Getting Started

This is a quick start into using the Platform effectively.

Common Terminology

• Platform – used to refer to the actual tracking page, system or portal
• Device – electronic equipment that’s installed in cars primarily for fleet management
• Events – whenever the device pings the server or reports, it sends an ‘event’.  This event generally has location info, but it can also include other info such as engine data or photos.
• Asset – an asset is generally referred to a person or individual that can be tracked and assigned to vehicles
• Vehicles – primary tracking unit that the platform monitors
• Entities – refers to any vehicles or assets
• Modules – used to refer to the mini applications inside the system, such as tracking, trips, alerts, etc
• Widgets – sections inside the modules with different functionalities
• Automation – the name of the module where notifications (triggers) are created
• Triggers – also known as alerts or notifications, they can use a combination of conditions and make many actions happen
• Taurus – mobile application that’s used to track the phone’s location

Home page

On the home page you can click on the forgot password link to send a password reset link to your email. You can also stay logged into the system by clicking on the Remember me button.

Once logged in you can change the preferences of your system by clicking on the person icon in the upper right hand corner and clicking Preferences.

Once you’ve set the preferences you will find the menu to the different apps on the upper left hand corner.  If you don’t have access to any of the apps please contact your site administrator.

The tracking module is used to monitor any number of vehicles or assets in real-time! It can provide insights on the operation of your fleet and give you the information you’re looking for fast.

The first thing we want to do is click on the    button, this opens a panel that lets us select the Groups, assets, or Vehicles we want to monitor.  You can click on the   icon anytime to open the entities selector dialog.

Once you have selected your entities the map will adjust to fit them all based on their last known location.  The entities have the following icons to demonstrate their status

– stationary or parked and it’s OFFLINE

– stationary or parked and it’s ONLINE

– moving but it’s OFFLINE

– moving and it’s ONLINE

Although the devices tend to stay ONLINE the majority of the time, it is normal for them to go OFFLINE, this can happen for many reasons, but the most common are that there is little / no coverage in that location, or there’s network congestion in the area, or the device is entering it’s Low Energy Usage mode (Sleep Mode) momentarily, etc.

Search, Group and Zone Filters

After selecting the entities we need we can search for a specific one by writing the name of the vehicle or asset.  We can also click on the  icon to filter by a specific group of vehicles, or the   icon to filter by a particular zone/geofence.

Advanced Filters

On the bottom left we have the  icon which is used to further filter the list of entities.  Clicking on it opens a bottom panel with different possible filters, such as: Ignition ON, Photo, Low Battery Level.  You can combine the filters to, so for example you could see a list of all entities with No Power, No GPS, and are Offline all at the same time.

Switching Views & Sorting

Using the  icon along the bottom, you can switch from 4 views that will show you different information about your entities.  In all 4 views you will see the name of the Entity on the top left, if that entity is inside a geofence underneath, and the last known address of that entity underneath that.  You can switch from:

• Zen / Minimalistic – shows the state of the entity, and it’s last communication, the goal of this view is to keep the content minimal so any icon signifies a critical warning or something that needs attention.  Hover over the icons for more information.

• Location Info – this shows you ignition state as well as the current location related information of your entity, including the current speed they’re traveling at, how long it’s been moving or parked, and the quality of the GPS information.

• Asset – this view shows any asset or vehicle that is associated to the entity.  So for example if you linked your Taurus App to a vehicle the driver would show in this view.  The asset can also come from a valid iButton identification, RFID tag, Bluetooth Tag, or Fingerprint ID.

• IOs & Accessory – this view shows the status of your entity’s inputs & outputs, as well as the other accessory information.  Works with Photos, Fuel Sensor, ECU monitor, Temperature Sensor & more.

You can sort by clicking on the   icon, this will bring up a selector where you can choose to sort ascending / descending and to update automatically. You can sort by time, trip state, online, name, and speed.

Navigating the Map

There are icons on the map that help you with the navigation of your entities. You can click on the  icon to ungroup entities that are too close together.  You can click click on  icon to fit the view of the currently filtered list of vehicles. The  icon is used to make the map full screen.  On the bottom right there’s buttons to zoom in and out of the map.

Address & Geofence Lookups 

The search on the upper right hand side is used to find an address or a geofence, there’s a line separator that divides both sections.

Exploration Mode & Nearby

Clicking on the  icon next to the Search will show you more options, one of these is the exploration mode.  Exploration mode can be used to find an address on the map and the entities that are near it.  Activate the mode by clicking on the  icon and click anywhere on the map, on the dialog you can then click on the  icon to search for entities within 10km of that point.

Changing the Map Type

You can change the map provider between Open Street Maps or Google Maps. To change the map type click on the more menu  and go to the settings  icon. Select the map type you’d like and save your results by clicking on the  icon.  Note that this changes the map of the other modules like Trips & Geofences.

VEHICLE CARDS  

Vehicle Dashboard & Cards

Once you double click on the entity you want to view you will see that entity’s dashboard view.  In the dashboard there are different cards that will give you information on the live status of that entity.  There’s a card for:

• Alerts – view the unattended alerts for this entity
• Pin Drop / Safe Zone – manage a virtual fence around the entity, and be informed when the entity leaves
• Live Info and Events – view the last reported events
• Trip History – view a history of where the entity has been in the last 3 days
• Asset/Vehicle – view any currently assigned entity such as the information of the vehicle or asset.
• Photos – see the last photo captured and its location & time.
• Features – manipulate the devices’ features such as the Safe Engine Immobilization or activate a different output.
• Sensors & Inputs – view the state of any connected inputs & sensors
• Metrics – see information relevant to the odometer or total engine on time

as well as these cards there’s also different widgets or sections in the  menu with information about:

• Details – view the entity’s details and it’s properties 

Events List 

The events list is where you see the device’s last generated messages, these events can be generated when the device detects the vehicle’s ignition is ON, or the vehicle speeds too much, etc.

Safe Zone 

The safe zone is a feature that creates a virtual fence or perimeter around your entity and can notify you via email the next time that perimeter is breached.  It can also perform automatic actions when the fence is breached, such as activating the Safe vehicle Immobilization feature.

On the map you can tell when a vehicle has violated its safe zone because the icon will change to red and pulsate.

Viewing the History

The history view inside of tracking is meant to show you the last 3 days worth of trips quickly.  When you click on history you will see an overview of the last trips the entity performed.  Clicking on the trip will show you it’s path on the map, you can click on the right icon  to get more details on that particular trip.  Click on the back arrow to go back to the list of trips.

Just like in the vehicle list, you can switch the information that’s shown in the list of trips by clicking on the switch icon on the bottom . Some of the information that’s shown includes the max speed for the trip, as well as the amount of time spent over the speed limit, the time spent in idle, or the amount of fuel consumed.

From the list of trips you can also only view the stops that were made or both the trips and stops using the  icons along the bottom.

Vehicle Details

Under the  menu you will see details which shows you more information about the details of the entity selected.

The QR code in this section is used by the Taurus app for vehicle assignment / linking.

ECU or Engine Data

This section will show you the engine’s data if you have an ECU monitor connected to your vehicle.

Map Navigation

Besides the map icons seen in the vehicle list, there are also similar icons in the vehicle dashboard as well as some new ones with different interactions.

– fit all the entities from the vehicle list into view

– group or cluster entities that are near each other

– follow the entity as it moves

– bring the entity back to focus on it in the map

– show all the entities from the list in the map

To get started simply select one or many entities from the selector, and a time range by clicking “Today” along the bottom of the selector.

Next, click on the button “GET” to retrieve the trips.

 Browsing

The list of trips can be changed to show only   trips or  stops or both. To do so simply click on the icons along the bottom to switch between views.

You can also select a different metric to view for every trip by clicking the  icon.

For every trip there are metrics for:

• Ignition (time & percentage)
• Speeding (max & time)
• Idling (time & percentage)
• Acceleration (most aggressive acceleration/deceleration)
• Driver
• Fuel efficiency
• Fuel consumed / wasted

Depending on how many days you selected you’ll be able to scroll left and right through those days and quickly see where the vehicle was that day.

Map

The map shows the paths and a pin marker with a letter that represents the stops the entity made.

These markers and paths can be different colors depending on whether only one day is being viewed, then every trip is a different color. If there’s multiple days selected then there’s a different color per day.

Keep in mind that the stop markers have letters of the alphabet that are in chronological order according to where they were first.

So for example in the view below we can see that the vehicle traveled on August 5 from A->B->C which happened on a trip going north.

Calendar

The calendar can be pulled up at any time, just by clicking on an entity and clicking on the  icon next to the date range or from the toolbar.

Calendar shows you a daily summary of the metric selected. You can select different metrics and the calendar will update accordingly.

You can also view totals for a range selected, just click on the  icon and you’ll have two tabs that show you the totals for the range selected on the calendar, and the entire month.

Browse trips summary

The summary of the trips list can give you a quick look at the totals for the selected time range. You can expand the list by clicking on the expand icon and this will give you all the available metrics.

Tip: you can select your most important metrics from the list by clicking on the star to favorite them. Up to 5 items can be favorited at a time.

Event details

The detailed event view can be seen from

Graphs

The graphs along the bottom of the trips synchronize with the data that you view on the map.  In other words you can navigate the different metrics and click on them and they will load the corresponding trips.

Stacking graphs

You can stack the metrics graphs by clicking on the  icon from the dropdown menu list on the graph.

Once the graphs are stacked, you’ll have the following options to choose from.

• NEW – adds a new graph to the list
• SHOW ALL – displays all the metrics available
• KEEP FIRST – goes back to normal, single 1 chart view.
• – Zoom out, which makes the graphs smaller
• – Zoom in, which makes the graphs larger
• – makes the graph area full screen

Here’s what it looks like to zoom out and go full screen.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps can be enabled by going to the detailed view of a trip and clicking the  icon in the toolbar. This will show you with shades of colors (lowest) light blue -> green -> yellow -> orange -> red (highest) a representation of the metric selected on the bottom chart. In other words if the altitude parameter is selected, it will show you in red where the highest altitude was, and in light blue where the lowest altitude was.

Tips: For maximum visibility you’ll want to remove the trip path, you can do this by clicking on the number of the trip, you may also consider changing the map to a black and white version.