Trips & Travel Reporting
Keeping a history of travel times and distances can be an important part of your service business. Team members utilizing our Mobile apps will have the opportunity to record their trips throughout the day.
Article Sections
Learning the Basics
Team members who are making several trips in a given day can utilize built-in location tracking to allow their travel times and distances to be stored automatically for reporting.
A few key requirements come in to play:
- Location Tracking
In order to utilize the GPS of a given mobile device, Location Tracking must be enabled for the Manager/Field mobile apps, and not disabled during a trip. - Status Updates
Scheduled appointments/events must be "Statused" from the Mobile app in order to record travel details. This means pressing "On My Way" or "Start Trip" where applicable. - Ad-hoc Trips
Unscheduled trips must be added manually in the Mobile app at the time at which the trip is occurring.
Viewing the Travel Report
Visibility to travel history is provided at https://work.dispatch.me to users with "Dispatcher" role. The "Travel Report" page can be found under the Reports section.
The data shown will break down each individual trip by your team, the GPS pings during travel, and the route likely traveled. Further, each "location" will be displayed from the beginning of their day to the end.
Searching
Quickly view your available team members in the list or use the search field by typing a name.
Date in View
Navigate through day-by-day for any given team member. On the horizontal row will be showing today and the past few days. If you're in need to view older days, simply click the Calendar icon to select at your discretion.
Appointments & Events
Any given day of the week may have appointments or events planned in advance, other times being last minute additions/changes. Every appointment & event on a team members calendar has the opportunity to capture travel details.
By adding these to a team members calendar, they will have access to track their travel from within the Mobile app when the time comes.
Appointment Updates
All travel details are captured from with the Mobile app of a given team member. Those details are only captured & stored when certain actions are taken.
When a team member views their day, simply tap on one of the appointments. Here they'll also be shown an "Add an extra trip" option but we'll cover that part a bit later.
They will be presented with an "On My Way" button which will immediately lock the time at which the button was pressed and will check their GPS location.
Once on location, the button will show a "Start Appointment" option. This will immediately mark the time and check for the GPS location.
These actions are critical in determining travel time and travel distance. By performing these actions, we're able to accurately represent the team members travel history throughout the day.
If you're unfamiliar scheduling appointments, head over to our Scheduling Appointments article.
Event Trips
There are cases where office staff may utilize "Events" for purposes of Office Meetings or Picking up Parts. These events are also tracked the same way as Appointments. However, the workflow is a bit different.
Opening an event on the Mobile app will present slightly different options. In this case there is no Customer involved - it's merely a way to schedule a lightweight piece of content for your team. When opened, they will press "Start Trip" will which will immediately lock the time at which the button was pressed and will check their GPS location.
Just like the appointment statuses, the team member will press "Complete Trip" to finalize the tracking of their travel which will immediately lock the time at which the button was pressed and will check their GPS location.
Adding Trips
Throughout the day your team may need to track additional trips between appointments. At their discretion is an option where they do just that; add a trip at will.
While viewing today on the schedule there will be an option to "Add an extra trip".
The next view will allow for entering the intended destination. It can either be an address or known location such as "Whole Foods Grocery Store". Additionally, the default "Your Location" can be used for the starting location or the ending location.
Last will be entering some context about the trip - It's always important to add some detail. Once saved, the trip will begin tracking will immediately lock the time at which the button was pressed and will check their GPS location..
To finish it off, the "Complete Trip" will will do a final check for GPS location and mark the time.
Edits to Trips
Changing details after a trip has ended can occur as needed. Making a change can be found by tapping on a completed trip from within the schedule on the Mobile app.
The actions will allow for modifying:
- Travel Distance/Mileage
- Trip Title & Description
- Start Time of the Trip
- End Time of the Trip
- Waypoints (Start and End Location)
Edits in Reports
Visible in the Travel Report will be an indicator if a modification was made to any trip. In most cases trips are automatically calculated based on GPS data, action buttons and intended locations.
Within https://work.dispatch.me the report will show those trips which are modified.
Common Questions
We've provided answers to some popular concerns that you may find helpful.
- How accurate is the GPS tracking?
The Mobile Apps utilize the GPS data of the device. Accuracy is more so dependent on the device in question and service quality. For instance, local areas where cellular service is weak may result in less accurate tracking.
On the report we display small circular icons which also indicate the accuracy rating. The larger the dot, the less accurate. - Why would an "Extra Trip" be necessary?
Many times your team may need to make an unplanned stop at a parts warehouse or travel back to your office for a last minute meeting. If it's important for trips of that nature to be tracked which have not already been added to the schedule, this a great solution.
Further, it's especially helpful when you don't know the time and place of an appointment/event. Extra trips give the added bonus to capture "extra trips" and fill the gap. - Why do I not have access to the Travel Report?
Only accounts subscribed to our POWER plan will get access to the Travel Reporting feature. If you're unsure what plan you're on or want to utilize the feature, contact us so we're able to help!