“How far out are they?” is the question you answer twenty times a week, and every answer costs a phone call to somebody driving. The live crew map answers it on screen.
It is off until you switch it on, and it is included on every paid plan.
1 Turn it on
In your settings, find the Live crew map card and turn on Share crew locations with the office.
Your crew sees a notice in the app the first time. Switching this on without telling anybody is the fastest way to make a good crew feel watched, so the app tells them for you.
2 Where you see it
Crew positions appear on the Dispatch map alongside the day’s jobs, so you are looking at where the work is and where the trucks are in the same picture.
3 Exactly when it records, and when it does not
This is the part to be precise about, because it is what your crew will ask and what you should be able to answer without hedging.
- Positions update about every ten minutes. It is not a second-by-second trace.
- It only records while the worker app is open and they have a job today. App closed, or a day with no work assigned, and nothing is sent.
- Nothing is recorded outside the working day.
- History is kept for 72 hours and then deleted automatically. There is no long-term movement record to go back through, because none is kept.
Turn the setting off and the app stops sending. The worker app checks the setting when somebody signs in and every time they bring the app back to the foreground, so switching it off takes effect within one app foregrounding rather than waiting for the end of the day. A phone sitting open and untouched is the one case where it can lag.
4 What it is genuinely for
Three things, and it is worth being honest that it is only good at these three:
- Answering the customer who wants to know when somebody is coming, without radioing the truck.
- Sending the nearest crew when a job gets added or moved mid-day.
- Settling a dispute about whether anybody turned up, together with the on-site check-in and the job photos.
What it is not good for is judging how hard somebody is working. A ten minute ping tells you a truck is at an address. It tells you nothing about the yard.
5 Talk to your crew before you switch it on
Have the conversation first. The honest version is short and it lands:
The office can see where the trucks are during the working day, so I can tell a customer when you will be there instead of ringing you. It is off outside working hours, it updates every ten minutes or so, and it is deleted after three days.
The Location Usage screen in the worker app states the app’s own behaviour, and anyone on your crew can read it without asking you. Point them at it. Somebody who has checked for themselves is far easier about this than somebody who was told not to worry.
If you are unsure whether to use it
Leave it off. It is genuinely optional, and a two-truck operation where you already know where everybody is gains nothing from it. Turn it on when the day comes that you cannot answer “how far out are they?” from memory.