AngelTrack can pull vehicle data from your Samsara fleet management account, providing live GPS positions for AngelTrack's use.
Samsara 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.
Configuration
To configure the AngelTrack-Samsara integration, follow these steps:
- You must have a active Samsara account with at least a Telematics license or a Safety license.
- You must have an active AngelTrack add-on license for the "AVL Integrations" feature bundle.
- In your Samsara account, issue an API token for AngelTrack's use. The API token must have the following Scopes: Vehicles, and Vehicle Trips.
- Return to AngelTrack, go to Settings, and click on the AVL Integration item.
- Input the API token from Samsara 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 Samsara and likewise verify their VINS are present and correct.
That's all there is to it!
AngelTrack will begin polling Samsara for your vehicle data within 40 minutes of completing the authentication steps above.
How It Works
When the Samsara integration is active, AngelTrack polls Samsara once per minute for the positions of your entire fleet. This data comes from the Samsara devices installed in the vehicles.
For every vehicle that returns a valid position which is less than 20 minutes old, AngelTrack stores the new position in its own record for that vehicle. This matchup of Samsara'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;
- The crew position 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 Samsara, where available, and uses it to augment its various displays of vehicle fuel level and current mileage.
Crew and Dispatch Helpers
The Samsara 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 Samsara integration, its error message will appear on the AVL Configuration page, available under Settings. AngelTrack's Samsara 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.