GPS Insight | GPS Fleet Tracking Blog

Oct 26 2010

Ask us to add features to GPS Insight — sometimes it happens in less than a week!

Category: dashboard dashlets,New Features,New Features,PURCHASING CONSIDERATIONS — rdonat @ 11:35 am

A customer recently asked us:

From: <deleted>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 11:56 AM
To: support
Subject: Location list

Is it possible to have the time the vehicle stopped at a location rather than how long it has been stopped be displayed on the vehicle location list? For example 2:35 p.m. rather than stopped for 10 minutes.

Thank you,

Lori

We added this to the product here:

New "stop time" column option in Location dashlet

After making this change to the dashlet, it shows up like this (note that Joe turned from yellow to red since his stop is now > 1 hour):

New "stop time" column option in Location dashlet

It took less than 5 days from the time she asked for it October 21, until the time we had that feature done today:

From: <deleted>
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 10:20 AM
To: Adam Varner
Subject: RE: Location list

THANK YOU!!! You guys are awesome.

From: Adam Varner [mailto:adam.varner@gpsinsight.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 9:55 AM
To: <deleted>
Cc: support
Subject: RE: Location list

Lori,

Your request has been completed and you can now select ‘Stop Time’ in the menu of the Location dashlet.

————————————————————-

So, when you have a good idea or need the product changed just a bit for your needs — please ask. We have a very configurable product to begin with, but our dashboard architecture allows us to add new capabilities and features/options almost instantly. And if you are thinking about purchasing GPS Insight vs. a competitive product, please know that there is about a 0% chance that the other provider can do this for you like we do. It’s what makes us different in the space & is a big distinguishing factor. Try us out with a pilot & think of something for us to modify — we do it all the time & are happy to take your thoughtful requests for enhancements.

Thanks & enjoy the new capabilities we bring you several times a week.

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking device, GPS Tracking, gps tracking solution, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking software

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Oct 25 2010

New Hours of Operation Graph

Category: dashboard dashlets,detecting unauthorized vehicle usage,Ease of use,Graphs,New Features — rdonat @ 5:42 pm

Here is another new graph we’ve introduced for customers interested in knowing what time of day their vehicles are moving:

New Hours of Operation Graph

We’ve also allowed you to sort based on “most to least,” “least to most,” and alphabetically by vehicle label for all of our group graphs.

Here is what it looks like for our “all vehicle” group:

Note that the 3 devices in the Scion (same vehicle, 3 different device types) all show the exact same profile, and note the few “early morning blips” which may warrant investigation if your drivers shouldn’t be using the vehicle off-hours.

New GPS Insight Hours of Operation Graph

We have plenty more graphs to come for our customers who like to see their fleet’s activity visually.

(Incidentally, the dots are sized proportionate to the number of times per week/month the vehicle drove during that hour)

Rob.

Tags: dashboard graphs, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking solution, graphs, Hours of Operation Graph, Vehicle Tracking

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Oct 25 2010

New Cell and Email Messaging capabilities

Category: cell phone capabilities,dashboard dashlets,Ease of use,New Features,New Features — rdonat @ 5:29 pm

We just added a few new features to our SMS text messaging dashlet.

First, now it auto-refreshes so you don’t need to press “refresh” to get new messages which have come in.

More importantly, to get your eye, new messages show up in RED:

New Messages show in Red

Once you click them, they are turned back to white:

New Messages turn white when clicked

Last, you can now send EMAIL to your drivers as well from the SMS text messaging dashlet (now called the SMS/Email Messaging dashlet):

Send an email to your drivers from GPS Insight

Received Email from GPS Insight Dashboard

In order to edit your drivers’ SMS & Email addresses, choose the following option:

Edit your drivers' SMS & Email Addresses

Now we allow up to 50 SMS text messages for free per vehicle per month, so please make sure to use this useful and valuable service, and let your salesperson know if you will require more than that if you’re not already subscribing to it.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking software, GPS Tracking, new dashboard features, SMS text messaging, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking solution

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Oct 11 2010

More New Graphs (and many to come)

Category: dashboard dashlets,Dashboard Maps,Graphs,New Features — rdonat @ 2:37 pm

Recently (a week ago), we promised a lot of graphs coming, & here are 3 more:

New Speeding Graph and vehicle-centric graphs

The top graph is a histogram of speeding events relative to the speed limit with different colors representing the severity of the speeding.

The bottom graphs show 3 different per-vehicle metrics:

MPG
Miles Driven
Idle Hours

Each different graph dashlet is configurable as to how many lines to show, which graph to show, how many days to show, etc:

Modify each graph dashlet

Each “per-vehicle” graph is also configurable as to which graphs & how long to show, and the vehicle shown is the one most recently clicked upon in the “vehicle picker.”

Here is a screenshot of just how much you can easily depict within your dashboard, and save/call up whenever you want an overview of your groups of vehicles:

Lots of graphs and maps available within GPS Insight's new graphs dashlets

And the new “dashlet group” functionality makes it very quick to set up dashboards like this instantly.

Enjoy!

Rob.

Tags: dashboard, dashboard dashlets, Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking software, gps graphs, GPS Tracking, Vehicle Tracking

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Oct 04 2010

New Dashlet “grouping” mechanism

Category: dashboard dashlets,Ease of use,New Features — rdonat @ 2:31 pm

We just added the ability to “group” dashlets by a letter (A through H) by choosing a letter before dragging them off the dock:

Choose your dashlet group

This allows you to choose a lettered “grouping” for maps, graphs, location dashlets, etc.

So when you click on a location, that vehicle is shown in the corresponding map, etc.

Here is a REALLY big screen full of a LOT of dashlets, and each column is either the A, B, or C dashlet group so any activity in a column corresponds to other dashlets in that column:

Linked GPS Insight dashlets

Now when I decide to add a 4th set of dashlets at the bottom someplace, and I want them to “link” to each other, I choose the “D” group on the dashboard dock, and drag them off (in this case a Landmarks dashlet and Map dashlet).

Now they are “wired” together as “D” dashlets and when I click on a landmark with vehicles in it (“PHO” in this case) it pulls up that location in only that one map.

Linking 2 dashlets using Dashlet Group letters

This reduces the amount of customization of dashlets and allows you to very quickly create useful dashboards within GPS Insight.

Rob.

Tags: dashboard groups, dashlets, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking software, GPS Tracking, real time gps tracking, Vehicle Tracking

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Oct 02 2010

How to use Cell-Based GPS Insight capabilities

Category: cell phone capabilities,dashboard dashlets,mobile mapping,New Features — rdonat @ 1:16 pm

GPS Insight’s cell-based capabilities are now a part of our baseline offering for customers.

There are 3 capabilities:

Cell Phone Maps (Mobile Mapping)
SMS Messaging (to and from Dispatch)
SMS Queries (using a text message to do things with your fleet)

Here are VERY basic overviews, followed by 3 more detailed instructional links.

These are very powerful capabilities within GPS Insight, and we want to ensure all of our customers know to use them.

Cell Phone Maps:

Set up a link which you can input (once) into your Smart Phone (e.g. iPhone, Android, etc.) and you can see your vehicles or just a group of them on the phone map (you may need to load Google Mobile Maps first):

Mobile Mapping in GPS Insight

For detailed instructions, click here.

SMS Text Messaging (free access limited to 50 messages per vehicle per month, aggregated — for more, speak to your salesperson)

You can set up associations between your vehicles/drivers and their cell phone numbers.

Then you can text your drivers and receive their response from within GPS Insight’s interface:

Use GPS Insight to send and receive messages between drivers and dispatch

For detailed information, click here: Bear in mind there is also a messaging page under “Custom/Messaging.” There is also a training topic at http://training.gpsinsight.com.

SMS Queries [free access limited to 50 messages per vehicle per month, aggregated]:

Last, you can send text messages from your phone to find out a vehicle’s location, see which vehicles are closest to others, set movement alerts, create landmarks, and much more:

Use SMS text to find manage your fleet

For basic and detailed capabilities and instructions, click here and here.

Please start using these capabilities, as they are now included with the basic GPS Insight offering.

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: cell phone maps, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, mobile mapping, SMS Queries, SMS text messaging, Vehicle Tracking

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Sep 24 2010

New SMS message sending capabilities from the Dashboard

Category: cell phone capabilities,dashboard dashlets,Ease of use,New Features — rdonat @ 12:09 am

We just added the ability to select a vehicle group and send an SMS message to all those drivers from the dashboard.

Simple stuff, here are a couple screen shots:

Send a message to all/some of a group (only those with cell #’s assigned show up):

Here is where you send the message

And look at outbound/inbound messages

here's where you see the past messages in & out

And here’s what I sent earlier/just now on my iPhone:

here is what it looks like on your phone (my iPhone)

Easy stuff — send messages to your drivers, and when they reply, you get it.

You don’t need to do anything except enter their cell # once, either by driver or by vehicle.

And they can send SMS to you at 477-477 (GPS-GPS).

Rob.

Tags: dashlets, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking systems, gps fleet tracking software, GPS Tracking, sms text messages, Vehicle Tracking

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Sep 20 2010

New Graphs released to GPS Insight

Category: dashboard dashlets,Ease of use,Graphs,New Features,Video Demos — rdonat @ 8:23 pm

We announced it 10 days ago, and now it’s available to our customers in production:

New GPS Insight Graphs

A new set of 3 graphs are available (for starters). We plan to rapidly release many more, to include begin/end of day, speeding, then a wasted miles graph which will show you which of your drivers are driving aimlessly, wasting miles.

There are too many things to detail in this blog post, and the dashboard has changed significantly with the new “vehicle picker” so watch this movie for a quick 6 minute overview!

All graphs are now available for free to GPS Insight customers.

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: dashboard, Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, graphs, new capabilities, real time gps tracking, Vehicle Tracking, video demo

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Sep 10 2010

New Configurable Graphs coming soon

Category: dashboard dashlets,Graphs,New Features — rdonat @ 12:37 pm

GPS Insight gives you access to tremendous amounts of information, and it is all very accurate.

Sometimes all you want is to glance at what is going on with your fleet graphically.

That is why we are developing a robust set of Graphs to be included anywhere you like on the Dashboard.

Here are some screenshots of what you can expect:

New GPS Insight graph dashlets

There will be a number of options, but here is a simple graph with some simple group/number of days choices:

New GPS Insight graph dashlets

We will have graphs for key metrics such as:

miles driven
idle time
speeding events
start times/end times/hours worked
MPG (using diagnostics devices)
# of stops made
# of landmark visits

This, in combination with our upcoming optional Executive Dashboard will really help key managers get a quick, thorough, intuitive understanding of their fleet activity with a glance.

We’ll let you know when it’s available — Most likely a first release of these capabilities will be available this month.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, real-time fleet tracking, Vehicle Tracking, vehicle tracking solution

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Jun 26 2010

New Mapping and Dashlet Features for Touch-pad Devices (e.g. iPad, iPhone)

Category: dashboard dashlets,Dashboard Maps,Ease of use,Mapping,mobile mapping,New Features — bbarker @ 1:29 pm

We have new Mapping and Dashlet functionality for users of touch-pad devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

Touchpad clients such as the iPad and iPhone do not allow the same “drag and drop” or “pan” capabilities as a mouse and a browser, so we had to make a few additions.

The new scroll arrows allow you to easily move through a Mapping Dashlet. Clicking the middle square button will zoom to fit the vehicles on the map, or vehicle/group that is shown within that map (such as the “WEST” group here):

New Scroll Arrows

We added a new arrow “popup” which allows you to move Dashlets around within your dashboard. Click up, down, left, or right and the Dashlet will move accordingly. To access this feature just click on the icon. Then to close it, click that icon again.

New Arrow Popup

Here is an example of the new navigational features on an iPhone:

New Features on an iPhone

Bear in mind that on an iPhone, the main product is functional, but you will need to zoom/pan around since the resolution is pretty small. On an iPad you will still need to zoom a bit in order to ensure your finger “clicks” the appropriate icons/vehicles, etc.

We also added a new feature to the Dashlet Dock, called “Add-Dashlet”. You will now notice a plus sign (+) to the right of each Dashlet name. Clicking the plus sign will load the Dashlet. Originally, to add a new Dashlet you would have to drag and drop. Now both options are available.

Dashlet Dock with new "Add-Dashlet" functionality

These new features are available to everyone, but were added specifically for touch-pad users. If you have a suggestion for a new feature or for a specific device, please let us know.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: dashlet, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, ipad, iphone, Mapping

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