Timeero’s Segmented Tracking Feature: Best For Multi-Stop Location Tracking
Samson Kiarie
Last update on:
June 28, 2024 12:40 PM
Published on:
When field employees are out on multi-stop trips, knowing how long they spend at each location can help improve their productivity. Unfortunately, many GPS tracking apps either don’t track this vital detail or require employees to clock in and out at every location, which is tedious and time-consuming. Thankfully, the Timeero segmented tracking feature solves these problems.
The powerful workforce management feature tracks employee visits down to the minute. In addition to identifying the places employees visited, you can also determine how long they spent at each location. The detailed breakdown of employee field activities enables managers to draw actionable insights to reduce inefficiencies and boost team productivity.
In this guide, we’ll highlight how the segmented tracking feature works and reveal the unique technologies it uses to track employees’ multi-stop trips. We’ll also discuss the benefits of segmented tracking and show you how to set up and use this helpful feature.
Struggling to Track Employee Time at Multiple Stops?
Get minute-by-minute insights without the hassle of manual clock-ins.
Timeero’s segmented tracking is a one-of-a-kind GPS tracking feature that enables managers and business owners to monitor employee field activity down to the minute. As the name suggests, the feature tracks and segments an employee’s trip based on the stops made to provide a thorough timeline of the team’s field activities.
Timeero provides a detailed timeline of employee field activities during the workday.
The visual timeline enables business owners and managers to monitor employee performance and productivity at a glance. If you’re in California, don't worry; segmented tracking adheres to your state’s strict labor laws, including break tracking regulations.
Segmented tracking provides valuable insights into the following areas:
Time spent at each location
Time an employee arrived at and left a location
Employee route map, broken down into segments
Mileage logs
Total work hours
Break time
Driving time between locations
Distance between locations
Clock-in and clock-out addresses
Be sure to check out our FAQ page to learn the basics of segmented tracking. Our help center also has tutorials and onboarding guides to help you navigate segmented tracking.
Who Is Segmented Tracking For?
The segmented tracking feature offers significant benefits to businesses looking to monitor the time field employees spend at various locations during work hours. Here are a few examples of employees you can track:
Delivery drivers. Know when the drivers arrive at or leave the warehouse, pick-up or drop-off zones, customer address, and other locations. Track the time each driver spends on the road or at the designated location.
Sales representatives. Know when the sales rep arrives at or leaves the customer's location and track the time they spend conducting face-to-face meetings with each customer. Know the route each sales rep is taking and track mileage for accurate reimbursement.
Field service agents. Monitor how long a field service agent takes to travel between customer locations. Accurately track billable hours or the time the field service agent takes to install or repair equipment for accurate customer billing.
Real estate agents. Monitor the sites each agent visits and how long they spend at each scheduled property showing.
Field projects manager. Do you have field project managers or engineers who need to visit different job sites during the day? Timeero’s segmented tracking helps you determine when they arrive at and leave each job site as well as how long they spend there.
Field Nurses. Monitor when a nurse arrives and leaves the assigned patient location. You can also determine how long the nurse spends attending to each patient and the travel time between assigned addresses. Timeero is HIPAA compliant, so you don’t have to worry about breaching industry regulations.
The list of employees you can monitor with segmented tracking is endless. Any business with field team members who visit different addresses can benefit significantly from segmented tracking.
Benefits of Segmented Tracking
Below we have highlighted some of the notable benefits of using Timeero's segmented tracking.
Segmented Tracking is a Time-Saver
When employees clock in, segmented tracking works flawlessly in the background on Android and iOS smartphones.
Timeero’s segmented tracking is easier for employers and employees to use than traditional GPS location tracking apps. Numerous location tracking apps claim to help you track field employees and determine how long each field employee spends at an address, sadly, these apps subject users to tedious and time-consuming manual tracking.
Some tracking systems require employees to clock in and out whenever they arrive at or leave a customer's address. Managers, on the other hand, don’t get a visual timeline of employee field activities. For this reason, they have to manually compute the time an employee spends at a specific location.
Timeero eliminates these manual and tedious processes. With segmented tracking, employees clock in once at the start of their shift. The app tracks and segments trips in the background, capturing the relevant details without the employee lifting a finger. The hands-off approach enables employees to focus on work and not worry about missed mileage or time.
With segmented tracking, managers and business owners don’t have to waste time and effort computing employee time at each location. They only need to open the segmented tracking timeline to see all field activities in a visual timeline.
Error-Free Calculation of Time Spent at Each Location
Manual tracking is often error-prone. If a field service agent forgets to start the timer when they arrive at a customer location and doesn’t stop it as they leave, you can’t compute billable hours. Similarly, you can’t calculate the time spent during face-to-face meetings with a customer if a sales rep fails to clock in/out.
Segmented tracking allows you to track employee time with precision because the process doesn’t rely on human abilities. Instead, the app uses unique technologies to automatically calculate the time an employee spent at a location to the minute. Timeero also lets you set up notifications to prompt employees to clock in or out if they happen to forget.
You can vary the idle time threshold to enable Timeero to capture every stop. In addition, we recommend adding location details and setting geofenced boundaries for every job you assign to a field employee.
For example, if you have a job labeled “Ananas Plumbing” with location details, Timeero will detect when the service agent arrives at the customer’s address and track billable time under the job. Timeero lists the “Ananas plumbing” job on the visual timeline with the total number of hours or minutes the employee spent there. (see the image below)
The visual timeline shows how employees manage their time in the field.
Timeero also tracks when an employee stops at a location that’s not a job in your account. The visual timeline will show the location address. Unfortunately, the job name is not included on the record, but the time will still be accurate.
Benchmark Performance with Accurate Metrics
Timeero's segmented tracking enables you to establish metrics to measure and improve employee performance. For instance, a sales manager can generate segmented tracking reports to establish representatives' average time to close a sale. If it takes 50 hours to close a deal, you can use these metrics as a benchmark in future endeavors.
Segmented tracking gives you the data you need to examine field employees’ performance. If segmented tracking details show your employees spend more time driving than in face-to-face meetings, you can use the suggested mileage feature to ensure the reps take the shorter route on subsequent visits to reduce driving time.
Segmented Tracking Works Without Internet
Segmented tracking works just fine with poor or no internet connection. For example, if a door-to-door sales rep clocks in before leaving the office and loses internet connection mid-trip, all data prior to losing connection will be uploaded in real-time.
Upon losing internet connection, the app will store the data locally on the employee’s device. Once the employee is within cellular range, Timeero will immediately upload the offline data to the cloud. At the end of the day, you'll have a complete visual outline of the employee's segmented trip.
Segmented Tracking Safeguards Employee Privacy
Timeero’s tracking system only tracks employees when they are clocked in. The same principle applies to the segmented tracking feature, meaning the app ceases to track employees when they clock out. To safeguard employees' privacy, you can configure notifications to prompt employees to clock out when their shift ends.
How Does Timeero’s Segmented Tracking Work?
Segmented tracking uses an array of unique technologies, including a global positioning system (GPS), motion detection, a powerful GPS time tracker, an idle time tracker, and an intelligent trip segmenting engine.
The technologies work in unison to create a visual timeline of employee field activities without having to lift a finger. Here’s how the technologies help streamline field employee tracking:
GPS Tracking: This method relies on the smartphone's GPS capability to track an employee’s location. It updates the information every other minute to provide real-time location insights.
GPS Time tracker: The time tracker continuously tracks time throughout the employee's trip.
Motion detection (for mileage tracking): Detects when the employee is in motion and begins to track mileage when the vehicle exceeds a predefined speed threshold. It helps record the ‘driving’ sections of the segmented trip.
Idle time tracker: This time tracker detects and records employee stops. Timeero allows you to set the idle time threshold. For example, you can configure a 5-minute idle time interval in the system. If an employee stays stationary for over five minutes, the Idle time tracker records that as a stop.
Trip segmenting engine: An intelligent algorithm compiles the time, location, mileage, and stop data and presents it in a visually appealing timeline.
How Can I Activate Segmented Tracking?
While the segmented tracking feature is activated by default, you must adjust app settings for it to work effectively. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to set up segmented tracking.
1. Set The Speed and Idle Interval
Go-to “company settings,” select “segmented tracking,’” and set your idle time and speed threshold.
Idle time is the duration an employee must stay stationary for the session to be considered a stop.
The speed threshold is the minimum speed for a segment to be considered driving.
2. Add Jobs
Jobs are specific assignments the employee is given to complete during a shift. Go to “jobs & tasks” and click “add job.” Add the job’s name, hourly rate, description, and code. Select the assignee and check the “track mileage” box.
3. Add Location Addresses
We recommend adding the specific addresses the employee is scheduled to visit during the shift for more accurate tracking. While still on the add job section, click “location details” and add the location address for this job.
4. Configure Geofencing
Checkthe “require geofence” box, define the geofence radius and configure automated actions to accurately capture time spent at job sites or visits.
5. Tracker Checklist
Ask employees to make sure their tracker checklist is 100% complete. To do this, employees open the mobile app, go to settings, and tap on “tracker checklist.” They should tick off the settings on the list to finalize the segmented tracking setup.
How to View the Segmented Tracking Timeline
Follow these steps to view the segmented tracking timeline for each employee.
1. Open Team’s Timesheet
Go to the Timeero web app and click “time & mileage” to open your team’s timesheets.
2. Open Employee Timesheet
On the time & mileage page, click “select” under users and select the employee for whom you want to view the segmented timeline. Then, select the date range and click “filter.”
3. Access Segmented Tracking Timeline
Scroll down to the timesheet you want to review and click the “vehicle” icon.
4. Analyze the Segmented Tracking Timeline
Timeero will generate a report showing where and when the employee clocked in and out, total mileage, duration, and the various segments of their trip.
Note: The segmented tracking timeline is different from the segmented tracking report. To generate the report, go to the “reports” page and select “segmented tracking reports.”
There are several icons that are visible on the segmented tracking map. To get the most out of the visual timeline, it’s important to understand what each icon represents.
Location pin icon: This icon represents unnamed locations the employee visited as well as stops made during the trip. For reference, unnamed locations are addresses you have not added on Timeero.
Briefcase icon (with Job name): When you add a job with location details and an employee visits the specified location, Timeero detects and labels these locations with the briefcase icon.
Vehicle icon: This icon represents the driving time. When you click the icon, you will see the distance traveled between locations and the driving time.
Clock-in and clock-out icon: This icon shows the location where an employee clocked in or out. It is usually the first and last on the timeline.
Breadcrumbs on the route: When you check the “show breadcrumbs” box, a trail of red dots (breadcrumbs) will appear on the route map. Breadcrumbs show employee location at a particular time as well as how fast they were driving.
Replay feature: The replay feature allows you to replay each segment of an employee’s trip and explore their routes in detail.
Segmented Tracking Pricing
Timeero offers segmented tracking as an add-on feature for the Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans. If your field technicians make multi-stop trips, the feature’s user fee of $5 every month is worth the price.
Boost Efficiency With Segmented Tracking
Timeero’s segmented tracking feature eliminates the tedious manual process of tracking field employees. Workers clock in once at the start of their shift and Timeero automatically begins to track and segment an employee's multi-stop driving route and displays the information in a visual timeline.
Managers and business owners can see each location an employee has visited, the time spent at each location, and travel distance. This breakdown of employees' days helps spot inefficiencies and adjust processes for better productivity.
Reap the benefits of segmented tracking today. Book a free call with our excellent customer support agents to learn more about segmented tracking.
Segmented Tracking FAQs
Can Timeero’s Segmented Tracking Integrate With Payroll Systems?
Timeero’s segmented tracking feature is part of the Timeero suite, which integrates with popular payroll software such as QuickBooks, ADP and Xero.
Can Timeero’s Segmented Tracking Be Used for Mileage Tracking?
Yes, you can use segmented tracking to track mileage. Remember, the segmented tracking tool relies on Timeero’s powerful GPS tracking capabilities, which create accurate IRS-compliant mileage logs.
Tired of Manual Time Tracking for Your Field Team?
Timeero's Segmented Tracking auto-tracks employee time at every job site—no clock-ins needed.
Samson is a mathematician turned content marketer specializing in SaaS and Tech content. He focuses on the practical aspects of software systems while keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge principles to create informative and engaging content. When he’s not writing, Samson spends time playing or watching soccer.
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