What Are Landmarks?
Landmarks are virtual boundaries drawn around specific properties or geographic areas in order to make the GPS tracking activity in those locations more identifiable.
What Do Landmarks Accomplish?
Every time the fleet tracking device crosses over the landmark boundaries the action is noted within the records, allowing for both reports and alerts regarding this information. Two common examples of this use case would be placing a landmark around the company office to better track when vehicles arrive and depart from home base and setting a boundary around a customer location to confirm service.
Landmarks are also extremely useful for monitoring areas where vehicles shouldn’t go, such as taking company vehicles back to employee homes or using the vehicles to moonlight for a competitor. Landmarks will make these events much easier to identify when reviewing the tracking data.
With Landmarks in place, Alerts can not only be targeted to specific vehicle behaviors to specific locations as well. For example monitoring if a vehicle enters a parking lot AND speeds through it.
*Note: Landmarks are not compatible with Asset Tracking devices, with the exception of the TopFly Solar Powered Asset Tracker. Landmarks can be used in conjunction with TopFly devices.
How Are Landmarks Created?
Landmarks are created under Map Utilities. GPS Trackit recommends setting the map to Satellite view for this process.
Select Landmarks under Map Utilities. Landmarks are created via the Wrench icon, known as Manage Landmarks. Click the black plus button to begin.
Landmarks can be either Polygons, Circles or Squares. The first type will be a Circle. Each landmark needs a unique name. The system won’t permit the same name to be used twice.
Landmarks are indicated on the map by a colored icon. The default selection is a purple flag. Both the color and the icon can be customized. To keep the flag and change the color, click on the flag icon. Color selections will now appear. Simply click to select. The blue ‘Choose Icon’ button can be used for this purpose as well.
Tags are used to organize the Landmarks. Tags are created in the Account tab. If not using Tags select Default in the Tag field.
Next the location of the Landmark needs to be established. The options are to search an address, click directly on the map, select the current location of a particular unit or search a specific latitude/longitude. When searching an address or unit location, a pin will appear on the map in that location. If necessary the pin can be dragged and dropped to refine the location. If choosing Map Click, no pin will appear until the map is clicked on.
If choosing a Circle for the Landmark, a radius must be set. The options range from 50 feet to 1050 miles. By default the initial radius will be set to 50 feet. The goal is to have the boundary lines encompass as much of the property as possible while expanding into the street as little as possible. Move the pin and/or adjust the radius as needed. Please be aware that once the Landmark is saved, the boundary lines cannot be changed. If changes are needed, the Landmark will have to be deleted and re-created.
To create a polygon Landmark, start the same way as the Circle by clicking on Landmarks and Manage Landmarks. Then select Polygon.
As before, enter a Name and make a Tag selection. Then choose between searching an Address, Map Click or Unit. Lat/Long is not available for Polygon landmarks. To set the polygon boundaries, start clicking on the map. Each click produces a blue square, called a ‘pin’. These pins can then be dragged into place to set the boundaries where they belong. More clicks will result in more pins. Each pin can be moved individually to adjust boundary lines. Once pin placement is satisfactory, click ‘Save’. GPS Trackit does not recommend overlapping Landmarks with each other. They can be placed close together but boundaries should not touch.
The third type of Landmark is that of a Square.
To create a Square Landmark start the same way as the Circle and Polygon, by clicking on Landmarks and Manage Landmarks. Then select Square. As before, enter a Name and make a Tag selection. Then choose between searching an Address, Map Click, Unit or Lat/Long.
A shaded square will appear on the map over the chosen location.
To adjust the Landmark boundaries, drag the black arrow icon to the right.
Or drag and drop from the center of the square to move the whole thing and center on a new location.
Adjustment options are also available to the right, under the Address field. The Diagonal size can be adjusted and the measurements switched from Feet to Miles.
GPS Trackit does not recommend overlapping Landmarks with each other. They can be placed close together but boundaries should not touch.
Just a reminder, these boundaries can’t be changed once the Landmark is saved. Changing the boundaries after saving means deleting the Landmark and starting again.
Landmarks can be added individually as reviewed above and they can also be uploaded in bulk via CSV file. To do so, click the Flag Icon under Landmarks then the ‘Import’ icon. A template for the CSV file is provided via ‘Download Template.’ Download the template, fill it out and then upload into the GTC software. Please note: when bulk uploading Landmarks they must be placed as circles. Polygons are not available for bulk upload.
Landmarks are uploaded via a CSV file with a specific format. A template can be downloaded using the blue button. Download the template, fill it out and save. Then use the File (CSV) field to select and upload the file into the system. Hit Import to initiate the upload.
To manage and delete Landmarks, return to the flag icon. Find the landmark in question on the list and hover over it to produce a 3 dot button. Clicking the button will produce the options for editing and deleting the landmark.
Landmarks can also be created directly from the unit info box. To open the box, click the unit icon on the map.
Then click on the flag icon next to the address at the top of the box.
The Landmark fields will appear to the right.
All Landmarks created in this manner will be entered as a Circle. If Square or Polygon is desired for the shape then the Landmark should be entered using the manual process described above.
Icon adjustments, Landmark Label and Tag assignment should be entered as usual.
The Latitude/Longitude of the location will populate automatically. Entering an address will not be necessary.
Set the preferred radius and enter any notes before saving.