Tracking your trucks with Bouncie

In this article, you'll learn how to connect your Bouncie GPS trackers to the CRM. Once they're connected, the office sees every truck on the job map, and the On My Way text your customers get carries a live link to the truck heading their way.

Truck tracking is part of the OMW feature, so it has to be switched on first. Open Features, find OMW under Customer messages and turn its switch on. The CRM takes you straight to the OMW page.

You'll also need a Bouncie tracker in each vehicle. It's a small plug-in for the OBD-II port under the dash on the driver's side, and you activate it in the Bouncie phone app. The OMW page puts the price at about $90 a device plus $9 a month, with a Buy Bouncie on Amazon link right on the page.

Note: Bouncie is the only GPS tracker the CRM connects to. You get live positions on the map and the tracking link in your texts. There's no trip history, fuel level or driver report.

To open the OMW page:

  1. In the menu, click Settings.
  2. Under Phone & booking, click OMW.

You can also go straight to OMW.

Connecting your Bouncie account

You do this once, on the web. The phone app shows your trucks but can't connect them.

  1. Under How customers follow the crew, click Vehicle (Bouncie). Only an account admin can change this.
  2. In the Connect your trackers card, click Connect with Bouncie.
  3. Sign in to your own Bouncie account and approve the request.
  4. Bouncie sends you straight back to the OMW page. The card now reads Connected.
  5. In The text your customers get, click Complete setup. The button stays greyed out until your trackers are connected.
Choosing Vehicle (Bouncie) and connecting your trackers

Your trackers stay on your own Bouncie account and subscription. The CRM never sees your Bouncie password and only reads where your vehicles are.

Note: Nothing is saved until Bouncie sends back a list of your vehicles. If the account has no active trackers yet, you'll see a message asking you to activate one in the Bouncie app and connect again, with a Back to OMW setup link.

To swap accounts later, click Reconnect on the same card. Disconnect asks you to confirm, then keeps the On My Way texts going, just without the live map link.

Watching your trucks on the map

Once you're connected, your trucks show up on the job map along with the day's stops.

  1. In the menu, click Map.
  2. In the toolbar, make sure Trucks is ticked. The number next to it is how many trucks are showing.
  3. Click a truck to see its name, its speed or Stopped, the address if Bouncie has one, and when it last reported.
Your trucks on the job map, with the Trucks box in the toolbar
Your trucks on the job map, with the Trucks box in the toolbar

A moving truck gets a green badge and a parked one a grey badge, unless you've given it a pin of its own. The trucks refresh about every 15 seconds on their own. The map stays framed on the day's jobs, so a truck parked at the yard across town won't zoom everything out. Untick Trucks to hide them.

Giving each truck its own pin

By default every truck gets the same marker. A picture of the actual truck makes them easier to tell apart. This is web only.

  1. On the OMW page, scroll to Vehicles & map pins.
  2. On the truck's card, click Upload pin, or Change pin if it already has one, and pick a photo.
  3. Drag to frame the truck and slide Zoom to fit it in the circle.
  4. If you'd rather have a drawing of the truck than the photo, click Illustrate it. It takes about half a minute, and Back to the photo undoes it.
  5. Click Use as pin.
Vehicles and map pins on the OMW page
Vehicles and map pins on the OMW page

Each card also shows where the truck is, or when it last reported.

Tip: Take the photo from about three-quarters on, with the whole truck in view. It reads much better at pin size than a straight side shot.

A status for each truck

When you connect, the CRM gives each truck its own sub-status under In progress, named after the truck. Move a job to that status and the customer gets the On My Way text with a live link to that truck. For how the text works and what the customer sees, read Send an On My Way text.

You'll find these statuses in the Send automatically list on the OMW page. Each one is already pointed at its truck.

  • To rename one, type over its name and press Enter. That renames the real status, and any jobs already on it move with it.
  • To stop a status from sending, open its Vehicle picker and choose Don't send.
  • The same picker offers This phone, which follows the assigned tech's phone instead of a truck.
  • If a job lands on a sending status again within six hours, the CRM asks whether to send the text again instead of texting twice.
The Send automatically list, one status per truck
The Send automatically list, one status per truck
Note: The statuses only get created if you have a status called In progress. If you've renamed it or don't have one, nothing is added, and you can point any status at a truck in the Send automatically list yourself.

On the phone app

Open OMW from the app's menu, or under Settings in Phone & booking. You'll see the same How customers follow the crew card, each truck with Running or Parked and its speed, and the Send automatically list. Connecting Bouncie and uploading pins happen on the web.

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