GPS Insight Blog » dashboard dashlets

Feb 18 2010

REALLY convenient new mapping feature — drag a vehicle onto the dashboard to create an instant “follow me” map

Category: Mapping, New Features, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 8:22 pm

Recently a prospective customer asked us to add a “half-height” map. We did that within a few days (as well as a 2x, 3x height map).

When using it though, I thought it took too long to use the menus to choose the right vehicle, etc.

I decided it would be really convenient to allow the user to “tear off” a vehicle from a location, alert, etc. dashlet.

Now you can just drag & drop ANY VEHICLE from any dashlet onto the dashboard to create an instant half-height “follow this vehicle” map:

Drag a vehicle to instantly create a half-height "follow this vehicle" map

As soon as you drop the “map” icon which is displayed, that vehicle is now displaying in a map which follows it, and shows all of the vehicles from the group associated with the dashlet you dragged it from (this was a complaint from the prospective customer about their current vendor — this type of map only showed the single vehicle):

Instantly create 5 maps just by dragging 5 vehicles to the dashboard

We let you show up to 8 maps per dashboard window. This took me 2 seconds per moving vehicle to create these maps using this new capability. We will start allowing other drag & drop capabilities on the dashboard now that we’ve started to use this type of functionality.

Really convenient! Remember, if you want to keep this particular layout, you need to save it or save as in the hierarchy save tools:

Save your Hierarchy Changes!

As usual, if you have any tips or requests for new capabilities or ideas, please let us know!

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: dashboard, drag and drop, follow-me maps, half-height maps

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Feb 03 2010

New Map Dashlet size & “Follow Me” capabilities

Category: Mapping, New Features, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 11:28 pm

We recently made some new enhancements to our Dashboard Maps.

Now you can size them in any of 4 heights (and the width is determined by the dashboard style you choose).

Additionally, we allow you to display 8 maps per window now, vs. 4. You can still open as many windows as your PC is OK with.

In addition, we now allow you to “follow” a single vehicle, and display ALL the vehicles around it (determined by which vehicle group you choose).

Here is a screen shot of 3 “half-height” maps which are all “following” a different vehicle (noted in the title area of each map):

3 "Follow me" half-height graphs in GPS Insight's Dashboard

3 "Follow me" half-height maps in GPS Insight's Dashboard

These are only the right-most column of the full dashboard, which has a “twice-height map in the middle:

New multi-height maps within GPS Insight

You can choose which vehicle or vehicle group to SHOW, which landmark group to DISPLAY, which vehicle or vehicle group to FOLLOW, and which zoom level to use. Additionally, the same Map Group choices apply so you can “tie” these maps to the other various dashlets (e.g. location, alerts, landmarks, etc.).

As always, click on the “pencil” icon at the top right of the map dashlet to open the edit settings screen which looks like this:

GPS Insight Map Dashlet Settings

Make sure to save your dashboard here:

Save your changes to the GPS Insight dashboard!

An upcoming enhancement will allow you to simply “tear off” a vehicle from a dashlet to automatically show that vehicle in a “follow me” map, which will make it quicker to create these ad-hoc maps for vehicles you may have a short term interest in following closely.

Rob.

Tags: dashboard interface, dashlets, Fleet Tracking, GPS Insight, GPS Tracking, Vehicle Tracking

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Jan 23 2010

Lots of new dashboard features just released!

Category: Garmin Integration, New Features, Routing, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 11:25 am

We have been busy this month and released several new features to the dashboard (as well as posted speed limit reports/graphs which I will talk about separately).

First, there are new dashboard layouts, and they are more intuitively labeled:

Intuitive dashboard styles

Choosing “2 wide L” will give you a wider column on the left and a thinner column on the right. Choosing “4 wide” will give you 4 columns. These various layouts are useful depending on what type of style you like for your dashboard setup.

As always, after making changes, make sure to save your dashboard settings!

Next, we have added the ability to send routes to Garmins from the Route Dashlet.

After optimizing a route with the route dashlet (and optional feature), just choose a Garmin-integrated vehicle and click on send — the optimized route is sent instantly to that Garmin:

Send a full optimized route to a Garmin

Last, we made our “closest to” dashlet more useful by adding both drive distance and drive time, in addition to the “crow flies” distance which is all we previously supported. You can sort by any of the columns, choose your vehicle, and click on the “dispatch” button if you are using Garmin integration:

Closest To Dashlet includes drive distance/time now

And for users of the dashboard map book tool which turns an address into a map book page/grid coordinate, you can now “sanity check” the location by clicking on “Map Address” — it will pull up a convenient map for you to make sure you typed it correctly & have a reasonable address:

Sanity check your mapbook addresses now in the dashlet

And another recent dashlet worth mentioning again — the legend. Now you can have a convenient reference to what the various colors and vehicle icon shapes mean:

GPS Insight map legend

Thanks for using these new capabilities and we appreciate your feedback which has led to their creation.

Rob.

Tags: closest to dashlet, dashboard, dashboard dashlets, legend, map book dashlet, new capabilities, New Features

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Jan 09 2010

Dashboard Maps now include Landmarks!

Category: Landmarks, Mapping, New Features, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 11:45 am

We have recently added the ability to view a single group (or all) of your landmarks within GPS Insight’s dashboard maps.

Here is how you do it:

Click on Edit (the pencil icon) then choose your group of landmarks, and click “Apply”:

Including landmarks within GPS Insight Dashboard Maps

They show up in both Map as well as Satellite/Hybrid views:

Including landmarks within GPS Insight Dashboard Maps

Large landmark groups are not allowed due to typical browser limitations. If you need to include more than 500 landmarks, GPS Insight’s 3D Mapping is the way to go and can handle thousands, probably even tens of thousands depending on your PC.

All users have access to this convenient capability. Please be sure to use it!

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: gps insight map dashlet, landmarks in dashlets, map dashlet, new capabilities

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Jan 09 2010

New Routing Dashlet capabilities — save fuel by streamlining your drivers’ daily route!

Category: Fuel Savings, Garmin Integration, New Features, Routing, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 11:32 am

This feature really helps to make sure you are saving miles/hours/dollars by streamlining your drivers’ daily route!

Before I talk about this, please realize that the routing dashlet is not a standard feature, and is included with our routing package, which is an enhancement to the base GPS Insight product. You may not have access to it currently. Call your salesperson for information.

Here is a new ability we added to the Route dashlet:

You can enter multiple addresses as always, as well as a start/stop landmark.

GPS Insight routing dashlet

Click on Optimize to get the proper order (which you can cut and paste into an email to the driver, etc.):

Click on GPS Insight's "Map This" button for optimized directions

Here is the result:

Map and directions for optimized set of destinations

You can click on print, send (email), or link (to cut/paste a direct link) at the top right for your convenience.

We will add more functionality to this dashlet over time (e.g. more landmark/landmark group inclusion, optimization options, Garmin integration, etc.).

If you would like to try it out and you are not an existing routing customer, please call us for a 14 day trial.

Thanks,

Rob.

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Sep 14 2009

Dashlet Mapping is more configurable now!

Category: Fleet Tracking, Mapping, New Features, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 9:43 am

GPS Insight has made it easier to get your Dashlet maps exactly how you need them by introducing “Map Groups” to the map-aware dashlets.

You can assign each map and each dashlet a letter A, B, C, or D.

Then whenever you click on a vehicle name, the appropriate map will display that vehicle’s location.

When you set it up, it looks like this:

GPS Insight Dashboard Maps

The way to “assign” a map to a dashlet is to choose the Map Group Letter for both the map and the dashlet, like shown below:

GPS Insight Map Groups

Now you can “tie” your dashlets to certain maps, and choose your groups accordingly.

In the graphic above, we have 4 different groups chosen, and they are each tied to a map nearby, so you are able to view your various vehicle groups separately but at the same time.

Every map-enabled dashlet has this capability now — here is a screenshot of the “Closest To” dashlet & where to make that configuration change.

REMEMBER TO SAVE YOUR DASHBOARD AFTER MAKING THESE CHANGES OR YOU WILL LOSE THEM!!! (I just did that — oops)

Save your GPS Insight Dashboard changes

Rob.

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Sep 03 2009

New landmark dashboard dashlet available

Category: Landmarks, New Features, dashboard dashlets — rdonat @ 3:34 pm

We added a new dashlet to our list of those available on the GPS Insight dashboard yesterday.

Just “drag” it off the list of available dashlets onto your dashboard in the column you want it:

It is a list of landmarks, and you can choose from any available landmark and vehicle groups, and the dashlet will tell you how many vehicles are present in a particular landmark.

Additionally, it will allow you to click on any listed landmark, and will instantly zoom you to that location on the map.

This is useful if you want a feel for how many of your vehicles are at particular landmarks. You can use particular groups & have several copies on your dashboard (e.g. work locations on the left & home locations on the right, showing how many are at each throughout the day).

You can change certain properties of what it displays & how it is shown here by clicking the “edit” button (pencil):

We also added an option to our location dashlet to ONLY show vehicle stopped at landmarks:

This is subtly different, and shows each vehicle, not just a count of how many vehicles are at each landmark.

We hope these new capabilities help you and your organization. Please let us know if there are changes which would help your utilization of GPS Insight and we are happy to work toward making those changes.

Rob.

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