How Does Geofencing Improve Field Force Management? Revealed by Experts

Incidents like buddy punching and time theft are dreadful for any field service organization, which is why utilizing the best field force software coupled with Geofencing is essential.

Do you spend hours figuring out when technicians arrive or leave the task’s site? Is it hard to assess where technicians are or how long they work? Whatever challenges you face, geofencing can be your optimal solution.

But, how can it improve field force management? Think of it as the magical spell that lets you ascertain when your field employees are entering or leaving the assigned task site. With their movements monitored, employees are less likely to engage in time theft, ensuring better service delivery and improved field force management.

Does that sound interesting? Keep reading to learn how geofencing simplifies manager-field employee interaction.

What is Geofencing?

Applying a virtual perimeter around a specific geolocation where employees may clock in or out is known as geofencing. It is a location-based technology that combines GPS, RFID, cellular data, and Wi-Fi to create virtual boundaries. Businesses set these boundaries across task locations to define where and when employees can time in/out.

One example of this can be a field service business that draws zones around customer locations, construction sites, places of work, and secured areas.

Essentially, a circular/hexagon/polygon geofence helps businesses verify employees’ availability, eliminating reliance on checking daunting timesheets. They can simply get an overview of how many employees are present at the task location. Therein, they can monitor field team movement based on the radius operations.

That’s not it!

Managers can evaluate that employees are located where they should be, create multiple fences with substantial geographies, and get notifications when employees enter or exit the geofenced task location.

Untold Facts on Geofencing 92% of smartphones are compatible with geofencing, allowing your field employees to simply log in from the marked location with some taps on their mobile screens. Businesses can mitigate their fuel usage by 10% by using geofence-enabled field force software. Sales reps have witnessed 10 times better outcomes by enabling geofencing. The global geofencing market is estimated to reach USD 6.4 billion by 2027, with a remarkable CAGR of 27.0%

How Does Geofencing Improve Field Force Management?

Geofencing technology offers a multitude of practical pathways for field service businesses to maximize outputs and eliminate service delays.

1. Geo-verified Attendance Marking

Geofencing helps your employees punch in from their mobile apps, as soon as they reach the specified area. However, they won’t be able to mark their attendance once they leave that area. This way, managers can ensure that time spent by employees on the job site is accurately recorded.

Besides, managers can also assess time stamps and geo-coordinates facilitated by the geofence-enabled field employee monitoring software. Having such details lets them exactly learn about their employees’ whereabouts.

2. Identification of Key Points of Interest

With geofencing, you can highlight multiple points of interest, where you receive the most service requests. Therein, you can make the most of the opportunity without feeling burdened about employees not proactively conducting their jobs.

What else?

The field service management software shoots notifications on every in and out. That in turn, helps you drive precision in time-sheet maintenance. Consequently, you can easily comprehend the total number of hours employees work on the field. This enables you to analyze performance and productivity better for each point of interest.

3. In-depth Analysis of Hot-spots

By implementing geofencing in your field staff management software, you can enjoy access to a wealth of location insights. For instance, you can get complete visibility over the total workforce strength and their activities on the field. This helps you identify discrepancies like time theft. Thereupon, letting you create strategies to curb its effects on employees’ productivity.

Moreover, the software provides a graphical representation of data and helps in assessing the task status, i.e., pending, completed, or in progress. In addition, you get comprehensive reports on each executive’s attendance which helps you ascertain the most productive and unproductive employees.

The best part?

Geofence-enabled field staff management software like TrackoField retains route traveled data of the past 6 months. You can easily access and playback this data anytime, anywhere to identify the leakage in workflow.

4. Monitoring Forbidden Areas

Imagine, a mining site where your employees might not feel safe to work after 7 pm. Or a place where incidents like theft, accidents, and other mishappenings are common. These are a few, but around the work sites, there can be many such time-sensitive and forbidden areas, where deploying employees can be risky. We get you,  you wouldn’t want to allocate your field employees to such task sites.

Well, guess what? Geofencing helps in specifying those gray areas too. Frontline workers get immediate notifications upon reaching close to that area. Consequently, they avoid moving there. This enables managers to ensure that their field employees are safe and secure during their working hours.

5. Precise Location Tracking

Geofencing ensures location-specific tracking, enabling managers to monitor their employees’ activities and engagement in real time. So that they can facilitate fair distribution of work among team members, eradicating the scope for scheduling conflicts and disputes.

Moreover, managers inquire insight into each employee’s productivity by tracking time consumed on specific projects. Thereupon, they ensure accountability and make informed decisions based on the dynamic nature of field operations. Geofencing also weeds out the need for back-and-forth calls among managers and employees by triggering arrival/departure notifications. This ensures reduced overheads and smooth workflow.

6. Location-based Task Progress Monitoring

There can be many scenarios where managers expect their field employees to conduct their jobs at specific task locations. And guess what? Geofence-enabled field force management software helps managers not just in automating task allocation but also in task progress monitoring.

Besides, it prevents you from assigning tasks to employees who are outside their designated zone. That means, employees must have the necessary authorization or should be present in that particular region to proceed with their tasks. Moreover, TrackoField’s field force management software automates task notifications, providing alerts to employees when their tasks are updated. This keeps employees informed and reduces the chances of missed deadlines.

Steps to Create Geofence Sites with TrackoField

To set up a geofence, you must create a virtual boundary around an area or object. And yes, it’s not rocket science to draw the same when you have TrackoField. Move into the steps below and sail straight to geofenced creation.

#Step 1:  Select the Geofence Option from the Menu

Access TrackoField’s field service management software, move towards its dashboard, tap “Manage” and directly jump to “Geofence”.

#Step 2: Click on the ‘Add’ Button

Now you will see the “Add” button on the top left, just click on the same.

#Step 3: Fill out Details  / Search Location → Draw Geofence

At this moment, you can either search for the place you want to geofence or add it manually by filling in “Geofence Name,” “Geofence Address,” and “Geofence Type.”

#Step 4: Click on ‘Save’

After providing details on the area that you want to geofence, hit the “Save” button. Now, move just right on the map to choose the shape from “Circle,” “Rectangle,” “Hexagon,” etc., and expand/shrink the targeted area.

Voila! You have successfully created a geofence. Enjoy hawk-eye visibility.

🎺HERE IS WHAT YOU MUST NOT MISS ABOUT TRACKOFIELD TrackoField does not only support geofence but various other features and modules that help you automate everything right from scheduling jobs to monitoring real-time field activities. Moreover, the software has a data-driven dashboard, letting various field managers like you analyze the overall workflow. This helps in designing strategies for improved workforce efficiency. Here is more on TrackoField’s centralized field force management software that helps you enhance your employees’ productivity… 👉Optimal schedule planning 👉Ad-hoc task allocation 👉Geocoded attendance marking 👉Flexible leave module 👉Automated payroll computation and disbursement 👉Real-time employee monitoring 👉Speedier expense management 👉Bulk order creation and placement Don’t take our word for TrackoField! Just try out the field force management software for free and witness how it helps you swiftly manage your entire 100+ field staff with a few clicks.

Conclusion!

Geofencing can prove to be a win-win feature for field employees as well as field managers. Using it means seamlessly watching what is happening in the field in real-time. From tracking employee counts to providing insights on hot spots and monitoring the forbidden areas, Geofence improves field force management in every way.

You will take off to fly high with geofencing helping you land a wealth of data-driven insights, complete field visibility, and operational efficiencies.

Have any further doubts or inquiries?

Give us a chance to resolve them and start using TrackoField’s field force management software for free.

FAQs

• Why should we use Geofencing Software for Field Operations?

  With Geofence-enabled field force management software, you can:
  - Automate attendance marking
  - Highlight important points of interest
  - Get extensive insights on hot spots
  - Monitor the forbidden areas
  - Ensure location-specific tracking
  - Trigger tasks automatically.
  Thus, you can prevent employees from attempting buddy punching and time theft and it leads to streamlined employees’ productivity.

• How does TrackoField’s Geofencing Improve Field Force Management?

  TrackoField’s geofencing shoots automated notifications to managers whenever employees enter/exit the marked task site. This way, managers ensure that employees are located where they should be and it consequently helps in improving overall field operations.