GPS tracking

GPS tracking adds a reported position to assets that move. A tracker is connected to one asset, and from then on that asset carries a live location, a street address, and a replayable history of where it has been — beside the maintenance, costs, custody and lifecycle history the record already holds.

GPS tracking is enabled per organization and uses trackers supplied by AssetCenter. If you do not see GPS Tracking under Reports, contact us to have it turned on and to arrange hardware.

Connect a tracker to an asset#

Trackers arrive already registered to your organization. Connecting one attaches it to the asset it is fitted to.

1. Open the asset and select its Tracking tab.
2. Under Connect GPS tracker, choose a tracker from the GPS tracker list. Each entry shows the device name and its unique ID, which is printed on the tracker itself.
3. Confirm the connection.

Only trackers that are available and belong to your organization appear in the list. A tracker already connected to another asset does not, which is what stops the same device reporting for two assets at once.

An asset holds one tracker at a time. To swap the hardware, disconnect the current tracker first — AssetCenter will say so rather than silently replacing it.

What the asset shows once it is tracked#

A connected asset gains a GPS Location panel and a badge that reports whether the tracker is still checking in:

• GPS Connected means the tracker has reported within the last thirty hours.
• GPS Disconnected means it has not. That usually means a flat battery, no cellular coverage, or a device that has been removed.

The badge appears on the asset record and in the asset list, so a tracker that has gone quiet is visible without opening anything. Thirty hours is deliberate: a tracker that reports twice a day should not be called disconnected because one check-in was late.

The asset header also shows the reported street address, and the tracking panel shows the last fix time, speed in miles per hour, and a link to open the position in Google Maps.

Live and replay#

The GPS Location panel has two modes.

Live shows the tracker's latest position. It updates by itself as new positions arrive — there is no need to refresh the page, and a map left open on a screen keeps up on its own.

Replay draws where the asset has been over a period you choose. Pick a Period:

• Today
• Yesterday
• This Week
• Previous Week
• This Month
• Previous Month
• Custom, which asks for a From and To date

Once loaded, the route is drawn as a line and you can step through it. Use the replay position slider to move along the trip, the replay speed control to change how fast it plays, and the previous and next controls to move one reported position at a time. The map can be opened full screen, and the controls can be hidden to see more of it.

A custom range covers at most 31 days. A period holding too many reported positions is refused rather than loaded slowly; choose a shorter one.

Replay stops at the day the tracker was connected#

Replay never reaches back past the moment this tracker was connected to this asset.

This matters when hardware is reused. A tracker moved from one machine to another keeps its own history, but the new asset can only replay the period it has actually been fitted to. Ask for a period before the connection date and AssetCenter says when the tracker was connected instead of showing you a route that belongs to a different asset.

The same rule applies after a disconnection. If a tracker is disconnected and later reconnected, replay for that asset starts again from the new connection date.

Disconnect a tracker#

Press Disconnect on the asset's tracking panel.

The tracker's own location history is preserved so the device can be reassigned later. The asset keeps everything else it has: its record, its events, its costs and its history. Only the live position and replay stop.

The GPS Tracking report#

Reports, then GPS Tracking, opens the view that covers every tracked asset at once.

• Choose a tracked asset opens that asset's live and replay views inside the report, without leaving the page.
• Search tracked assets filters the list by tag, make or model.
• Show all switches to the fleet view: every tracked asset's last known position on one map, so you can see what is reporting and where it is.

The two views are alternatives — opening one asset leaves the fleet view, and pressing Show all clears the selected asset. Both are held in the page address, so a particular view can be bookmarked or sent to somebody else and will open the same way.

If no asset has a tracker connected yet, the report says so rather than showing an empty map.

The dashboard also carries a GPS map card for a quick look without opening the report.

What GPS tracking is not#

AssetCenter reports where your equipment is and where it has been. It is not fleet telematics: there is no dispatch, no driver management, no hours-of-service logging and no engine diagnostics. If you need those, keep the system that provides them — the asset record is still the place where custody, maintenance, costs and lifecycle live.

For related tasks, see Managing assets, Adding assets and the Asset Location Map report, which plots your named locations rather than tracker positions.