Launching a fleet monitoring platform
We set Wialon up around the way your fleet actually works: objects and groups, sensors, geofences, reports by role, notifications with workable thresholds and user rights. The launch runs as a pilot on part of the fleet and ends with a sign-off against a readiness checklist. The quality of the reports depends on the source data: the vehicle list, tank capacities, consumption norms and a named person responsible.
A Wialon account in which every vehicle, driver, sensor and geofence has been entered under agreed rules, and each member of staff has their own login and their own reports. The launch is confirmed by a sign-off: the pilot has run, the items on the readiness checklist are closed, the users have been trained.
Monitoring that people use from the first week
Fitting trackers to the vehicles is only half the job. We have seen plenty of companies where the equipment has been in place for three years and one dispatcher logs in, and only to find a vehicle on the map. Nobody opens the reports, and the notifications were switched off because two hundred a day were coming in.
Launching a fleet monitoring platform is the work that sits between fitting the equipment and the moment the system starts saving money. We deploy an account on Wialon Local — on our servers in Azerbaijan, enter the vehicles, drivers and geofences, set up the sensors, reports and notifications around your processes, hand out access rights and train your people.
What you end up with is not access to a map but a working tool: the depot manager sees in the morning which vehicles have gone out, the accountant gets a fuel summary, the director a short report once a week. You log in through go.gps.az in a browser and through the Wialon app from a phone.
How the work goes, step by step
Who asks what
Depot manager, dispatcher, accountant, director. We gather the vehicles, drivers, warehouses and sites.
Trackers and calibration
If there are no trackers, we fit them. Fuel sensors are calibrated against the vehicle list with tank capacities.
Objects, geofences, reports
Names that make sense, groups by branch, reports by role, notifications with workable thresholds.
A week on one group
We fix whatever did not take, and only then roll the settings out across the whole fleet.
Checklist and training
Readiness items closed, users trained by role, a responsible person named.
The first month of the launch
An illustrative example: 45 vehicles, a head office in Baku and a branch in Ganja, trackers and fuel level sensors already fitted.
- Meeting with the depot manager, the dispatcher and the accountant processes
The vehicle list with tank capacities, addresses of warehouses and sites, consumption norms for summer and winter.
- Pilot at the Ganja branch 15 vehicles
Objects named in the form 99-XX-123 Actros Ganja, geofences drawn around the real entrances, rights limited to their own vehicles.
- 184 speeding notifications in twenty-four hours thresholds
We raise the speeding threshold and add a minimum duration, so that a fuel drain that matters does not get lost.
- Settings rolled out across the fleet, training by role 45 vehicles
Every member of staff builds their own report. For the first week we answer questions in the chat.
- Review of the first month and the launch sign-off done
We remove the surplus notifications, add the missing ones, and list the open questions with owners and deadlines.
The launch plan week by week
For a fleet of 20–80 vehicles a typical launch looks like this.
Days 1–3. Getting to know the processes. We talk to the people who will use the system: the depot manager, the dispatcher, the accountant, the director. We find out what questions they ask every day. We gather the list of vehicles, drivers, sites and warehouses.
Days 3–10. Equipment. If there are no trackers yet, we select and fit them. We covered that process in detail in the article on how a GPS tracker is fitted. In parallel we calibrate the fuel level sensors.
Days 7–14. Setting up the platform. We create objects with names that make sense, groups by division, drivers with their cards, geofences for garages, warehouses and sites. We configure the sensors, the trip detector, the reports and the notifications.
Days 14–21. Training and trial operation. We run training by role, answer questions in the chat during the first week and fix whatever did not take.
Day 30. Review of the first month. We look through the first reports together, remove the surplus notifications and add the missing ones.
What we configure during the launch
The scope depends on your tasks, but here is the basic set without which the system only works at half strength:
The structure of the account
Objects, groups by branch and by type of machine, names that make sense such as 99-XX-123 Actros Ganja rather than the tracker IMEI.
Sensors and equipment
Ignition, fuel level sensors with their calibration tables, engine hours, CAN parameters, temperature in the refrigerated unit, door sensors — everything fitted to the vehicle.
Geofences and sites
Garages, warehouses, filling stations, construction sites, customers. Visit reports and half the notifications depend on the geofences.
Reports by role
Separate templates for the depot manager, the accountant and the director. Each of them gets only what they actually look at.
Notifications without the spam
Fuel drain, leaving a zone, a tracker going offline, speeding. With thresholds at which the alerts mean something.
Users and rights
The branch in Ganja sees its own vehicles, the head office in Baku sees all of them. The accountant cannot change sensor settings.
Settings that depend on your industry
Tractor units on the motorways and abroad
For runs along the M-1 and M-2 and on into Georgia, Turkey and Russia: fuel control from the fuel level sensor and CAN, routes with checkpoints, a notification on deviation, and drivers' hours recorded from tachograph data.
Roaming is set up separately: how often the tracker reports in from abroad, so that you do not overpay for data.
What you need to prepare on your side
The launch goes faster if the following are ready for the first meeting:
- the list of vehicles: registration number, make and model, year, tank capacity, division;
- the list of drivers with the vehicles assigned to them, where such an assignment exists;
- addresses of garages, warehouses, regular sites and customers — a plain list in Excel will do;
- the fuel consumption norms in force, summer and winter;
- which members of staff will use the system and what each of them needs to see.
If something is missing, it is no great problem, we will gather it as we go. But the vehicle list with tank capacities is needed before the fuel sensors are calibrated, otherwise we will have to come back to it.
And one important thing: appoint someone inside the company to own the system. Not necessarily a technical person — someone who will collect colleagues' questions and get in touch with us is enough. In companies where there is no such person, monitoring usually turns within six months into a map that somebody glances at now and then.
The readiness checklist before the launch sign-off
Objects and equipment
Every vehicle on the list is reporting in, names and groups follow the rule, and the sensors show plausible values. The fuel level sensors are calibrated and the fuel graphs show no sawtooth while the vehicle is parked.
Reference data
Drivers are entered and linked to cards or vehicles, and geofences for garages, warehouses and regular sites are drawn around the real entrances. There are no objects without a group and no drivers without an assignment.
Reports and notifications
Every role has its own report template, and notifications are set up with thresholds and recipients. Over the pilot week not one type of notification arrived hundreds of times.
Users
Every user has their own login and rights covering their own area. Staff have been trained by role and were able to build their own report unaided. The person responsible for the system has been named and knows where to write.
The pilot, the launch sign-off and the limits of the work
The pilot
First we configure one group of vehicles, usually a single division, and work with it for a week. Anything that did not take during the pilot is fixed before the settings are rolled out across the whole fleet.
The launch sign-off
The checklist items, a mark against each one, and a list of open questions with owners and deadlines. Signed by our engineer and by the person responsible for the system on your side.
What is not included
Building integrations with 1C and CRM, custom reports with complex calculation logic, and migrating history from an old system. These are separate services that can be added after the launch.
Launch mistakes we see in fleets that set the system up themselves
These problems turn up in almost every company that comes to us after a do-it-yourself launch:
Two hundred notifications a day
A notification for every 1 km/h over the limit. Within a week people stop reading them and miss a fuel drain that really mattered.
Drains that never happened
The fuel level sensor is fitted but the filtering has not been set up. On a dirt road the fuel sloshes about in the tank and the system draws a drain at every bump.
Everyone sees everything
One login for the whole company. There is no telling who changed what, and a driver who has the password knows where the boss is parked.
Engine hours taken from the ignition
On plant and heavy equipment the ignition can stay on for hours without the engine working. Engine hours need to be counted from the revs or from a separate sensor.
What to expect after the launch
Fuel under control
Once the fuel level sensors are calibrated and detection is configured, we check against the pilot's events which fuel changes the system identifies reliably. We compare consumption with the baseline period and investigate disputed events; potential savings for your fleet are assessed after the first month of data.
Driver discipline
When a driver knows that speed and route are visible, unauthorised trips and reckless driving fall off noticeably in the very first month.
Better fleet utilisation
It becomes clear which vehicles are standing idle. That is the basis for redistributing machines and for letting surplus units go.
Payback worked out on your own figures
The payback period depends on the size of the fleet, the mileage and what was in place before the launch. After the review of the first month we show where the system has already produced a saving and where it has so far produced only data.
Price and what the cost depends on
The cost of launching a fleet monitoring platform is determined by the number of units being connected, the platform configuration chosen, the volume of work on setting up reports, geofences, notifications and user roles, and by whether data has to be migrated from a previous system. The calculation also includes the monthly subscription fee, which depends on the number of objects and the set of functions.
Large fleets are quoted on individual terms: the more objects there are, the better the rate per unit. We have collected price guidelines in the article on how much GPS monitoring costs. We will prepare an exact quotation after a short audit of the fleet — leave a request on the site or call +994 (99) 207-88-88.
Where the platform will run
GPS.az runs on Wialon Local — a local installation of Wialon on our servers in Azerbaijan.
| Wialon Local at GPS.az | |
|---|---|
| Where the data is stored | On GPS.az servers in Azerbaijan |
| Availability and backups | Provided by GPS.az, terms set out in the contract and the SLA |
| Access control | Only the users you have granted rights to can see the data |
| Configuration | Reports, rights and integrations built around your processes |
Questions about “Launching a fleet monitoring platform”
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