “flagfootball” location
At that point my Garmin showed a “flag” in the top right corner indicating I had a dispatch item:
Garmin Dispatch Item to my kids' flag football field
Clicking it I see the item at the bottom of my dispatch items (many show a green check indicating they are complete):
Dispatch items in GPS Insight's Garmin integration
Clicking that item (which shows I need to go 7.2 miles SouthEast to get there), I am given a choice to “Edit Stop” or “Go.”
Choosing to "Go" to "flagfootball"
Note that GPS Insight receives exact timestamps for when we send the dispatch, when the Garmin receives it, when the driver views it, then chooses to go there, when they arrive, and when they mark the stop as “complete.” I’ll show that later.
Choosing Go, I’m now given visual and turn-by-turn directions on how to get to the destination:
Garmin takes me to "flagfootball"
So as I’m driving there, I was stuck at a light and decided to take a picture to show what it looked like on the way there:
Almost there
And as I arrived at the site where I “landmarked” my wife’s Navigator (nav2) the Garmin shows my location, even though it’s technically in a parking lot:
Arriving at flagfootball
So when I ultimately got home, and put this blog article together, I logged in and was able to show my path and 3D map history (with pins for just this trip, but a progressively darker/thicker blue line indicating my vehicle’s entire day’s route):
My route from Best Buy to Flag Football
And clicking on the detail area of the Garmin Dispatch & Messaging Dashlet on our main interface shows the times I received/arrived/cleared the “stop” :
Timestamps for Garmin Dispatch Statuses
The stop report shows what time I left and what time I arrived (as well as the fact that I dropped my car off in the AM to get it washed and left it there all day so they needed to move it a few times):
GPS Insight stop report with details on trip to flagfootball
And since the default landmark definition is simply a 750′ radius circle, I decided to go in and modify it quickly (under Mapping->Landmarks -> Manage Landmarks)
Manage (Edit) GPS Insight landmarks
Loading the “flagfootball” landmark, I can change the type from Circle to Polygon, change the “address pin” to the actual entrance address, and re-draw it more precisely to match the parking lot:
Change a circular landmark
And here’s the end-result: [note that the address changes to reflect the new pin location -- this allows for more accurate dispatch directions]
Accurate Polygon "flagfootball" landmark
So now the next time I need to get to that park I can just dispatch myself with a simple SMS text message to “GPS GPS” (477-477) of “gps rubi dis flagf” (note that since rubi and flagf are “unique enough” for rubicon and flagfootball I can shorten the SMS string).
It took me 1 minute to dispatch myself, 23 minutes to get there, and probably 30 minutes or so to put this article together. It’s really intended to show you how just a minute’s worth of “interaction” with GPS Insight can make your drivers’ (and my) life easier, and how much information you can get derive from their driving, automatically, should you need to go back and get more in-depth information about it.
As for my boys’ flag football team, well, I think they need to practice more… They have practice twice a week, and in a month I’ll run a landmark report to show you how frequently I attended.
Rob.
Tags: find truck, find vehicle, garmin dispatch, garmin integration, geofences, GPS Insight walkthrough, landmarks, truck directions, vehicle directions
