Getting started with Addresses and Geofences

Want to track when certain vehicles or equipment are in a specific area? Ever curious where your vehicles stop the most? Or want to see location names instead of street addresses in your reports?

By adding addresses and geofences in your Samsara dashboard, you can collect useful data about your operations at each location to manage your fleet and maximize efficiency.

A few examples use cases:

• Identify unauthorized use of vehicles after-hours
• Track when vehicles center a certain area
• Prevent vehicle or equipment thefts

The location entries you add to your address book will show across your entire dashboard - from the map overview to various reports. It will also make it easier and faster to plan your route or dispatch a vehicle to an address. You can also create location or movement alerts to get notifications when vehicles or equipment aren’t where they should be or in an area of concern.

Customer Spotlight

The City of Fort Lauderdale was able to save a historical bridge by tracking when overweight vehicles crossed the bridge. Unnecessary wear and tear meant that the bridge was often closed for maintenance for 2-3 months at a time. They were able to decrease heavy vehicle crossings by 90% within five months, preventing significant bridge downtime for residents. Learn more

To get started:

1. Create an address book entry or geofence.
2. Configure a geofence alert.
   You must have a VG license to create or configure a geofence alert.

See it in action:

1. Create an address book entry or geofence for your headquarters including all yards and lots where vehicles or equipment are frequently stored.
   
   
   
   

   Tip: You can use the drawing tools above the map to adjust the geofence perimeter or shape.

   Learn more about geofence customizations:

   • Yard - Unassigned trips contained within this geofence will be automatically annotated for ELD compliance.
   • Risk Zone - Used to highlight dangerous locations where thefts or similar incidents often happen.
   • Safety Event Excluded - Auto-dismiss safety events within the geofence.
   • Alerts Only - Only triggers an alert when a vehicle enters or exits the geofence, and data is not collected on the dashboard or reports.
     
     
2. Create address book entries for locations that receive the most traffic.
   
   

   Tip: Consider adding addresses in bulk to save time. You can download a .csv file of frequent locations visited from the Time on Site report as a starting point.

   
   
   
   

   Commonly Saved Addresses:

   • In-house or 3rd party maintenance shops
   • Drop & hook locations
   • Customer business or delivery addresses
   • Frequently-used rest stops
     
     
3. Configure a geofence location or movement alert for periods of time where dormancy would be expected (e.g. weekends, overnight).
   
   
   
   

   Learn more about configuring alerts or managing alert contacts.

Take it to the next level:

• Monitor frequently-visited locations with the Time on Site report.
• Add attributes and tags to easily add information about your vehicles to use as a filter in reporting or alerts.
• If you’re using geofences in conjunction with routes, configure out-of-route or route-stop arrival alerts.

Vehicle or equipment theft use case

• Configure geofence entry or exit alerts for specific risk zones or high-priority geofenced addresses. Some customers create alerts for vehicles that enter geofenced areas where vehicle theft can be more likely.
• Consider creating a Gateway Unplugged alert to notify you when a VG is unplugged. Tampering with devices is often a strong indicator of theft.
• If responding to an active theft, set up a Live Sharing link to easily share the real-time location of the vehicle with law enforcement.
• You can also configure unpowered Asset Gateways to Wake on Motion with customizable check-in rates.

Curious how other customers have prevented thefts? Read more