Extensive Reporting
Reporting starts from simple but comprehensive standard reports to user defined reports. The standard reports cover operational and financial aspect of job dispatch and vehicle usage. The reports can be accessed via the web or scheduled to be sent to management via mail. Event based reports can be sent via mail or SMS to notify management when exceptions are raised. All reports are also available in Excel format to enable further analysis.
Contact Management
The system allows for two types of Contacts. These are:
System Level Contacts
System level contacts are generic contacts that exist for all mobile users. They are maintained centrally and can be pushed out to all mobile devices when required. System Level contacts also include the contact numbers for the day’s jobs. This will provide a single button to dial out to the customer.
Personal / End User Contacts
Depending on a configuration setting, users can have their own personal contacts stored on the mobile device. These are not replicated in any way and are maintained by the individual user on the mobile device. The contacts are stored on permanent storage in order to safeguard against inadvertent deletion such as if a user initiates a “hard reset” on the mobile device.
User Defined Job Statuses
The system contains four basic job statuses. These are Accepted, Enroute, At Scene and Finished. These statuses cannot be deleted but a user can decide to include other statuses. These can be combined with User Defined Forms in order to reflect the business processes more closely. An example of this would be a “Job Started” and “Job Finished” status which would allow the time to complete a job to be calculated for billing purposes.
User Defined Forms
Our experience in implementing Fleet Management solutions has led us to realise that user requirements are different and to cater for this we have implemented user defined forms. The concept behind this technology is that we allow the user to design not only the layout of the form but also the sequence in which forms are brought up. In practice user defined forms allow different clients to turn the standard
DispatchIT
functionality into their own specific environment, which closely replicates the business processes already in place. This makes it easier for the end-users to learn how to use the mobile devices because they are familiar with the information being entered. Also, information is more accurate because it is captured at source, reducing the need for back office personnel to further augment the data.
An extension of the user defined forms is the ability for users to create user defined fields. This function basically allows users to change the type of information being stored in the database, without calling in Datatrak employees. This combined with the Multilanguage option allows users to tweak the interface further to resemble their normal working environment.
Client Administration
Practically all the different objects within the system can be maintained by the client. The system allows the client administrator to add, edit or delete all of the client information available. The tables that a client can maintain include:
- Mobile Devices
- Driver Statuses
- Vehicles
- Users/Drivers
- Products
- Job Priorities
- Job Definitions
- Job Statuses
- Customers
- Branches
- Messages
- Contracts
- Competencies
