AngelTrack can pull vehicle data from your RasTrac fleet management account, providing live vehicle geolocations for AngelTrack's use.
RasTrac is a brand of vehicle-tracking devices and associated software platform. It has an API by which AngelTrack can poll for live vehicle GPS positions, as well as telematics data like odometer reading and fuel level.
Configuration
To configure the AngelTrack-RasTrac integration, follow these steps:
- You must have a active RasTrac account.
- You must have an active AngelTrack add-on license for the "AVL Integrations" feature bundle.
- In your RasTrac account, issue a username for AngelTrack, with a Level 1 Password granting read access to your fleet data.
- Return to AngelTrack, go to Settings, and click on the AVL Integration item.
- Input the username and password from RasTrac into AngelTrack, and click "Save".
- Review all your vehicle records in AngelTrack to verify their VINs are present and correct. You can check them all quickly by exporting the grid from the Vehicles List page and finding the "VIN" column.
- Review all your vehicle records in RasTrac and likewise verify their VINS are present and correct.
That's all there is to it!
AngelTrack will begin polling RasTrac for your vehicle data within 40 minutes of completing the configuration steps above.
How It Works
When the RasTrac integration is active, AngelTrack polls RasTrac about once per minute for the state of your entire fleet. This data comes from the RasTrac devices installed in the vehicles.
For every vehicle that returns a valid state which is less than 20 minutes old, AngelTrack stores the new position in its own record for that vehicle. This matchup of RasTrac's fleet records with AngelTrack's vehicle records is done using VINs.
The position data then informs many other features in AngelTrack, including but not limited to:
- The "distance away" column on the Dispatch Assignment page;
- The mini-maps on the Dispatch Create, Dispatch Assign, and Dispatch Divert pages;
- The estimator arrows on the dispatch board;
- Crew member pins on the Live Map;
- Vertex's mid-day solves and suggester;
- Vertex's self-drive mode; and
- The vehicle locator mini-map in the Vehicle Edit page.
To learn more about crew and vehicle GPS tracking in AngelTrack, please visit the GPS Tracking Guide.
AngelTrack also retrieves fuel level and odometer information from RasTrac, where available, and uses it to augment its various displays of vehicle fuel level and current mileage.
Crew and Dispatch Helpers
The RasTrac integration also provides helpers for crew members who are running a call. When the integration is active, AngelTrack offers crew members a lightning-bolt icon that will dynamically retrieve their vehicle's current odometer reading, so they don't have to type it by hand.
AngelTrack offers similar lightning-bolt helpers to anyone recording a fuel purchase for the vehicle, or a maintenance event, and to any dispatcher who is ending a shift and wants to know the vehicle's odometer and fuel level.
The continuous odometer readings improve the accuracy of AngelTrack's estimates of fuel levels.
If your AVL devices provide fuel-level reports, then these will replace AngelTrack's fuel level estimates, providing exact data, rather than inferences which depend on accurate fuel purchase logs.
Monitoring
You can review each vehicle's position and latest-ping time by visiting its Vehicle Edit page, from your Vehicles List. The time of its latest ping is shown, and it will appear as a pin on the mini-map.
You can review all of your vehicles at once by visiting the GPS Beacon Status page, available from Supervisor Home.
If any problem occurs with the RasTrac integration, its error message will appear on the AVL Configuration page, available under Settings. AngelTrack's RasTrac downloader will automatically back-off for 4, 8, or 12 hours if an error occurs or if no data is returned, then automatically retry afterward.