Aug 10 2011
GPS Insight has supported traffic for years via Google Earth.
Finally we’re bringing real-time traffic data to the dashboard and 2D mapping.
Here’s a screenshot:
GPS Insight releases traffic data in maps
Just a single click and you’ll get real-time, color-based traffic overlays in your maps.
Enjoy!
Rob.
Feb 05 2011
We have been adding several useful graphs and this is the newest one you can put on your dashboard.
It shows the difference between 2 groups of vehicles in terms of mileage, idle hours, and speeding activity.
New GPS Insight Comparison Graph
Here’s how you can change it to be scaled on a per-vehicle basis rather than a group total basis:
Show graphs based on per-vehicle data, not the group total
And if you un-check certain vehicles, it changes the graph’s numbers accordingly:
Uncheck certain vehicles to exclude them from the graph
And last, you can change the groups in question just by changing them in the pull-down menu in the vehicle selector or in the “Reference Group” area:
Change the groups in each graph easily by selecting from a list
We’ll be adding more graph types soon as well, and an option to show any number of vehicle groups side-by-side also.
Rob.
Feb 01 2011
We have had a few customers ask for the ability to report on their drivers’ activities throughout the day.
One needed to count the number of passengers picked up.
One needed to count the number of mobile blood draws and mobile x-rays performed.
So we advised them to enter these numbers into the Garmin in their vehicle.
By doing so, with a space between the various numbers, we now allow them to report on the number of “activities” throughout the day/week/month.
They simply enter the # on their Garmin, and it shows up like this in a report
Reporting how many "things" a driver does throughout the month
This report shows the number of “draws” and “Xrays” performed, as input by the driver into the Garmin.
If you wanted to show it by day (then export into Excel, for instance) you would check the “Daily” box shown in this report below:
Reporting how many "things" a driver does daily for a week
This then breaks it out by day (and you can run up to 31 days currently):
Reporting how many "things" a driver does daily for a week
If you want to see exactly when the driver performed this, you can simply run a stop-notes report as shown below:
Running a Stop-Notes Report
This shows each stop’s detail, along with the entry by the driver stating how many of a “thing” he or she did:
Stop Notes detail on how many actions performed by a driver (via Garmin Entry)
Generically, we simply call these “Tally 1″, “Tally 2″, and “Tally 3″ — but if you want to let us know what your numbers mean (and in which order), then we will label them for your account so they show up more meaningfully in reports for you.
Then you can run your own simple analysis on this data within Excel, create graphs, etc:
Graph showing number of blood draws and X Rays performed over time
As always, we’re open for new ideas, and happy, willing, and QUICK to put these features into GPS Insight for your and other customers’ use.
Enjoy!
Rob.
Jan 29 2011
Someone brought this to my attention recently.
If you use Google Maps to get directions “From: United States, To: Japan” it gives you the following instruction at #31:
Kayak across the Pacific Ocean
It suggests you Kayak across the Pacific Ocean.
Kayak across the Pacific Ocean
Again, a good reason to sanity-check the directions your computer or Garmin give you…
Rob.
Dec 18 2010
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:
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.
Nov 29 2010
We have added a new filter & selection capability to our “Vehicle Selector” under the Graphs area of the dashlet “drawer”:
Now you can unselect certain vehicles so they disappear from graphs, and you can add a “wildcard” filter to impact what vehicles show up in graphs.
Soon we will support this for maps and in other areas of the product.
Here’s how it works:
Use the GPS Insight vehicle selector to "unselect" certain vehicles
Let’s say you have a few vehicles which are “off the charts” in the graph (shown with arrows above).
You can just uncheck their checkbox and they instantly disappear from those graphs:
Uncheck certain vehicles to remove them from graphs
Notice how the graphs are much less skewed now:
Adjusting graphs by removing certain vehicles
And you can also show only certain vehicles which match a “wildcard” pattern (in this case “*4000*” to show all vehicles with the string 4000 in them:
Choose only *4000* vehicles
Using this capability, you can now see exactly which vehicles you want in any graph, and we have many more graphs coming. Soon there will be a “comparison” graph which will show what your chosen vehicles look like relative to all vehicles or just a certain “reference group.”
Stay tuned & enjoy these new capabilities!
Thanks,
Rob.
