Geofence alerts are incredibly valuable, however they're an often underutilized technology in fleet management.

These alerts, which are enabled by real-time GPS sensors and cloud-based analytics, send notifications when people, vehicles, or assets arrive or leave a specific location. They're typically used in "smart home" technologies, such as toggling alarms and lights when homeowners arrive and depart.

Samsara's geofence alerts are set by location and time- you are notified if a vehicle enters or exits a location for a certain period of time. You can customize the geofence area by drawing your area of interest on a map with a box, circle, or freehand.

All Samsara Alerts, including Geofence alerts, allow you to configure who gets the alert, how they get it (email or SMS), and during what times they should receive the alert. This means alerts are relevant because the right person, on the right team, during the right shift, will receive the alert.

You can do a lot with all this customization. Here are a few novel ways to use Geofence Alerts to build more efficient operations.

Detect Theft

You should be confident your vehicles are not moving outside of working hours. Use the circle geofence to set a perimeter around your parking lot or warehouse and you'll know instantly if vehicles are moving out of the area when they shouldn't.

Track Unauthorized Employee Vehicle Use

It's helpful to keep tabs on how employees are using vehicles, both on and off the clock. Set up geofence alerts around your drivers' hours and you’ll know if they're using vehicles to run errands off the clock.

Reduce Loading and Unloading Time

When vehicles sit idle at the loading dock they are wasting time and money. Improve your fleet's productivity by setting up geofence alerts to notify the dock team when a vehicle is approaching. They can plan for the vehicle and stage cargo, so they'll load, unload, and get vehicles back on the road faster.

Using Samsara, Bellas Landscaping eliminated the time drivers would sit idle, waiting for materials to be prepared for loading, and also minimized the time that workers waited for materials at job sites.

With Samsara, we can see when trucks are en route back to our facility, and we can have an operator ready to load materials when they arrive.

ADAM BELLAS, CO-OWNER, BELLAS LANDSCAPING

Notify Customers Of Approaching Delivery

If you make regular deliveries to a set of customers, add them to your address book and alert them when their shipments are about to arrive. Simply draw a radius around the customer location and set the customer as the alert recipient.

Samsara customers are using Geofence and other Samsara Alerts in all kinds of interesting ways to run their fleets more efficiently. Ready to set up Geofence Alerts? Just click here for step-by-step instructions