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You’re a snow plow driver. Instead of receiving a route on paper, imagine getting into the cab and turning on your GPS unit.  You simply select your route and the GPS navigates to each turn AND lists your instructions like ‘salt left lane’.

BizSpeed’s Navigation Service for Routes makes it easy for public works and snow plow companies to get your routes on a Garmin GPS.  You simply scan, fax or email us your routes.  We’ll convert the routes into an electronic route for your GPS units.  We can pre-load and send the routes on an SD card, or you can download them from our goRoam SaaS service.  We even provide map files so you can view your routes on a map, like the one shown below.

With our Garmin based solution, you can:

• Move from paper to mobile forms
• Get turn-by-turn directions
• Not have to stop and read paper directions for turns and instructions (salt, sand, etc.)
• View the route on a map
• Simulate driving the route
• Get the route distance and estimated drive time
• Have all routes analyzed and run through our route optimization analysis to see if you can reduce the total miles and time

The Garmin solution is low cost and easy to use. When you’re ready to add more capabilities like wireless dispatch, inspections, 2-way messaging and GPS tracking, you can move up to our goRoam product that runs on rugged terminals like the Motorola MC55 and Intermec CN50.

Request a quote.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

If you need to collect environmental or EPA field data, you may be wondering if there is a better way than using paper forms.  This video shows how you can take paper forms and turn them into mobile forms that run on rugged handheld devices for integrated data collection.

Forms can include standard input fields like textbox, checkbox or radio buttons. More importantly, they can include:

• GPS
• Camera capture
• Electronic signature capture (for proof of delivery)
• Barcode scanning

The video demonstrates taking the EPA Field Inspection for Onshore Drilling and converting it into a mobile form in less than 15 minutes. The mobile forms can run on consumer or rugged devices such as the Motorola MC55, MC75, Intermec CN3, CN4 and CN50.  These devices can withstand drops to concrete and work in the rain or weather without issue.

Watch the video below to see how you can take a paper form to electronic in 15 minutes or less.

FEMA and related agencies collect significant amounts of data in the field on paper forms.  Paper forms introduce delays, require re-keying and do not integrate key data like pictures and GPS. This video shows how to take a paper FEMA form and convert it to an electronic mobile form on a Windows Mobile Device.

Federal and State Emergency Management Agencies need to collect a lot of field data and they need to quickly and easily assemble that data.  This video shows FEMA and State EMA officials how easy it is to turn paper forms in to mobile forms.

The video uses FEMA form FF 90_81 Preliminary Damage Assessment to demonstrate mobile forms. We take each section and turn it into mobile ‘page’, and then add questions to the page. Question types include:

• Textbox
• Checkbox
• Combobox
• Lookup (barcode lookup for assets, products, etc.)
• Date
• Time
• Numeric
• Radiobutton
• Camera
• GPS
• Signature capture
• Label (for disclaimers, instructions, etc.)

While this video uses FEMA Form 90_81 Preliminary Damage Asssessment, you can see how you can easily add other forms like:

• Form 90_1 Request for Site Assessment
• General Damage Assessment form
• FEMA Form 90‐69B Declaration and Release
• FEMA Inspection forms

Click here to learn more about goRoam for Inspections and Surveys for mobile forms, or contact us.

A number of customers and prospects have asked for help in calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) for mobile Proof of Delivery, Inspections or Field Service.   We are providing our ROI Calculator to help you understand how our mobile software helps with:

• Labor savings – drivers, dispatch, accounting/data entry
• Fleet – GPS mileage reduction, idling fuel savings and route optimization
• Sales – more stops per day and reduced customer credits with Proof of Delivery
• Inventory – reductions and better management

A few notes….

• There may be other ROI factors that affect you – if your factors are not listed, please give us feedback.
• Enter your contact info and email to get the results sent via email.
• The ROI calculator requires Microsoft Silverlight (you will be prompted if you don’ t have it installed).
• Mouse over the ‘i’ to the right of each field for a description and standard input values.

Click here to launch the ROI calculator.

Some customers need to bulk dispatch mobile forms based on customer routes, zones or other groupings.  We’ve added better mobile form dispatch capabilities to allow dispatching from Excel spreadsheets or using customer attributes.  The steps can be automated and saved to easily re-run with different parameters.

We’ll walk through a quick example of bulk dispatching a mobile form based on customer attributes.  We’ll show a cool new feature in the ‘Bulk Import’ builder where you can automatically populate data on the mobile forms.

The first step is to set the customer you want to filter on (ex. routezone).

Attributes field examples are:

• Service rep
• Customer Type
• Address
• Routing info
• Route zone
• Carrier route
• Market
• Sub-market
• County
• Any field on the customer, include ‘Tags’

Once these are set, access the ‘Dispatch Import’ menu item.

Note that you can import from a CSV file or from SiteSupervisor.

1. Select object type = ‘customer’.  This will show a list of filterable attributes for that object.
2. Select the partition field (routezone, market, sub-market, etc.).  This will automatically show the distinct values for that partition field. Select the ones that match your criteria.
3. For this example, select ‘routezone’.
4. Select one or more route zones.
5. Select the ‘Build Mappings’ tab at the top
6. 
7. Select the survey (mobile form).  This will auto-populate the fields on the survey that you can map to.
8. Select the import field and the field on the survey that you want mapped. Click the right arrow button to set the mapping. In this instance, we mapped the customer.accountnumber to the ‘accountnumber’ field on the survey.
9. When done mapping, click the ‘Dispatch Config’ tab at the top.
10. 
11. In the dispatch config, you can specify a template for the DispatchID and Description. The tempate can use any of the source fields (customer in this case). For instance, use {AccountNumber}-{Name} to have the DispatchID set with these values.
12. Select the user or role to assign the mobile form dispatches.
13. Optionally set the start and end dates when the mobile form dispatches are to be completed.
14. Press ‘Test Import’ to test, or ‘Build Dispatches’ to create the dispatches directly. The test results are shown below.
15. 
16. Click ‘Save Profile’ to save this import profile to easily re-run again without having to rebuild mappings, etc.
17. When the user logs onto their mobile device, they will have their full list of new dispatches in their ‘current’ working folder.

If you have questions, please contact your account manager or support.  This feature is available the May 2010 release and is in place for SaaS customers.

Apple’s iPad is on track to become the fastest hardware platform to reach $1B in sales.  We continue to get questions about our thoughts on iPhone and iPad for Enterprise Mobile Applications.  From a platform perspective, the numbers make it hard to ignore.

Where does the iPad fit in an Enterprise Mobile environment?

There have been a number of articles on this subject and most have considered the iPad an alternative to a laptop for traditional business users. As an Enterprise Mobility company, we have a slightly different perspective and suggest there are two types of Enterprise Mobile users.

There are traditional corporate mobile users who access corporate data – spreadsheets, presentations, email, etc.  This is the market most often discussed.

The second market is mobile users who complete business transactions in the field – delivery drivers, inspectors, field service techs.  This class of user typically has a dedicated device configured for their specific functions.  Everything else is locked down.  Think ‘FedEx handheld’.

For the traditional corporate user, we’ve already started seeing personal use of iPad’s. We presented at Intermec’s Seattle Tech Days in May of this year and had a couple of audience members taking notes on iPads.  For this type of user, iPad’s have some nice advantages:

• Lightweight, small and portable
• Easy access to email
• Fast
• Less likely to break as they are in an office or nicer travel environment
• With a dock and Bluetooth keyboard, you can easily handle any correspondence such as email or word processing
• Better battery life than a traditional laptop, although comparable to a netbook
• Able to connect to Exchange for email
• Most iPhone apps run on the iPad, and many new iPad apps have been released

The most common reason cited for lack of Enterprise Mobile apps on iPhone is security and device management. What this means to enterprise users is the ability to lock the device, restrict what is loaded and what is run, and remotely kill the device if it is lost.  Corporations that purchase laptops almost always provision this type of lockdown security.

For the second type of Enterprise Mobile User – the one who completes business transactions in the field – the question becomes

Is the iPad a good platform to target specific line of business mobile apps?

Our answer is, “It depends.”  When you compare the iPad to rugged devices like the Intermec CN3/CN4/CN50 or Motorola MC55/MC75, each platform has some benefits and better candidate applications.

Considerations for rugged devices

• Can be used outside in the rain, snow, hot or cold.
• Can be locked to only specific applications and functions (access to set apps, the phone, turn on/off wireless, etc.)
• Have integrated barcode scanners
• Support printing to mobile printers like Zebra or O’Neil
• Easy integration to corporate applications
• Development in .NET with C# or VB.NET.  Visual Studio tools are well known in the enterprise and just require a Windows PC.
• Multiple choices for local databases – SQLCE (Compact Edition), SQLite , Sybase SQL Anywhere/Ultralite, etc.
• Small screen – mobile forms need to be optimized
• Designed for stylus, so signature capture with Proof of Delivery is easy but less finger friendly
• All in one design
• Can be dropped to concrete or in water and keep running
• Available on multiple carrier networks – Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.
• You can install any applications you want – no App Store requirements
• No App Store – automated software updates require an external package like SOTI MobiControl or Airwatch
• External backlit keypad – if you enter data at night for things like fleet fueling, this makes entering numbers much easier
• One-handed operation and the ability to store on your hip in a holster

Considerations for an iPad

• Large screen – you can show a lot of information and the input controls are tailored for fingers
• Less rugged, but protective covers are available. It is too early to tell how fragile an iPad is.  While a lot of vendors push the TCO for rugged handhelds, the reality is that a lot of business people and consumers have iPhones – and they have dropped iPhones – and the iPhones are still running. Yes, they can break; however, they don’t always break.
• Development is in Objective C. This is a new tool for most Enterprise developers and the learning curve is steep. Once learned, you can be incredibly productive although it is not easy for a casual developer.  There are 3rd party toolkits such as Rhomobile, PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium to ease development using more familiar tools such as Ruby or Javascript versus native Objective C.
• Requires a Mac for development.
• Built in database support with SQLite and file stores.
• No ability to lock the device. iPads are not able to be locked to set features or apps. I remember a training session to a group of union truck drivers. The first question was “Does this device get on the internet?”.  YES…second question “Can it get to porn sites?”.  While this may be humorous, we had one medical courier customer that had an $800/month bill for one device because a driver surfed the net, downloaded porn and watched YouTube.
• iPad will alert you that you are about to go over your monthly data usage.  You receive multiple alerts so there is no excuse.  This does not exist on rugged WinMo devices.
• Full size HTML and PDF reader.  PDF’s are pretty difficult on smaller WinMo devices. Even though it is able to read them, it often not practical. If you have manuals to read to do your job, the iPad is much better suited.
• If a device is lost, you can clear your Exchange related info but any other data such as line of business transactions are not covered. Functionality to wipe or disable those will have to be built into the individual app. Sybase has announced iPad support with Afaria, although it is not available currently.
• Less expensive – rugged devices usually start at $1500/ea and go up to close to $3k.  The iPad starts at $500 and goes to $900.

Where does the iPad fit in the Enterprise?

The iPad will make its way into the enterprise with personal use, just like the iPhone did. We know one outsourced bill/records processing company that is giving the iPad to some key customers as a promotion and to help them visualize transactions and lookup history.   This is really a marketing effort versus field data collection.

As for use in field data capture, the iPad will likely follow in the iPhone’s footsteps here as well. iPad will have good success where data visualization is important and data transactions are less of a focus.  Some examples include:

• Mobile forms using the web browser – this eliminates issues with security of the device because you don’t have any data stored locally.  The browser experience is rich and a number of javascript toolkits exist to make iPhone UI web pages.  The downside is that these apps require a network connection and would not be able to deliver consistent performance.  For applications like order entry, the performance and connectivity consistency would likely not be suitable.
• Customer sales lookup – you could easily lookup and graph customer history or product history.  It would be easy to enter basic orders, but for someone with a large parts catalog, they would certainly want barcode scanning to confirm the product.
• Surveys and inspections – many surveys or inspections are basic forms that need to be captured. Our goRoam.Inspections app runs on WinMo and supports barcode scanning and printing.  We could definitely see customers that just need mobile forms using goRoam.Inspections on an iPad. Examples would be customer surveys, merchandising, etc. Some forms still require barcode scanning, such as operator rounds, safety audits or vehicle inspections. For those forms, scanning in the inspection is part of confirming you are inspecting the right item.
• Customer kiosks – the iPad could easily have a shell built around it and be used for in public places for a nice touchscreen kiosk. While Windows touchscreens are available, the iPad may have a good fit in this situation as a lower cost, better looking appliance.
• Fields apps that involve reading or lots of lookups – applications such as mapping or work orders that require a lot of access to manuals could be a good fit for the iPad. While not rugged, it could complement other devices as the tool for PDF’s, manuals, etc.

Let us know what you think.  Is there a good fit for the iPad in the Enterprise. Is there a fit for mobile forms to capture field data?

Customers have continued to push the MobileHub (SiteSupervisor) to automate business processes, especially after mobile form data is posted. We’ve enhanced the goRoam.MobileHub to provide delayed jobs (background processing).  This is best suited for actions where the user does not need an immediate response so you can keep their workflow streamlined.

Examples of where delayed jobs help are:

• Sending emails of PDF images of completed surveys
• Conditionally sending order emails based on data filled in from mobile forms
• Processing uploaded images
• Longer running calculations such as geocoding customers based on GPS breadcrumbs

Delayed jobs are installed with the ‘scheduled job’ administration tools.  Delayed jobs are setup in a separate library on a per company basis. This allows our SaaS (Software as a Service) customers to each have their own delayed job processor, or if you are an on-site customer you can run background tasks with one library for all company codes.

Please contact your account representative to learn more.

This video walks through a Day in the Life of a bulk products driver who makes deliveries with LCR meters. The video shows how a driver uses the following functions:

• Pre-trip – clock in, enter their vehicle ID and start their route
• Load builder – automatically create a load from the orders on their trip
• Route stops – view loads and orders for the day, as well as events for the trip or individual stops
• Enter a load – record both package and bulk products loaded on the truck. For bulk, the driver enters the compartment for use with metered delivery
• Enter an order – record products delivered (manual or with meter), enter stick readings, customer comments, capture customer signature and print delivery receipt.
• Metered delivery – for LCR-II metered delivery, wirelessly start the meter, scan assets/fleet vehicles for each delivery, and record quantities delivered per asset.  The driver can view the LCR register wirelessly at the end of the hose reel.
• Stick readings – record stick readings for bulk delivery
• Log events – log events such as ‘waiting on customer signature’, ‘waiting on dock doors’, etc.
• Post-trip – clock out to complete the trip.

DOT regulations require all commercial vehicle carriers to complete a Driver Vehicle Inspection Report (DVIR). Inspection reports must be completed both pre-trip as well as post-trip.  For more information on Federal Motor Carrier regulations  click here.

Our inspections module is setup to enable electronic vehicle inspections so drivers can complete and print DVIR’s from handheld mobile devices such as Intermec CN3’s and Motorola MC55’s.  Vehicle inspection reports are wirelessly sent to the goRoam.Mobilehub server so fleet maintenance can see all reports in near real-time. 

More importantly, we can enable post-save events so you can specify actions upon receiving electronic vehicle inspections.  For example, you can receive an email anytime an inspection is completed with a defect, or you could receive an email and automatically create a work order for that vehicle.

goRoam.Inspections allows you to easily tailor the vehicle inspection for your specific needs and questions.  The following flow shows a typical vehicle inspection flow for a driver.

Step 1 – Login in and view list of available forms. 

Select vehicle inspection from the list of available electronic forms.

Step 2 – Barcode scan or enter vehicle information

Step 3 – Check any defects on the Truck (Tractor)

Step 4 – Check Trailer for defects

Step 5 – Mechanic corrects and signs

Step 6 – Enter optional pictures, GPS or drawings

You can take a picture directly in the inspection form and mark on the picture to show where the problem areas are.  Forms can be GPS stamped in the background so you know exactly where the inspection took place.

Step 7 – Driver certifies and signs

Step 8 – Save and Close

Once completed, the inspection report is automatically sent to the server via cellular or wifi.  The driver can print a copy to a local printer such as the Zebra RW420 or email a copy.  Note that the start and stop time were automatically set, so you know exactly when the driver started and stopped.

Step 9 – View results

All inspections are automatically sent to the server where you can view, report or export results.  The submit process can be configured to automatically send an email when certain inspection fields are set or have a value (such as low oil or air pressure).

Step 10 – Print and email

The following standard report is available for all surveys. Report templates can be easily setup for your forms to condense the report to one page.  Note the report contains the full electronic signature, picture of the vehicle with markup from the driver on the defect and GPS location.  Reports can be saved as PDF’s for easy emailing.

Newsletter 1Q2010

Mobile meter integration – wireless with LCR-II meters

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

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.

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.