Discrepancy Between Manually Marked and Geofence Detected Times

When out in the field, a field employee is required to mark the customer’s address as “Marked as Visited” to indicate arriving at the customer’s location. After servicing and departing from the customer’s location, the field employee is required to mark the customer’s address as “Marked as Departed” accordingly. For an additional layer of security and safety, Route4Me also uses geofences that can automatically detect whenever field employees visit or leave customers’ locations, generating the “Detected as Visited” and “Detected as Departed” timestamps that cannot be modified or influenced in any way. To make sure that you are always on the same page with your customers, Route4Me allows you to set up adjustable geofences around your customers’ locations and use them for automatically tracking the progress of your entire team.

Human Factor

In real-life routing, slight discrepancies in the Geofence Detected and Manually Marked visitation and departure timestamps can happen for a number of reasons and are considered to be a norm. For example, when a driver enters the given geofence and the stop is automatically Detected as Visited, this driver can Mark this stop as Visited not upon entering the geofence but only shortly after arriving at the location and stopping the vehicle. Consequently, the Detected as Visited timestamp will be created earlier than the Manually Marked timestamp.

Another example is when a driver leaves the given geofence and the stop is automatically Detected as Departed, but the driver Marks the stop as Departed when already outside the geofence’s perimeter. In this case, the Detected as Departed timestamp will be created earlier than the Manually Marked timestamp. On the opposite, the driver can first Mark the stop as Departed and only then get into the vehicle and leave the corresponding geofence, creating a discrepancy in the Detected and Marked departure times.

Time on Site

In your geofence settings, you can adjust how much each field employee must stay within the perimeter of each geofence in order for the corresponding stop to be automatically Detected as Departe, indicating that the driver actually stayed at the customer’s location the required amount of time and didn’t leave too early. Thus, even though the driver can Mark the stop as Visited and Departed, if the driver doesn’t stay within the geofence’s perimeter for the required amount of time, the system will create only the Detected as Visited timestamp indicating that the driver visited the stop but will not create the Detected as Departed timestamp indicating that the driver didn’t stay at the stop for the required amount of time.

Vehicle Position Refresh Rate

The Vehicle Position Refresh Rate is the frequency at which Route4Me’s telematics gateway retrieves vehicle tracking data from the corresponding telematics partner (learn how to adjust the vehicle position refresh rate here). When tracking drivers or field employees, each blue dot on the map represents a real-life location where the routing data was retrieved from the corresponding vehicle and sent to Route4Me. Thus, depending on the defined vehicle position refresh rate, the given geofence can be Detected as Visited slightly later than the vehicle actually enters it. Moreover, the driver can Mark the stop as Visited slightly later than Route4Me’s telematics gateway retrieves the vehicle’s tracking data, causing a small discrepancy in the Detected and Marked timestamps.

Depending on the defined vehicle position refresh rate, the given geofence can also be Detected as Departed slightly later than the driver actually leaves it. In this case, the driver can Mark the stop as Departed right after leaving it and Route4Me’s telematics gateway can retrieve the vehicle’s tracking data already after the driver has left the given geofence, causing a slight discrepancy in the Detected and Marked Departure timestamps.

Maximum Check-In Speed

For security and safety purposes, Route4Me’s geofence settings allow you to adjust the maximum speed at which drivers must enter geofences in order for the system to automatically Detected them as Visited. For example, if the Max Check-In Speed is set to 20 miles per hour, and the driver enters the given geofence at 25 miles per hour, this geofence will not be Detected as Visited until the vehicle’s speed goes below 20 miles per hour. Moreover, you can even set the Max Check-In Speed to a “0” and if the driver instead of stopping at the customer’s location drivers by it at a very low speed and Marks the stop as Visited and Departed, it will be reflected accordingly in the geofence’s timestamps.

Managing Your Geofence Settings

To adjust your Route4Me geofence settings, first, go to “Account Settings” from the navigation menu and then scroll to the “Geofence Settings” section.

In the “Geofence Settings” section, you can adjust the following geofence preferences:

• – Type: The shape of your geofences (circle or square);
• – Size: The perimeter size of your geofences (in meters);
• – Time on Site: The amount of time (in seconds) a driver or field employee must stay within a geofence for the corresponding stop to be automatically Detected as Visited;
• – Max Check-in Speed: The speed limit (in miles) for entering your geofences. If the defined speed limit is exceeded, the stop in the given geofence will not be automatically Detected as Visited.