iTRAK News - January 2009

Customer Spotlight – Rodgers Plumbing & Heating, Inc.

Jay Rodgers wishes he had spent less time thinking about GPS fleet tracking. "In the time I spent wondering about the potential benefits, I was losing money without knowing it," says Rodgers, Vice President of Rodgers Plumbing & Heating.

With 25 trucks on the road, Rodgers Plumbing & Heating has been serving industrial and residential customers in the Albuquerque area for the past 30 years. Many of the company's technicians drive take-home vehicles and travel directly to job sites from their homes, while some are based at the company's main facility in downtown Albuquerque. Rodgers' operations staff found it difficult to effectively manage a fleet that included both company-based vehicles and take-home vehicles, since dispatchers were unable to see all activities. "Once all vehicles were being tracked, it became evident that the there was significant room for improvement," cites Rodgers, who has been with the company since 1983. "For example, we were never sure exactly when our employees arrived at a job site, so the billing was often subject to some guesswork. Now that we can see the exact arrival time and can record the number of minutes on-site, we are confident that our customer invoices are accurate." Rodgers estimates that the company had been losing 7-8% of all billable hours due to wasted time or incorrect reporting. "We now verify travel time for every job. That saving alone has more than paid for installing iTRAK in every vehicle." Rodgers calculated a $985 decrease in monthly costs in just one project since the installation of iTRAK in the company trucks.

But it’s not just the closer monitoring of arrivals that Rodgers talks about. Travel time between job sites has always been an issue, as some drivers would habitually take the 'scenic route' from one job to the next. Rodgers estimates he gets about 20% more work out of the same crews, just by making sure that they travel efficiently. Plus every mile the company saves translates into fuel savings and reduced maintenance cost.

On top of all the direct economic savings from using iTRAK, Rogers points out a strong intangible benefit."Our employees are like family," says Rodgers. "It gives us peace of mind knowing where our trucks are, when they got there, and they are safe."

Rodgers Plumbing & Heating prides itself on its fast and friendly service. "We know our customers have many choices, so we are always looking at ways to improve our standing as the best service provider in the area," says Rodgers. "Knowing the exact location and status of every vehicle allows us to give our customers accurate estimates of arrival times."

"It would be hard to imagine running our business without iTRAK Fleet Manager," says Rodgers. "In the challenging economic times we face today, it is critical that we cut costs while remaining competitive. iTRAK’s advertising slogan says that that they will 'keep our business on the most profitable path.' In our case, it is really true!"

Feature Highlight – Creating and Managing 'Landmarks'

Until he set up landmarks in iTRAK Fleet Manager, Rick didn't have any idea that some of his drivers were coming back to the warehouse in the middle of the shift—several times a week. Keeping track of visits to frequent destinations can help keep costs under control, and also make sure you are billing your customers accurately!

If your company's vehicles are traveling to the same places on regular basis, you will almost certainly benefit from iTRAK's landmark feature.Essentially, you can define any number of 'key' locations as landmarks, and run a report to see every visit to that location. Although your specific circumstances may be different, here are some ways different types of customers could use landmarks to increase efficiency, save money, and improve customer support:

Scenario 1: Rick, operations manager for Purity Pest Control, had limited visibility into the daily activities of his mobile service units. To understand and analyze their movements, he began to run landmark reports on his entire fleet. Upon examining the landmark report, he observed that some of his units were traveling across town to visit the warehouse several days a week. The extra 20-30 miles caused an increase in fuel consumption and maintenance cost that directly affected the company's bottom line. When Rick asked drivers about the extra trips, he was shocked to find the reason. It seemed that the workers who were loading supplies into the vehicles each morning were not including enough of some critical supplies that were needed by the pest control technicians in the field. Rather than notifying management of the problem, some technicians elected to take a break from work and drive back to headquarters. Once the problem was identified and corrected, mid-day trips to the warehouse were almost completely eliminated.

Scenario 2: Watson Millwork Company was hired to install doors and windows at a new subdivision. Members of the installation crew arrived at the jobsite every day in their take-home company trucks, and were paid to be on the site from 7:30 AM until 3:30 PM every day. Two months into the contract, the general contractor filed a complaint alleging that Watson's installers were not on site for the required number of hours, stating that the crew habitually arrived late and left early. The contractor claimed that Watson's invoice should be discounted by nearly 20% to reflect the actual hours the workers were on site.

Each of Watson's trucks was equipped with an iTRAK device, so the proof was simple. Watson’s operations manager set up a new landmark called 'Springdale Gardens' and then ran a 'landmark report' on each of the company trucks. The landmark report showed exactly when each truck arrived and left, and how many hours it spent on site every day. To avoid future disagreements, Watson changed their billing process to include a copy of the landmark report along with each weekly invoice.

Scenario 3: Aero-Quick Limousine Service runs a shuttle service to and from the local airport. From time to time, customers would complain that a driver was late arriving for a pickup at the airport. Vanessa, the company's customer service manager, was upset about the situation but did not have any means to resolve whether the driver was late or not.

The decision to install iTRAK Fleet Manager would give her indisputable evidence of the facts. Not only can Vanessa run a 'landmark report' on demand to settle a question about a specific trip, but she can use the automated reporting feature of iTRAK Report Manager to automatically create and store landmark reports for every limo, every week.

Beyond solving the immediate problem, Aero-Quick can now monitor the progress of every vehicle in its fleet, and proactively notify customers if there will be a delay.

Setting up Landmarks in iTRAK Fleet Manager

There are two methods to set up landmarks in iTRAK Fleet Manager.

1. Manual Entry – In this method, you must first bring up a map of the area where the landmark is located. You can use the 'Find Address' feature if you aren’t sure exactly where to place the landmark. Next open the Add/Edit Landmarks dialogue box under the Landmarks menu. Every Landmark needs to have a name, a radius, and a center point. After assigning a name that is meaningful, enter a radius value. ((Most landmarks will have a radius of 0.05 to 0.10 miles.) Once all data has been entered, click on 'Update' and your landmark will appear on the map as a red circle.

2. Load Landmarks from a File – The manual entry method is handy for adding a few landmarks, but users with more than a few dozen landmarks will likely maintain and update a central landmark file. iTRAK Fleet Manager supports loading a file that may contain thousands of landmarks that are important to your business. The file must be in .csv or .xls format, and must contain the name and geographical coordinates of the landmark. From the Landmarks menu, select 'Load Landmarks from File,' browse to the folder containing your file, and click 'Open.' A dialog box will confirm how many landmarks have been loaded. Click on OK, and the process is complete. Remember that you can maintain different landmark files for different purposes (e.g., customers, vendors, drivers' homes, etc.), and when you load a new landmark file into iTRAK Fleet Manager, it will replace the existing file.

For more sophisticated management of landmarks and landmark files, try the new iTRAK Report Manager application, which has a built in landmark editor that allows editing and merging of landmark files. Also, if you have a file containing names and addresses that are critical to running your business, and need to set them up as landmarks, our technical support team can add latitude and longitude to the addresses, and even load the file for you. A nominal fee will be charged for file conversion.

For further details, contact technical support at 1-866-224-8725 or send email to technical.support@itrak.com.

Technical Tips – Optimizing your iTRAK Fleet Manager Experience

One of the underlying principles on which iTRAK Fleet Manager was developed is that it can be used by people who are not computer experts. After iTRAK Fleet Manager has been placed 'in production,' it is a good idea to check a few things on each user's computer to make sure everything will run at optimum speed and efficiency.

Here are a few hints for configuring your PC.

Updating the Java Plug-in: iTRAK Fleet Manager run as a Java Applet on your PC. The makers of the Java Plug-in, Sun Microsystems, are constantly making changes to improve its capabilities and functionality. Therefore, it is important to make sure your computers are loaded with the latest version. To check what version you are running, click on the 'Start' button, click on the 'Control Panel,' open the Java Control Panel (the Java icon appears as coffee cup symbol), and click on 'About.' The latest version as of January 2009 is 1.6.0_11. If your version is older, it is recommended that you download the newest version as follows. (If your computer is running Windows Vista, see 'Using iTRAK Fleet Manager with Windows Vista™' and do not perform this update.)

1. Click on link http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
2. Click on the 'Download' button for the 'Java SE Runtime Environment.'
3. Select your PC platform and accept the license agreement then click on the 'Continue' button.
4. Under 'Optional Files,' click on the 'Windows Online Installation' link and in the 'File Download' window, click on the 'Run' button.
5. Follow the online instructions to download and complete the Java Plug-in installation.

Java Applet Memory Allocation: For accounts with 40 or more units being tracked, it may be necessary to allocate more of your computer’s memory for Java Applets to effectively run large reports or view the Fleet Status Summary. To allocate more memory for Java Applets, complete the following steps:

1. From the Windows Start button, open Settings/ Control Panel.
2. Open the Java Control Panel. (The Java icon appears as coffee cup symbol).
3. Click on the 'Java' tab in the Java Control panel.
4. Click on the 'View…' button for the Java Applet Runtime Settings. Refer to the sample below.

5. Double click within the Java Runtime Parameters field and enter the following values:
   a. For PC with 1 GB of RAM, enter "-Xmx128m"
   b. For PC with 2 GB of RAM, enter "-Xmx256m"
   c. For PC with 4 GB of RAM, enter "-Xmx512m"
6. Changing the Java Runtime Parameters allocates more memory for Java Applets to run. In the example shown here, 160 MB of RAM was allocated for Java Applets.
7. Once you have entered the desired values, save the setting by clicking on the 'OK' button in the Java Runtime Settings window and then click the 'Apply' and 'OK' buttons in the Java Control Panel window.

Using iTRAK Fleet Manager with Windows Vista™: If your user PC is loaded with the Windows Vista operating system, you will need to make some additional configuration changes to ensure that all iTRAK Fleet Manager functions work correctly. Specifically, you may have trouble running reports or viewing the Fleet Status Summary. Also, depending on the specific PC, some Vista users will be unable to properly save reports after they have been run. This is due to a Vista feature called 'User Access Control' (UAC). To resolve these issues, complete the following steps:

1. If reports will not run or you cannot view the Fleet Status Summary, you need to remove all Java Plug-ins loaded on your PC and load Java Plug-in version 1.6.0_03. Here’s how:
   a. From the 'Start' button, go to the Vista 'Control Panel' and select 'Programs.'
   b. Scroll down to the Java Plug-ins and uninstall all versions.
   c. Browse to the Java website http://java.sun.com/products/archive/j2se/6u3/index.html and click on the 'Download JRE' link.
   d. Select your PC platform, review the license agreement, then click on the 'Continue' button.
   e. Under 'Optional Files' click on the 'Windows Online Installation' link and follow the instructions to install Java Plug-in version 1.6.0_03.
   f. When the installation is complete, log back into iTRAK Fleet Manager and verify that you are able to run reports and view the Fleet Status Summary.
   g. Return to the 'Java Control Panel,' and disable 'Check for Updates Automatically.'
2. If reports are not being saved properly to your local hard drive, you will need to disable a feature in Windows Vista called 'User Access Control” (UAC). To disable, go to the Vista “Control Panel,” open “User Accounts' and click the box to disable UAC.

** You must have administrator privileges to complete steps 1 and 2 above.

If you have any questions about the above configuration changes, contact our technical support team at 1-866-224-8725 or email them at technical.support@itrak.com.

Who's Who at iTRAK...

Admin Support – This dedicated group based at our headquarters handles a large number of different tasks, including new order processing and acceptance, questions relating to existing orders, new user set-up, fleet and unit changes, billing, and all other administrative issues. Call the admin staff at 1-866-694-8725 or email them at admin.support@itrak.com.

Technical Support – Rich Geving and his team will make sure you derive the maximum benefit from your iTRAK system. They can help with installation questions, answer technical questions, and help performance issues. Live hours are 6:00 AM - 5:00 PM Mountain Time, with on-call technicians available after hours. Call 1-866-224-8725 or email technical.support@itrak.com.

Sales Team – Based in regional offices throughout the U.S., our team of Regional Sales Managers stands ready to set up product demonstrations, provide current pricing, help calculate return on investment to justify your iTRAK purchase, and organize post-sales training. You can reach the sales team by calling 1-866-694-8725, or emailing itrak.sales@itrak.com

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