Tracer Pro Pak

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

Tip #4: Security

From appliances to equipment, if it is portable, it can be stolen. Companies can easily monitor their assets, as well as recover stolen or missing items, using GPS technology. GPS technology allows you to create virtual fences and alerts you when something leaves an area. Security guards and video cameras are expensive and only partially helpful. You will never have to waste money on replacing missing equipment when you can simply track it down.

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

Tip #3: Peace of Mind

There is great relief in knowing that employees and assets will get to a destination safely and on time. Enterprises can know immediately when employees are speeding, are late to a destination, or are simply driving in an irresponsible manner. Employees can have access to a “panic button” should an emergency occur. Employers will instantly know where to provide immediate assistance, whether legally required to do so or not. If your company provides services to end users, think of the power of location when needed in an emergency and the value-add to your company’s offering.

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

You can save a lot of money just by knowing where your people and equipment are at any given point in time, according to Jaap Groot, CEO of FindWhere. Even better, you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money doing it since many cell phones and smart phones already come equipped with GPS receivers. All you have to do is enable it for your use. Groot explains how.
In a volatile economic environment, companies are looking to enterprise IT systems to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. Location-enabled mobile phones offer a great series of management applications that can be integrated through enterprise IT systems. GPS receivers on smart phones and Web-based applications are making these technologies much more accessible to the smaller enterprise.

Location applications already have a reputation for saving large enterprises money. Yet the type and breadth of these applications-and their capabilities-continues to be unclear. This is in large part because GPS-enabled smart phone systems are only now becoming widely available, and software has been complex and expensive.

This article features five empowering tips for using location-based services to your advantage, based on my personal experience running two location-based services companies. Investment can be significant, depending on the size of the enterprise. But any cost or operation-oriented GPS application should provide return on investment well within six months.

The following five tips will help you better leverage your enterprises’ existing smart phones for innovative, location-based enterprise applications.

Tip #1: Companies Can Save Money

Companies save millions by using GPS tools to help reduce fuel costs and increase productivity. Fuel costs have become an absolute nightmare in the past few months in the United States. The cost of keeping vehicles on the road is increasing at an unprecedented rate.

A GPS tracking solution can save companies money by reducing unauthorized evening and weekend use of vehicles, optimizing job assignments based on location, reducing discretionary time and overtime hours, and monitoring to ensure that the most efficient routes are being used. In addition to gas costs, consider the fact that less mileage equals less vehicle maintenance.

Additionally, companies can use GPS to identify nonperformers through a location trail of assets, including employees who are not making efficient runs. This allows companies to explore better efficiencies for work force management.

Remaining Tips to be posted shortly: Check back.

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.

Location Based Solutions in a Rapid Response to Hurricane Gustav.  Along the Texas Gulf Coast, mandatory evacuation started in waves this morning. Communities closest to the coast put orders in place at 6 a.m. In Beaumont, the voluntary evacuation became mandatory at noon, but many residents weren’t waiting until the deadline.

Officials at the special needs evacuation site said things were going pretty smoothly, due in large part to the 211 system that lets them keep track of people who need assistance leaving, and a much more organized system for equipment. About 2,000 people have been helped, authorities said.

Beaumont public transit buses are shuttling residents from neighborhood schools to evacuation centers. Once there, they register with city fire and rescue personnel, who give them a yellow identification bracelet. The bracelet is stamped with the state seal, a barcode and a toll-free phone number.

The barcode is linked to a database maintained by the Texas Army National Guard. It’s the same system the guard used to track personnel coming and going from Iraq, said Lt. Sheila Tidrick.

Guard troops scan the bracelets as evacuees board busses headed north. They’ll be scanned again when evacuees reach shelters. If evacuees are separated from their families, they can call the phone number to find them.

Sunday morning, Cpl. Darrell Fountain was scanning passengers as they boarded buses. He said the mood at the evacuation center was calm. “It’s a great system,” said Fountain, who handed out water after Hurricane Rita. “It makes the process much faster, which keeps them from waiting very long to get on a bus.”

The buses also have GPS tracking units and a list of numbers to call in case of an emergency, according to a group of charter bus drivers who showed off their brand new state-issued cell phones while waiting to take evacuees to Tyler.   Click here for more:

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.