Tracer Pro Pak

GSM Association held a conference in Barcelona where Michael Halbherr, vice president of Nokia LBS spoke. In his presentation, titled “Navigating Your Way Through LBS Experiences,” Halbherr said Nokia is going heavily into navigation and will likely become the leading mobile navigation company within a few years. In addition, he discussed Nokia Maps, which is designed to help you drive, walk and share content about your current location with others. Nokia wants your cell phone to answer questions such as “Where am I?” and “Where are you?” Also, Halbherr said Nokia is planning “City Guides” to help people walk around public

Nokia Concept Phone

places and parks, and provide voice-guided walking tours.

But Michael focuses on consumer features.  Businesses today need smart GPS systems that help them solve real problems: Lower carbon footprint, use less gas, do more with less expense.  That is where Tracer Pro Pak comes in. Tracer pro pak delivers real ROI to businesses. http://www.tracerpropak.com/2008/08/what-is-tracer-pro-pakwhat-is-tracer-pro-pak/

Rest of GSM article is here; http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/INSIDE-MOBILE-GSMA-Mobile-World-CongressTrends-in-Mobile-LocationBased-Services/ 

Tip #5: Minimal Investment

Take full advantage of your existing mobile assets with no additional investment. Mobile phones are carried daily and everywhere; they’re a piece of hardware the employee already owns or the company has provided. Without having to purchase an entirely new, expensive product, companies can easily use a mobile tracking application for its GPS devices. For a small monthly fee, companies can keep their employees safe and their assets secure, while improving overall efficiency.

Cross Posted from http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/How-to-Make-LocationBased-Applications-Work-for-Your-Enterprise/ Jaap Groot

An alternate method to track your cell phone does not rely on a line of site with the satellite.   This method uses cell phone triangulation and the relative signal strength from several towers to determine your cell phone’s

Tracking without Satellite

location.  The advantage with this method is that metro areas where tall buildings may block satellite line of sight allow you to track your cell phone as long as you have cell signal.  It also works great when you are indoors.  The disadvantage is that if your cell phone is an area without cell signal, it can not be tracked.

There are two ways to track a cell phone.  The first method relies on a line of site with a satellite in the sky.  This method is great because it can be used in rural areas where you do not have cell signal.   Difficulties with this method is using it to track your cell phone in large metro areas where tall buildings can block the line of sight with the satellite.   If your phone is indoors, line of sight becomes difficult as well.  An alternate method to solve this problem is the subject of our next article.

GPS Tracking Cell Phones

Many cell phones can be tracked with the right software.  To begin with, your phone needs to know where it is.  If your cell phone does not know where it is, then tracking it becomes mute.   How to track a cell phone becomes doable once your phone knows where it is.  The two main methods for your cell phone will be described in a future article. 

With the right software, your phone can report its location to a web server.  It can use its internet connection to make this report to the server.  Once the server knows where the phone is, it can overlay the location coordinates on a map that you and I can understand.  All you need then, is ot access this server and you can tell where the phone is.

GPS Cell Phone Tracking using the GPS technlogy on the Treo 800W is a thing of beauty.  Installing the Tracer Pro Pak turns it into a power tool for location based solutions.

From Palm Site:

With GPS and Wi-Fi, the Palm^® Treo™ 800w smartphone gives you the confidence to get where you’re going—and wireless connectivity options when you get there.

Not only can a GPS equiped handheld with the Tracer Pro Pak software show you where your workers are, capture work ticket information for HVAC and Property management, but it can also save your life.  Search and rescue personnel can use GPS Cell Phone Tracking to locate you in an emergency.   On August 16th, the Civil Air Patrol did just that in Arizona.

HVAC companies do more than service and install equipment. Unlike most other industries, beyond service and install, HVAC companies are delivering serialized warranty systems made up of different components, some times from different vendors.  During the course of an AC life span, models and regulations change,

Fleet Tracking

further complicating the business.  Bottom line: A lot of details that can get messed up.  Managing these details with less paperwork and less administrative time becomes critical in this economy.  To maintain or increase profits, Tracer provides several measurable cost savings:

Using GPS, Tracer allows technicians in the field to complete their job details in a legible fashion with fewer mouse clicks and transmit that information to accounting within minutes.  Details for the next job along with navigation instructions can be displayed on the screen.

To reduce gas, Tracer scheduler helps dispatcher schedule service not just bases on first available technician for the job, but also on when will a technician be near the service location.

Many large residential property management companies are on a buying spree for smaller well run companies.  Although the geography might change from Florida to California, most of the persistent problems can be grouped into 3 categories:

1. Service: Planned community residents want more and more service from their managers.  The quality of your follow up on Maintenance and repair, returning calls and correspondence will be among the top reasons your communities will either stay with you or start shopping around.   Unless you have a huge spike in your fees, price is not a material factor as most companies in a region are about the same in their pricing.  So it often comes down to perceived quality of service. 
   

   GPS enabled Location Based Phone

    

2. Deed restriction violation management: Managing the labor intensive logistics of documenting the violation, determining if this is a first or repeat offence, sending the appropriately worded letter out and tracking everything if the issue goes to legal.
3. Providing your board members and or residents with a secure web site where they can view accounting, architectural review requests and work orders is becoming an increasingly important to cater to a more web savvy customer.

Tracer solves these problems

Tracer allows managers to enter maintenance and work order information on their smart phones.  Tracer’s location aware technology goes beyond just giving GPS driving instructions, it helps the manager automatically connect the repair or work order ticket with the right geographical location with fewer mouse clicks.  Tracer knows how to treat repairs under warranty differently from non-warranty repairs.  Tracer knows how to show your managers the list of approved vendors for each community and can even transmit the work order to the vendor’s email or fax machine within minutes, with a photo and accurate location.  Your managers can spend less time chasing paperwork in the office and spend more time in the field, building better relationships with your board members and helping you keep and improve your business.

Deed restrictions: Tracer helps your manager document the violation, view violation history and send the details, with a picture, to the office for letter printing and mailing.

Web Portal:  Tracer helps you take your internal information and choose what you want your board members to view. A configuration panel allows you to manage who can view what.

Building appreciation and good will with your board members: What good is it if your managers are working hard but your community board members don’t notice?  With a few clicks Tracer produces detailed reports of activity for the month for your boards reading pleasure and appreciation.

We asked small business owners like you what types of challenges they faced in a slow economy coupled with rising costs.  Of the many things you described, we grouped the challenges that we could solve into 3 categories:

1. “When my technicians are out in the field, they are under billing:  For example, if they spent 1 hour and 45 minutes at a client, they are reporting back 1 hour and 30 minutes.  I can’t be sure how much of this is going on, but I can guarantee that it happens.  With 18 technicians, if a quarter of them did this every week, it is costing me a fortune in lost revenue.”
2. “My technicians do not show up on time.  Often, this is because the previous job ran late and it just causes a domino effect which hits customer service.  Customer service is critical right now because my competitors are dropping their prices to get business.”
3. “It takes 20 hours every week to take the paper tickets from my field technicians and have it entered in my inventory and accounting systems.  And when we purchase parts and materials, it is difficult to make sure it is all being billed out to the customers.”

Tracer solves these problems. 

1. We go beyond just showing you where your technicians are. Tracer uses smart location aware systems to automatically determine when a job starts and ends.  If Tracer’s start and end times vary from your technician, Tracer will alert you.  Tracer uses the same systems to track office time and travel time.
2. If your technician is projected to arrive late at an appointment, Tracer will send a message to your dispatcher so you can either solver the problem or inform the customer ahead of time.  Your customers perceive an advance warning of a late appointment as superior customer service.  They don’t get that level of service from their other vendors. (You don’t from your vendors, your customers don’t either).
3. Your technicians use their smart phones to complete the details of their work including parts and materials used.  This information is transmitted directly to your office allowing you to invoice and close the work order quickly and get paid sooner.