When it comes to tracking live locations within the Time Clock, Connecteam has three capabilities to offer: Geolocation, Geofences, and Breadcrumbs Live Tracking. Each capability is designed to cater to the different situations that you might experience on a day-to-day basis. With the Breadcrumbs feature, you will be able to know your employees’ whereabouts whilst on the clock - so you can make sure they are in the right place at the right time! Whether your employees are out on patrol, delivering a package, or moving between locations, with Connecteam's Breadcrumbs capability you can now track your employees on the go!
* Before moving on to the technical details, we also want to highlight that we've written two articles both for managers and employees to highlight some of the most common questions we have received. Now, let's get to it!
This article will go over:
What are Breadcrumbs?
Our Live Geo-Tracking uses Breadcrumbs technology and allows you to track employees’ location while they’re clocked in and on the move. By using the user's smartphone location to identify different sorts of movement, we can track employees’ location while on the clock while being as energy efficient as possible. Our testing shows that Breadcrumbs save up to 85% more battery and data than traditional live tracking!
On the employees’ side, they clock in and out as usual, so it’s an intuitive experience that doesn’t require any change in their day-to-day, but for managers, you’ll be able to view their route over the enlarged map you're already so familiar with!
Why Do You Want to Use Breadcrumbs?
Safety - Breadcrumbs are a great safety feature as you’re able to identify employees’ whereabouts in case something happens to them while on the job.
Peace of mind - You can focus on the things that matter, knowing that you’re only paying your employees for time spent on the job.
Efficiency - Make the right business decisions, and make them quicker by getting a real-time picture of where your staff is.
Documentation - In the event of a dispute or customer complaint, you can easily verify and prove where and when your staff were, without even contacting them.
Profitability - reduce unnecessary costs by reducing time theft and buddy punching.
How to Activate Breadcrumbs
Follow these steps to activate Breadcrumbs:
Access the Time Clock
Click on Settings at the top right side of the screen
Click on the Geolocation tab in the Settings menu
Select Breadcrumbs (live tracking)
Click Save changes
How to View a User's Location
After you have activated the Breadcrumbs capability and your employees have clocked in, you will be able to see your employees on the map that exists within the Today tab. By toggling the all button, you can toggle on and off everyone's trails. You can also view the trail for a specific employee and click any employee to get more details about their clock-in and clock-out locations.
The tracking intervals on the Breadcrumbs feature are typically updated every 5 to 10 minutes while the employee is on the clock. However, this interval can vary based on the employee’s phone service. Additionally, the Breadcrumbs map will update once the user has moved approximately 80 feet (25 meters).
What Will You Need to Start Using Breadcrumbs?
Employees will need to have their app updated to version 8.0.5 and their Connecteam app Location Access set to 'Always'. The reason the location needs to be set to 'Always' is so the app can still track their location when the app is open in the background or even closed.
After activating the Breadcrumbs feature, as done above, when your employees clock in they will now be prompted to set their location services to 'Always'. Let's take a look at how this looks for both Android and iOS users below.
How it looks on Android:
How it looks on iOS:
Please note that we do not save any information regarding the employee in regards to their location while not on the clock or share that with admins to maintain the user's privacy rather location tracking is only active while the user is on the clock.
Summary
In this article, we went over the Breadcrumb feature and how to get started. We also went over what is needed to activate it and where we will be able to view our user's live tracking. By learning to understand what the benefits are and how they can be utilized in your day-to-day, your business will be able to run much smoother.
**Breadcrumbs is available from the Operations Expert plan and above**
Need more guidance? 🙋 Our LIVE support team (at the bottom right corner of your screen) replies to ANY question.