In today's fast-paced world, knowing where your goods are at every step of their journey is paramount. Our "Shipments" feature is specifically designed to bring this crucial visibility to your logistics, allowing you to track assets from point A to point B with precision and ease.
While the core concept of reviewing tracking history remains similar to that of individual devices, the Shipments feature offers a tailored experience for managing the entire lifecycle of a delivery.
Important Note:
This feature works best with specific, real-time GPS tracker models. Not all tracker models are designed for optimal performance within the Shipments feature.
How to Create a Shipment
Setting up a shipment is a straightforward process, empowering you with comprehensive control over your tracking needs:
Name Your Shipment: Give your shipment a clear and descriptive name for easy identification.
Assign a Carrier: Specify the carrier responsible for the delivery.
Define Timeframes: Input the exact start date and time, and the expected end date and time for the shipment. This crucial information enables the system to predict delivery status.
Select Your Tracker: Assign a compatible tracker to the shipment.
Set Start Location:
Choose an existing geofence if your shipments typically originate from a predefined area or facility.
Alternatively, you can manually enter a precise address.
Define End Location:
Similar to the start location, select a geofence for the destination.
Or, provide the exact destination address.
Configure Notifications: Enhance communication and proactive management with customizable notification options.
Enable notifications before the shipment ends.
Add additional recipients via email (for account users) or phone numbers for SMS alerts.
How to Edit a Shipment
Life happens, and plans can change. Our Shipments feature allows you to easily modify your shipment details even after creation:
Access the Shipment: Navigate to the specific shipment you wish to edit.
Locate the Edit Button: On the shipment's dedicated map or detail page, you will find an "Edit" button typically located at the top.
Make Your Changes: Once in edit mode, you can modify the following key aspects of your shipment:
Shipment Name: Update the name for better clarity or organization.
Duration: Adjust the start date and time and/or the expected end date and time. This is crucial for accurate predictions if the delivery schedule changes.
Notification Type: Modify whether notifications are enabled for the shipment.
Notification Channels: Add, remove, or update the email addresses (for account users) and phone numbers that receive shipment notifications.
Save Your Updates: After making all necessary changes, click the "Save" button to apply your revisions. The system will then update the shipment details accordingly.
What Makes Shipments Unique
The Shipments feature goes beyond simply showing a dot on a map. It's built for intelligent, end-to-end tracking:
Comprehensive Trip Monitoring: Shipments are designed to track the entire trip of an asset, providing a continuous record from its origin to its destination.
Public Sharing for Transparency: For businesses interacting with customers, the ability to share a public tracking link is invaluable. This allows your clients to independently monitor the status of their orders, fostering transparency and reducing customer inquiries.
Predictive Delivery Status: By leveraging the defined start and end times, the Shipments feature can intelligently predict the delivery status. You'll know if a shipment is:
In Progress
Running late
Completed
Arriving early
The Importance of Real-Time GPS Tracking
The predictive capabilities and seamless monitoring of the Shipments feature are directly tied to the performance of your chosen tracker. It is crucial to understand that the Shipments feature is designed to work perfectly with real-time GPS trackers.
Why real-time matters:
Continuous Updates: Real-time GPS trackers provide frequent location reports, allowing the system to accurately assess progress and provide precise predictions.
Accurate Start/End Detection: For a shipment to "start" or "trigger" within the system, the tracker's first report must originate from or within the exact start location (geofence or address) you've defined. Similarly, for the shipment to register as "ended," the tracker needs to report from the specified end location.
A Note on Non-GPS Trackers (Cell and Wi-Fi based)
While some trackers utilize cell tower and Wi-Fi triangulation for location (i.e., Eco1 Shipment trackers), these are generally not ideal for the Shipments feature. Here's why:
Inaccurate Start Location Triggering: If your shipment tracker relies on cell or Wi-Fi for location and its initial report at the "start" of the shipment is from a cell tower or Wi-Fi hotspot outside the precise geofence or address you entered as the start location, the shipment will not trigger as started or in progress. The system requires a highly accurate match to initiate the shipment.
Reporting Gaps: Trackers that report less frequently (e.g., once a day) or rely on less precise methods will create large gaps in the tracking history within the Shipments map, hindering the feature's effectiveness and predictive capabilities.
For these non-GPS trackers, while the Shipments feature may not function as intended, you can still review their tracking history using the traditional method: selecting the tracker's serial number and filtering by start and end dates. However, you will not be able to leverage the advanced features like public sharing or predictive status.
CSM Tip Box
💡 Unsure if the Shipments feature is the perfect fit for your specific tracker models or unique logistics workflows? Your dedicated Customer Success Manager is here to help! They can provide a personalized walkthrough, discuss your operational goals in detail, and help you determine the most effective way to leverage the platform – whether that's optimizing the Shipments feature for your real-time trackers or guiding you to alternative methods for historical data review with other device types. We're committed to finding the best solution for your asset tracking needs.