INSIGHT utilizes the United States Global Positioning System (GPS). The Global Positioning System is compromised of a constellation of 24 government-owned satellites that continually orbit the earth. These satellites transmit precise microwave signals to GPS receivers on earth. The satellite signals enable a GPS receiver on earth (such as a Blackberry or iPAQ Smartphone with INSIGHT software) to determine the exact physical location of any person carrying a Smartphone. The Global Positioning System provides location information that is integrated into AMI’s activity management solution and used by AMI’s clients globally.

The INSIGHT software has been designed to assist management in monitoring location and productivity of outside sales and technical professionals who carry a Blackberry or an iPAQ GPS-enabled Smartphone. All sales and technical visits to client sites are automatically captured and recorded within the INSIGHT database. The INSIGHT database identifies the name and location of each client visit. This information is captured and available for viewing on a Google map in real time regardless of where the client is located. The client meeting could be taking place in San Jose, California, or Rome, Italy.

Geocodes are used to determine the location of a client site. The process of Geocoding is taking the physical street address of a location and converting that information into a latitude and a longitude or 'geocode'.

Geofences represent an area surrounding a geocoded site. A geofence is created around each client site that is stored inside the INSIGHT database. The size of each geofence is user definable and generally includes the client’s building as well as the parking lot surrounding the building. When a sales representative or technical professional carrying a Smartphone drives into (or enters) a geofenced area, his visit (including arrival and departure time) is recorded within INSIGHT’s database. Additionally, INSIGHT provides sales and technical management with weekly activity reports identifying the sales and technical visits that were made that week for each individual on their team.

INSIGHT provides a very robust set of tools that allow a system administrator or end-user to add a new client or company location “on the fly”. When this information is processed by the INSIGHT service, a default geofence is created. This is very helpful in capturing new information for businesses that have recently moved into the area or a new facility that may not have been previously updated in the corporate CRM system.

Additionally, some of the geocoded client locations may be inaccurate or slightly off from their actual location. These client locations will need to be fine-tuned to ensure accurate reporting. Using a visual representation of the client site and the associated geofence, AMI clients can easily modify the geofenced area using a simple drag-and-drop method. Geofence sizes can be altered as needed. This is extremely valuable when you have a client site that has a very large complex or when you have several client sites that are located within a small area. In either case, a high level of geocode and geofence accuracy is needed in order to ensure precise activity reporting.

INSIGHT provides its' clients the ability to “dial-in” their geofences to an incredibly precise area. The preciseness of the geofence ensures that the reporting of employee activity at client sites is highly accurate.

INSIGHT uses the built-in GPS capabilities of the Smartphone to monitor the location of the device. Utilizing the INSIGHT software running on the Smartphone, the location information is then sent back to the AMI Data Center for processing and storage. The INSIGHT software can be downloaded directly to the phone using the built in web browser. In most cases, the INSIGHT software can be installed on to the phones in under 60 seconds.

The location data is sent from the Smartphone every 20 seconds so all locations provided by the service are in near real time. When viewing any of the maps, you can be assured that the location data is up to the minute fresh.

All the INSIGHT reporting tools run in 'real-time'. When any report is run, all location data for the selected employee or employees is compared against the client location data stored in the INSIGHT database. The data is passed through several algorithms to determine first if an employee visited a client site and then what time they entered and exited that client's geofence. Since all the reports are run against the live data, any corrections made to misplaced fences immediately updates all the information returned by the reports.

Please contact Activity Management to see a live demo of INSIGHT in action!