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

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

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

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.

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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

Creating a Driver ID alert

Create a new “Driver Login Alert”

Creating a Driver ID 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

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

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Jan 09 2010

I lost my keys — and got to use our improved Driver-to-Vehicle Mapping as a result

Category: Driver Accountability,Driver Assignment to Vehicles,Driver to Vehicle Mapping,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,Reporting,Reports,Vehicle Tracking — rdonat @ 6:43 pm

I lost my keys the other day which is awesome. I think they’re in a toy chest somewhere courtesy of my daughter.

So today after we rolled out a new improved Driver-to-Vehicle mapping product, I grabbed a new DriverID at work and put it on my (new) keychain.

I forgot to “log in” — we do however support mandatory login using a really obnoxious buzzer which goes off after 30 seconds until you press the driver ID button to the reader.

So after dinner, I decided to test everything for myself. Since I’m not the only person who will lose a DriverID or their keys, we made sure to make it easy to give out & assign new driverID’s.

After my drive, I logged in and launched the right administrative screen where we see 3 unassigned driverID buttons — one has been used in my car (Rob 4000) and has today’s date and a recent time.

Assign a new DriverID button within GPS Insight

Assign a new DriverID button within GPS Insight

So I choose my previously defined Driver record with the drop-down:

Assign a new DriverID button within GPS Insight

Assign a new DriverID button within GPS Insight

So then we run an activity detail report for my vehicle for today to see the driverID switch. My “wife’s” driverID had been recently assigned to my car, so the change was very apparent. (I quote “wife” not because she’s not real, but she doesn’t really use a driverID — she might be more colorful than some of our customers’ drivers about telling me where to put my driverID if I asked her to use one…)

Run a GPS Insight GPS Tracking report to show a new driver assignment

Run a GPS Insight GPS Tracking report to show a new driver assignment

So here’s the switch — exactly when I took the car for a quick spin around the neighborhood:

Run a GPS Insight GPS Tracking report to show a new driver assignment

Run a GPS Insight GPS Tracking report to show a new driver assignment

And here is my path with my name now in the Driver field within the information bubble:

New DriverID assigned to my vehicle after losing my keys

New DriverID assigned to my vehicle after losing my keys

After working diligently lately, we’ve streamlined this process as much as possible for as many use case/problem cases (e.g. drivers losing their keys…) as possible, and it’s trivial to reassign a new driverID to a driver now.

I wish we tracked keys though…

[Side note, I found them today, 1/24/10, finally, outside by the hose, rusted after a couple weeks of sitting out in the rain, but the car door openers still work...]

For more GPS Insight features, please see our GPS Vehicle Tracking Features page.

Rob.

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Oct 23 2009

DriverID buttons now in production to help identify drivers to vehicles being tracked

Category: Driver Accountability,Driver to Vehicle Mapping,New Features — rdonat @ 4:57 pm

We recently introduced driver-to-vehicle mapping. Now we support driverID buttons and readers to quickly allow drivers to identify the fact they are driving a vehicle. A really obnoxious alarm goes off in 30 seconds after ignition on if they forget this (optional — I left it off my vehicle…)

Here’s how it works:

You touch your driver ID button to the reader before or after turning the vehicle on. In dispatch, a list of all the “unassigned” driver IDs is shown (on the bottom). Note that my driver ID (Robert Donat) is assigned only to “Rob” at this time. The Driver ID reader is on “Rob 4000″ and I used that button earlier today:

GPS Insight shows "unknown" driver ID buttons

GPS Insight shows "unknown" driver ID buttons

After clicking “Assign Driver Button” you can now choose from a list of drivers — I choose myself:

Assign a driver to our gps tracking and driver tracking system

Assign a driver to our gps tracking and driver tracking system

Notice I am now listed on BOTH vehicles (really 2 different devices in the same vehicle, which is not typical, but there for our testing purposes):GPS Insight driver ID list

Then that “unknown” button is no longer in the list of buttons to assign:

No longer unassigned in the driver button box

No longer unassigned in the driver button box

Now whenever I use a different vehicle, I can use my button on that vehicle and I will automatically be “assigned” to it for reporting/mapping/alert purposes.

We recently completed an API to achieve this as well.

This makes things much easier and more automated when assigning drivers to vehicles. That allows you to tell which PEOPLE are speeding, idling, using the vehicles off hours, getting parking tickets, etc. — not which VEHICLES.

Rob.