Do More While You're On The Go With Smart Automation: Introducing Geofencing for Mobile

UPDATE 02/02/2022: This feature is currently disabled on Android for the time being.

First things first - what is geofencing? Simply put, it’s a virtual barrier that detects if you’re within a certain radius that you set up, like a client’s office. So, if you’re a consultant or someone who meets with clients outside of your office and you use our mobile app, our new geofencing feature will kick in automatically based on the filters you set up, making it easier than ever for you to track and access client work when you're on the go - without even thinking about it.

What does that actually mean for you when it comes to your everyday work life?

It means you’ve got one less thing to do when you get to your meeting or work site, like spending time pulling up your client's info in Accelo or enabling the mobile app to start tracking time. Or, maybe you just want to step out of the office for a break or lunch and want your timers to stop when you leave the office automatically and start up again when you get back. Geofencing is “smart” - it'll recognize your location and begin automating all of the things you need for that out of office client meeting, so you have one less thing to worry about. 

Simplifying your to-do's when you're busy on-the-go

The main idea behind geofencing is to introduce an increased level of automation for road users and anyone who’s on the go with Accelo’s mobile app. It's important to mention this is in no way tracking where you go - it’s based on the core location services from your mobile platform and has been optimized for speed, performance, and battery life. It works on the device level inside your operating system, meaning the Accelo app tells your operating system that it would like to be notified when you move in and out of the geofence you create (i.e. a client's office). To be clear, you’re the one configuring the location and size of the fence on your own device - we are not tracking your every movement!

Why geofencing is the next step in automation

Our mission has always been to help make running your business easier, which means automating things like busywork or redundant processes (like pulling up a client's info when you get to their office) - and our new geofencing feature allows us to deliver on this promise one step further. We’ve designed it so that you can create a geofence off of a company address, enabling you to automate actions based off of your physical location in the real world, so you have one less thing to do when you’re on the go.

As always, we want to get this feature to you sooner rather than later so we can reiterate on things based off of your feedback. That means that this build we’ll be releasing is a beta and isn’t perfect just yet, but it has the nuts and bolts of what you’ll need to get started. 

When you enter a geofenced location you can do one of the following:

• Log time: via a notification
• Start a timer: the app will automatically start a new timer
• Pause all timers: the app will pause all active timers
• Do nothing: the app will ignore your current location

When you leave a geofenced location you can do one of the following:

• Log time: via a notification, but we’ll pre-fill the time with the length of how long you stayed at the geofenced location.
• Start a timer: the app will automatically start a new timer
• Pause all timers: the app will pause all active timers
• Do nothing: the app will ignore your current location

For any actions in Accelo that are attached to the client you're working with, we’ll pre-fill the fields with the new information based on the work you do with that company. For example, if you create a GeoFence for a client’s city office in San Francisco, with an action of “log work”, we’ll pre-fill the activity with your client’s info to save you from having to enter it manually! If you've got any questions, email our Support team.

How it’ll impact your everyday life

Geofencing might seem like a feature that’s just for those who travel for work, but that’s not the case - geofencing is just another step in automating your everyday workflows. Here are a few use cases for how you could make geofencing work for you:

• At home: want to put your workday on pause when you step into your house? You can create a GeoFence for your home so that when you walk in, all your timers pause automatically - time to relax!
• Your office: want to make the most of your time when you get to work? You can create a GeoFence for your office that’ll start your timers automatically, and pause them when you leave (like when you take a lunch break or an afternoon walk).
• A worksite: create a GeoFence at worksite of yours so that when you leave, it logs the time you spend there automatically. You’ll be prompted to do this with a notification, and we’ll pre-fill all of your client’s details and the time spent at the location.
• Commuting: Have a second office, or another place you visit regularly to work? You can create a GeoFence for this place, and have your timers automatically pause when you leave your first office and automatically begin when you get to your second office, so you know exactly how long it took to travel between the two.

We’re excited to get this to you all and see what use cases you come up with. If you're on Android, you can access our beta here. If you're on iOS, just contact our Support Team and ask to be put on the list :-). Once you're in the beta, click on Smart Location in your mobile app to get started.

Once you give it a go, if you have a scenario you’d use geofencing for that we missed or that’s really helping you run your business more efficiently, let us know! We'd love to feature you on the blog.