zest : track article base
This is one of a selection of general interest articles relating to the application of GPS tracking.
To find out more about how Zest Tracking helps its clients to exploit GPS tracking, whether it is for vehicle tracking, mobile phone, or Blackberry tracking or dedicated tracking units please explore the rest of this site, or contact us for an informal discussion
What our clients say...
"
The improvement in functionality over our previous system is amazing ...we
have identified one vehicle in our fleet that was costing us £15 per week in unauthorized journeys.
None of this would have been possible without the Quartix system from Zest tracking."
Ricky Dudderidge, Founder Elanar Technical Services Read More...
Blackberry Tracking
Blackberry GPS Software - How to Track Your Staff Working Away From the Office
There are many business applications where a knowledge of the location of a workforce can deliver tangible benefits in terms of efficiency gains and cost savings, not to mention duty-of-care applications. With GPS enabled mobile phones such as Blackberries becoming more widespread, then the cost and convenience of tracking individual employees is so low that it is close to becoming a commodity with a stronger than ever business case for adoption.
Many businesses now equip their people with Blackberry mobile phones so that they can work effectively away from the office. Many Blackberry models now have GPS capabilities built into the handset itself. For the user, this brings access to a range of useful location based services such as interactive maps and the ability to conduct searches that give results based on your current location.
Track Your Workforce Using their Mobile Phone or Blackberry!
Zest : trak™ enables you to keep updated on your staff's whereabouts using their GPS enabled Blackberry or Mobile phone.
Read more about our Blackberry™ & Mobile Phone Tracking
In many businesses, it can be helpful to be able to quickly establish where their individual employees are, or even be able to monitor how long they have spent at a particular site. There are now a number of companies offering a small software download for Blackberries and other smart-phones that can communicate the GPS location information from the handset to a central tracking server. This data can then be made available to authorised individuals in a variety of ways such as via a web browser or a more sophisticated tracking console application. The data can also be made available to a company’s business systems.
The Blackberry GPS software typically has a small footprint meaning that it can run in the background without any impact on the normal operation of the phone. In some cases the software can even be installed and configured remotely, so that there is no need for the user to bring the phone to a central team to initiate the process.
A key benefit of using a Blackberry or indeed other smart-phone as the tracking device as opposed to a dedicated GPS tracking unit is that there is no need to issue people with a dedicated tracking device, which not only saves money (both in terms of the cost of the device and also in terms of not needing a second mobile data service), but also saves the user from having to worry about keeping the GPS tracking device charged up, and of course, remembering to wear or carry it at all times.
The use of Blackberry mobile tracking can help to make a mobile workforce more effective and also enable the business to react effectively to a change in circumstances (such as enabling you to find out who is the nearest employee to a given location). Over time, you can also build up a good understanding of the time it takes your people to complete different types of activities on location, which can lead to more effective planning and costing.
It is also widely reported that employees are likely to work more diligently and productively if they know that their employer has the capability to follow their movements. Moreover, when on the move, it is possible to monitor the speed at which the user is travelling, and to set alarms that will report when a specified speed is exceeded, or the phone travels outside of a defined area.
For lone workers, particularly those in occupations that may occasionally put them at risk, then the added security that they can raise an alarm and know that their position can be accurately found is enormously valuable.
To conclude, the cost of exploiting the GPS capability of a smart-phone or Blackberry device to enable an organisation to track the location of their employees, whether for efficiency benefits of to provide safeguards for lone workers is now so inexpensive that it opens up new opportunities in organisations that would have previously considered this technology too costly to consider.