Newsletter 1Q2010

3
Mar

In this issue…

goRoam.BulkDelivery – mobile meter integration
goRoam.MobileHub – mapping and geographic enhancements
goRoam.Inspections – significant updates for inspections & surveys
Coming soon – upgraded dispatch board!
Training – developing reports in SQL Server Reporting Services
How to – customer comments and backorder notification emails
Wireless tank monitoring – fast payback, low cost pilot

Mobile meter integration – wireless with LCR-II meters

LCR-II meter If you deliver bulk products and use metered delivery, you’ll want to see our handheld updates for meters. We’ve worked closely with Liquid Controls to design a robust, reliable and easy to maintain wireless meter solution.

Your fleet maintenance can quickly install and easily maintain the truck components. Your customers will appreciate the confidence in knowing you are fully electronic with no errors from hand entry or re-keying. Customers can get metered Proof of Delivery by asset in near real-time.

Your drivers will appreciate easy and fast barcode scanning for fleet fueling or tank filling. They can view the register counter on the handheld at the end of the hose reel so they know how much is delivered. Register data is automatically recorded for truly paperless delivery.

As an owner/manager, you’ll appreciate real-time wireless delivery updates, inventory control and reliable operational data to manage your business.

This is a simple, straight-forward upgrade for existing goRoam customers or an easy installation for new customers.

We’re in the process of installing videos on the website to demonstrate metered delivery. If you want to be notified when they are available, please contact us.

Mapping and geographic enhancements

A key step in managing service and delivery organizations is knowing where your customers are. In addition to our batch customer geocoding tools, MobileHub can geocode individual customers, view them on a map or view groups of customers on a map.

goRoam.MobileHub users can simply load the customer edit form and click the ‘geocode me’ button to geocode a customer’s address. As always, you can enter detailed routing and tags for a customer. You can then use these attributes to view groups of customers on a map. Read more…

Inspections and surveys updates

updated dispatch and schedule board Vehicle inspections, asset inspections, customer surveys, smart meter installations, safety audits – are all examples of our how our customers use the inspections and surveys module. We’ve added features to address some important demands:

Completely new dispatch board that allows simultaneously showing dispatch schedules for users, roles/groups, assets (ex. trucks) and trips.
Integration with other mobile modules to dynamically populate surveys from current forms. For example, if you are making a delivery and the driver needs to create a survey for that order, the survey can be pre-populated with fields from that order such as customer name, address, order number, etc.
Easy batching of dispatches. For customers who create 100’s of dispatches at a time for users, you can specify that only the next X number will be auto-sync’d. For AMR installations, customer canvassing or other large scale inspections, this is a huge benefit to mobile users as well as dispatchers.
Survey printing using HTML templates to any supported printer such as the Zebra RW420 or Intermec PB41, PB42 or PB52. You can easily add and edit your own print templates.
Improved barcode scanning support with customer specified lookups such as assets.
Execute server tasks when surveys are saved so you can selectively take actions such as creating work orders or sending emails with survey results.Read more…

Training – developing reports in SQL Server Reporting Services

Whether you are a hosted customer or an on-site installation, you may have wondered how you can add your own reports. We recently developed a training class for customers to learn how to build SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) reports, add them to the reporting server and use the MobileHub data model.

This is a great class for report development and shows how you can use SSRS to report against other databases too, such Oracle, MySQL or SQL Server instances. We can tailor the class to your needs and include reporting against multiple databases at once, so you can integrate things like GEOTAB GPS with MobileHub delivery data. For more information, contact us.

How to – customer comments and backorder notification emails

There are a number of notification options for pickup and delivery customers, including automatically sending emails when orders are completed in the field. The most common scenario is to automatically send an email to a bulk distribution group if a driver enters a customer comment.

An example would be the driver entering ‘tank ok no delivery per dave’ when a customer did not take a delivery. This would alert dispatch and accounting to handle the order appropriately without having to track down the driver or wait for paperwork.

To setup email notifications, use the following Company config setup parameters.

Setting	Value	Description
email_customercomments	0=off, 1=on	emails customer comments with the order number, salesman, driver, trip and customer.
email_eventlog	0=off, 1=on	emails any event log entry the driver records. Event logs are typically things like ‘waiting on signature’, ‘waiting on dock’, etc.
email_possiblefuelorderbacklog	0=off, 1=on	emails any order that has a delivered qty =0 for bulk or < order-qty for packages.
fuel_delivery_notification_list	semi-colon separated list of emails	contains the list of recipients to receive bulk product notifications.
eventlog_notification_list	semi-colon separated list of emails	contains the list of recipients to receive eventlog entries. EventLog categories are defined by you.

Wireless Tank Monitoring – fast payback, low cost pilot

Tank monitoring is something everyone should do for customer service (to prevent run outs) as well as distribution management (reduce unnecessary trips). We understand that many customers don’t fully implement tank monitoring due to cost.

We have been working with i3G, a wireless tank monitoring company, to integrate tank monitoring into our forecasting and dispatch. i3G has a low cost, high quality tank monitoring solution. Depending on your configuration, i3G may be 1/3 to 1/2 as much to monitor tanks. This means you can monitor more tanks, including lower volume units. i3G provides inventory updates via cellular or on-site wireless. With on-site wireless, you can specify tank readings at frequent intervals during the day, which is especially helpful with high volume tanks.

We’ve worked with i3G to offer a low cost pilot so our customers can test tank monitoring quickly and easily on a small set of tanks. Pick your toughest tanks and let’s pilot! For more information, contact us.

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