Our webinar Using Tracking To Grow Your Business was held on the 21st July 2021.

Tracking with Okappy’s Portal+ is all about supporting, accompanying and protecting your employees or subcontractors to help you grow your business.

During this webinar we discussed

• the benefits of tracking
• the various options available for tracking
• what to look out to ensure locations are sent

The event was sold out, follow us on Eventbrite and be the first to hear about any future events.

Following is the text of what was discussed.

But first, for those of you who don’t know who Okappy is

Okappy is a business 2 business connected workforce management platform which applies social and market networking technology to a real business need. The need to communicate and collaborate with your employees who are often at different locations (and now more than ever). With your subcontractors and with your customers.

By connecting on Okappy, we’re helping the most forward looking and dynamic companies increase transparency, reduce duplication, costs and errors and increase efficiency. Ultimately making a significant contribution to bottom line profits.

With Okappy,

• you can connect to your employees, customers and subcontractors.
• Send and receive jobs
• See the status of those jobs as they’re updated by your engineers and subcontractors
• Raise your invoices at the touch of a button

You can also monitor and protect your employees and better schedule your jobs using GPS tracking. This is what I’ll be covering in detail today.

Okappy was born out of a vehicle tracking company a few years ago. I’ve got a story share which really highlighted to me how tracking can be beneficial to all employees rather than a big brother surveillance to be feared.

It was when I first started work, I used to go along with the installers and take the opportunity to see our customers.

I remember on one such visit a long time ago I was sat high up in the cab of an articulated lorry while the installer was wiring the tracking unit. As I looked out across the yard I saw one of the truckers come steaming over to his cab. He was a big meaty guy with tatoos all up his arm. I was dreading what he was going to say.

Anyway the next minute, the cab door swings open and he gets in. As he was extending his arm he I was expecting an earfull.

So I was taken by surprise when he said

Hey mate, I want to shake your hand. Since we started installing the trackers our lives have improved no end. Before we’d have the boss ringing up all the time asking where we were and why we weren’t at the next dropoff. Now it’s peace and quiet all the way. He knows where we are so he’s not constantly calling, we can just get on with the job. It’s bliss.

One of the key benefits of GPS tracking is that everyone can see the location of your engineers. This means less stress and hassle for the office trying to figure out where you are or whether you’re stuck in traffic. And it means your engineers can get on with their work without having to field lots of calls from the office.

Knowing where you’re guys are also means you can assign jobs to those guys who are the closest or near to where they live. This can dramatically save fuel and time if they’re not having to come into the office.

Depending on your tracking device you can also further save fuel through better monitoring of routes and idling times. One of the big costs, particular with large vehicles is the amount of fuel which is used when the vehicle is idling. They have big batteries so there is not need for them to idle, the driver can still use the power but often they just forget to turn the ignition off.

The other benefit we hear a lot about is the improvements to customer service. I’m sure some of you have had the experience of an irate customer ringing up because you’re engineer has not turned up. Without tracking this would often mean having to call the customer back whilst you tried to figure out where you’re guy is. With tracking you can see straight way his last know location, and depending on settings even whether he is stuck in traffic.

This means you can provide proactive response to your customer rather than fobbing them off and having to call back later

Lone worker protection is also important for many roles, it’s a legal requirement. Particularly if you’re guys are on their own, or if they’re in remote or difficult locations. They can set tracking whilst they are on site and send message back to base if there is a problem.

Having an audit log of when engineers get on site or leave site is also often critical. Some customers demand it, even where they don’t its often useful if weeks later there’s a dispute about an invoice and by that time what happened is long forgotten.

With Okappy you have control over how and when location information is sent.

The spectrum goes from the left with no tracking to having tracking on all the time. Depending on the tracking device or settings, that could be updated as often as every 15 seconds although every couple of minutes is generally enough.

If you don’t need the location all the time then you can leave tracking off by default but turn it on for a specific time i.e., when you’re guys are at a particular site.

Alternatively, you can store the location and time stamp every time a job is updated. This may be required by your own customer or it might be useful as an audit trail to answer questions or protect against disputes down the line.

So how do you set when locations are sent.

You have control over various settings from within the app and also from the web portal.

From within the app, to get to the settings screen, click the Okappy icon, More and then Tracking Settings.

The device name is what shows on the radar screen on the app and from the web. Please note that if the app is deleted and re-installed then this could result in you seeing the app twice. You can show, hide or delete apps and I’ll show you that in a sec.

You can also see the unique key which can help debug issues with the device and is also how the system determines whether it is a new device. Unfortunately with both Apple and Google really focusing on privacy nowadays the unique can change from time to time and that is why you may see multiple devices set up even though your only expecting one device to be set up.

If the device doesn’t have a network connection, then the device will store locations in memory and send them (from oldest to newest) once it has a connection. You can determine how many locations are saved before the app will start overwriting the oldest locations.

You can set whether the application sends its location based on time or distance. One thing to note, to converse power and reduce data, even if you choose to send based on time, if the device has not moved, then it the app won’t be allowed to send another location. This is determined by the operating system and is outside of the control of the app.

A couple of options which are not shown in the screenshot is to always track and to keep the application open so it doesn’t turn off when you’re not using it. This is useful if you’re using your hands but want to keep the display on so you can read job information or look out for updates.

From all the mobile apps you can see whether the device is trying to send its location or not by the colour of the Okappy icon.

On the left the app is trying to send its location, on the right its switched off.
To turn tracking on or off, click the Okappy icon then click Start or stop sending locations.

If the app is set to track by default, you can turn the tracking off say at the weekend. It will stop tracking but will start again one you turn the app back on.

From all the mobile apps you can see whether the device is trying to send its location or not by the colour of the Okappy icon.

On the left the app is trying to send its location, on the right its switched off.
To turn tracking on or off, click the Okappy icon then click Start or stop sending locations.

If the app is set to track by default, you can turn the tracking off say at the weekend. It will stop tracking but will start again one you turn the app back on.

See the location on the radar screen – just to note, the radar screen shows the latest location. If the device hasn’t transmitted for whatever reason, and we’ll talk about some of those reasons in a bit then it will be the last known location of the device.

You can click on any of the devices to zoom in or out and you can also change tracking settings from there as well as delete or hide the device.

On the left you’ve got three icons. The top one in particular is useful. If you click on that you can see all your devices, hover over each of them to see when they last transmitted and click on the name to zoom into that devices location.

You can see the time and location where the job was updated.

Clicking on the location will open the location in Google maps.

To turn the setting on or off.

• Click the connections icon at the top of the screen and then
• choose the Employee tab.
• Select your employee, and
• click Employee settings.

In the employee settings window, scroll down to where you see Save locations with timestamp when jobs are updated and check that on or off.

You’ve also got various reports on the web. Some of them are more relevant if you’ve got an installed device. The vehicles /device details report is useful if you want to know which devices are on your account and what their status is.

The device report shows all the devices on your account.

You can see the device type and version (and whether the software version it out of date)

You can see whether the device is visible on the map, you can check the box to show or hide it.

Depending on device type, you can also change the device settings from the report.

You can delete the device.

Note: Devices get created automatically by the system. So if you have deleted the device and it then sends its location, the system will add it back on to your account. This is also why you sometimes get multiple devices for the same person. If they are logging onto the app on different devices or if the devices unique identifier changes (which it can do for various reasons and more and more given the privacy updates that Apple in particular is pushing)

Privacy is a increasing important and is becoming increasing important and is one that both Apple and Google take seriously.

Our app will try and get the location and send the location but it is ultimately down to the phone. If you’re engineer has turned off permissions, if there is no network or if the battery is low then our app won’t be able to send its location.

We do have a handy troubleshooting guide which you can use, I’ll include a link to that at the end.

It’s also important to note that subcontractors aren’t tracked in Okappy. A subcontractor is a company and so could have multiple engineers working. However, if the option to store the location and timestamp is enable then this will get captured in the audit log.

On iOS the easiest way to get to the app settings is from within Okappy.

• Click the Okappy icon,
• Select More and then,
• click Device Settings for App.

Android is a bit more convoluted and depends on your particular phone or version.

But if you open the settings apps, click on Apps and then find Okappy. Then you go into the all the settings from there. In particular ensure the permissions are all set as Ok.

Allowing all permissions makes is easier to see whats going on with your app.

To recap, we talked about some of the benefits of tracking i..e, reducing mileage and fuel costs, providing proactive customer service, increasing productivity of engineers through less interruption and also for lone worker protection

We talked about the different tracking options from no tracking to always tracking and a couple of options in between i.e., sending tracking locations for a period of time or when a job is updated

Finally we talked about some of the issues which may mean devices don’t transmit. Including low power, no gps, no network or a user turning off permissions which is becoming more and more prevalent with the changes that both Apple and Google have been introducing.

There’s lots of information on our help and support pages including help articles, questions and answers and videos.

Here’s some links to articles which we have covered today.

• https://www.okappy.com/support
• https://www.okappy.com/support/gps-tracker/
• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/troubleshooting-device-tracking/
• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/mobile-gps-tracking-options/

Thanks once again for attending our webinar. I hope you found it useful.

Our next topic is going to be about Advanced reporting on the 22nd September 2021.

Thank you!

Okappy is a business 2 business connected workforce management platform which applies social and market networking technology to a real business need. The need to communicate and collaborate with your employees who are often at different locations (and now more than ever). With your subcontractors and with your customers.

Okappy helps the most forward looking and dynamic companies increase transparency, reduce duplication, costs and errors and increase efficiency. Ultimately making a significant contribution to bottom line profits.

With Okappy, you can connect to your employees, customers and subcontractors.  Send and receive jobs and see the status of those jobs as they’re updated by your engineers and subcontractors out in the field.

Once the job is complete, you can raise your invoices at the touch of a button.

1. Building your network on Okappy Portal+
2. Creating and editing your own job templates
3. Adding files, images, signatures and other documents

We chose these three top tips as that’s where we get the most interest.

People are interested in the network as it’s a new way of doing business. It’s helping the most forward looking for companies reduce duplication and errors. It’s helping them provide the best customer service and real time reporting to their own customers and it’s helping them streamline their processes when managing employees and subcontractors.

People are interested in building their own templates. It’s a relatively new feature and allows companies to really fit Okappy around their specific requirements. And I’ll talk more about how different use this functionality in different ways,

Finally, we talk about adding files, images and signatures. Although a lot of our customers get up to speed quickly with adding attachments to jobs. There is actually a lot more you can do with Okappy. You can add documents to customers, employees and subcontractors which could include things like copies of insurance certificates or contractors which means you always have information close to hand. In addition, there’s more ways you can retrieve that information which I’ll take you through in a bit.

Okappy is unique in that it’s always been built around a connected network approach. While other workforce management systems may work well internally, they quickly fall down when other companies are involved in the work.

And in this day and age, companies don’t work in isolation. With outsourcing, with specialist knowledge and equipment more and more companies collaborate. In fact, a Gartner research report said that by this year almost half or all work will be done by engineers and technicians not directly employed by you.

This can cause issues and we hear a lot about the duplication of information between different company’s systems. We hear about the hassle of providing reports to customers and their increasing demands to get the reports more quickly. We also here a about the mistakes, delays and missed jobs caused by having to copy information from one system to another.

With Okappy’s Portal+ network, you can connect to your customers and subcontractors. You can receive work from your customers or add work on their behalf and you can assign that work to your employees or subcontractors.

Everyone involved in that work can see the latest status of the job which means your customers don’t have to chase you and you don’t need to chase your employees or subcontractors.

It also means information is kept up to date, if your customers updated their contacts details the change is immediately available to you. Likewise, if you update your details that information is shared with your network.

So how do you build your network.

To send a connect request, simply

• click the connection icon towards the top right of the screen
• Enter your customer’s details, and
• Send the invite.

They’ll be notified that you want to connect.

If they accept your invitation, they can log in and view their own account which is completely independent from yours. They can add jobs and assign them to you, or you can add jobs on their behalf which they can see. However, they can’t see any of your other jobs. They also can’t see which employees or subcontractors is doing the work. This ensure privacy and leaves you in control of the work.

• Reduced duplication
• No more missed jobs
• Reduce chasing of emails and calls
• See the latest contact details
• Provide the best customer service

You can also save documents for your customers which will talk more about later.

You can add notes for your customer, get your invoices seen and paid quicker including taking payment.

Management gurus often talk about looking at your customers base to see which companies add to your profit and which add to your costs.  Consultants will often tell you that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. With Okappy you can run various reports on how to see which work you did for which companies.

You can also search for other companies on the Okappy network so you can actually find new customers or subcontractors when you’re ready to grow.

You can connect to subcontractors in the same way that you connect to customers.

To send a connect request, simply

• Click the connection icon towards the top right of the screen
• Enter your subcontractors’ details, and
• Send the invite.

They’ll be notified that you want to connect.

Like customers they can only see the jobs that have been assigned to you. The information they see is also restricted, they cannot see who your customer is so you don’t need to worry that they’ll try and cut you out of the leep.

One important difference between customers and subcontractors is that subcontractors have to accept your invite before you can assign jobs to them. This is an important distinction as you want to know that your subcontractor has receive your work and is going to act on it.

• Reduced duplication
• No more missed jobs
• Reduce chasing of emails and calls
• See the latest contact details
• Manage your subcontractors more easily

You can also save documents for your subcontractors which will talk more about later.

You can add notes for your subcontractor, get your invoices seen and paid quicker including taking payment.

You can also analyze how your subcontractors are working and compare them to your employees.

You can also search for other companies on the Okappy network so you can find new customers or subcontractors when you’re ready to grow.

Our second top tip is around creating job templates

This is a new feature on Okappy is the ability to create and edit your own job templates. Our aim with Okappy has always been to keep it simple so if you’re on the coal face you’re not having to think what fields you need to fill in and what information is required.

When you add and update a job it was always based around a template. But in the past, we had to create those templates for you manually which takes time, is costly to you and can lead to errors. A couple of years ago we started work on new functionality to enable you to easily create your own templates. Once your templates are created you can edit them.

We continue to develop the template builder to make it easier and simpler to use. We’ve also added new field types to the check sheets so you can choose from dropdowns, checkboxes, text areas and others.

We’ve seen lots of companies get creative in how they use the template functionality including adding templates for different reasons such as holiday check forms or even covid notifications. We’ve seen some complex check sheets including inventory checks and gas and electrical certificates.

To create a template

• Click job options from within the job’s dashboard.
• Select create new template
• You can then create a template scratch,
• copy an existing template including from our library templates, or
• purchase the configuration option in which case we’ll create the template for you.

The template builder is split into 4 key sections.

You’ve got the header and footer which will be on all the jobs done with that template
You’ve got the template settings which includes things like what information is automatically pulled into the invoice and when the different job dashboard alerts start to flash

Then you have the main job section which is typically filled out when adding the job and can include things like the contact’s name, address and job description
Finally, you can add check sheets at various stages of the job. When you’re engineers first look at the job, when they have done the work and once the job has been complete.

There’s also lots of help and support including a step-by-step video on our support site > jobs > creating customer job templates.

The template builder is split into 4 key sections.

1. The header and footer which will be on all the jobs done with that template
2. Template settings which includes things like what information is automatically pulled into the invoice and when the different job dashboard alerts start to flash
3. The main job section which is typically filled out when adding the job and can include things like the contact’s name, address and job description
4. Check sheets which can be added at various stages of the job. When your engineers first look at the job, when they have done the work and once the job has been complete.

Our final top tip is about adding images, files and other attachments on Okappy

A lot of you will know that you add images, photos, videos, documents and signature to a job. This is used more and more to demonstrate to customers what has been done and provide information for future work.

It means the files are easily accessible and all in one place rather than having search through WhatsApp, email etc.

They are available in real-time so the office can see the files as soon as they’ve been updated, likewise the engineer can view the files from their phone or tablet.

Images can be added from the office or by your engineers out in the field.

They are available to everyone in real-time.

From the web

• To add documents to a job, simply click the three dots next to the relevant job
• A new window will be shown. You can drag and drop your file into that window or locate the file on your computer.
• You can also add a file from within a job. To do that click the upload file icon towards the top left of the screen.
• Then you can again either drag and drop your file or locate it

From within a job

• To add documents to a job, simply click the three dots next to the relevant job
• A new window will be shown. You can drag and drop your file into that window or locate the file on your computer.
• You can also add a file from within a job.  To do that click the upload file icon towards the top left of the screen.
• Then you can again either drag and drop your file or locate it

Your engineers can also add documents, files and images to a job when they are out and about. To do that,

• Select the job
• Click the plus icon
• Select Add document or Add photo.

You also have control over how the image is uploaded, Either in the background which allows you to carry on editing work or in line.

One thing to note that if you do upload the file in the background, if you close the app then how the image gets uploaded will depend on the phone rather than our app. Apple restricts uploads say if the battery is low or if the network is poor.

Android is like iOS apart from a few subtle differences. To upload a job on Android

• Again, select the job
• Click the Okappy icon this time
• Select Add document or Add photo.

Once you have a document or attachment on a job. You can also copy the attachments when you’re copying the job. That makes it really easy to have a job which always has a specific document i..e, a RAMS doc

To do that, copy the job and ensure the Copy any attachments icon is selected.

Likewise on the mobile app to copy a job and any attachments

• Click the Plus icon
• Select Copy job
• Update the details
• Turn the Copy any attachments switch to on

Likewise on the mobile app to copy a job and any attachments

• Click the Okappy icon
• Select Copy job
• Update the details
• Turn the Copy any attachments switch to on

You can also add documents to invoices and to your customers, subcontractors and employees.

To add a document to your customer.

• Go to the Connections screen
• Select Customer
• Find the relevant customer
• Click the Documents link
• Click Add documents.

You can also view any documents for that customer from the same link

You can also add documents to invoices and to your customers, subcontractors and employees.

To add a document to your customer.

• Go to the Connections screen
• Select Subcontractor
• Find the relevant subcontractor
• Click the Documents link
• Click Add documents.

You can also view any documents for that subcontractor from the same link

You can also add documents to invoices and to your customers, subcontractors and employees.

To add a document to your customer.

• Go to the Connections screen
• Select Employees
• Find the relevant employee
• Click the Documents link
• Click Add documents.

You can also view any documents for that employee from the same link

• https://www.okappy.com/support

• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/information-visibility
• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/employees-or-subcontractors-what-is-the-difference

• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/creating-job-templates
• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/add-documents-to-your-jobs
• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/taking-photos-and-capturing-signatures

• https://www.okappy.com/support-article/adding-and-storing-employee-documents

Leave your details above and we’ll send out a copy of the slides. We’re also interested to hear of any other topics you may like to hear about for future webinars.