Hi everyone! If you are a subscriber of Katsana, you are now rocking the new Version 2.0 that was released on 25th August 2014. Thats right, we are now on Version 2.0 of Katsana Advanced GPS Tracking and Fleet Management System.
Since then, the version 2.0.0 has gone through four more interations, and we are now on Katsana Version 2.0.4.
The new major 2.0 version and smaller 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 incorporate a number of improvements based on comments that we have collected from fellow users in Katsana 1.0, and also some awesome features beneficial for fleet managers.
Before we list down new features in Katsana 2.0, we would like to thank our users and supporters for the comments, suggestions and most importantly for being patient and understanding with our development flow. Please do keep the suggestions coming!
Heartiest gratitude to (in no particular order) Mr. Mustafa, Mr. Amir, Mr. Theva, Mr. Cheong, Mr Azman, Mr. Nizam, Mr. Dzofeer, Mr. Alex, Mr Nazri, Mr. Tait, Mr. Husaimi, Mr. Firdaus, Mr. Alif Amirul, and others who have been instrumental in the development of Version 2.0.
Feature highlights in Katsana Live GPS Tracking System Version 2.0
1. Vehicle profile page
2.0.0 The new version of Katsana introduces Vehicle Profiles. Being car enthusiasts ourselves, we feel that your vehicle should be treated as a persona, having its own storyline with record of its journey in life.
In our future plans, we hope to fill this page with detailed information of the vehicle such as its maintenance records, insurance information, PUSPAKOM inspection date and other beneficial records. This would greatly help fleet managers in their daily operation, which contribute towards financial savings for your company.
2. Quick vehicle selection with auto-search & completion
2.0.0 This feature is built specifically for fleet operators that manage a large number of vehicles.
In the new Katsana 2.0, we added a quick search filter that would allow you to type in partial keywords of the vehicle. For example, you can partially input ‘Proton’, and Katsana will list down all Proton vehicles available in your account. You could also submit partial plate numbers, for example ‘WXX’ and the system will list down all vehicles that begin with ‘WXX’.
This will save you time and we hope will make fleet management easier and more efficient.
3. Enforcement of Policies
2.0.0 Imagine your company has numerous vehicles and as a fleet operator, or HR or simply as the man at helm, how can you effectively enforce the company policies onto your vehicles? A bus operator for example, may request his driver to follow the speed limit of 90kmph, but how can he be sure that the driver actually follows the policies?
With KatsanaGPS, you are now able to define several policies that your vehicle has to follow, failing which the violation will be recorded in the vehicle’s profile page. The log will include the time, the max speed/area of the violation event, map & its coordinates.
The policies available are:
- Maximum speed limit policy: Ability for you to define the maximum speed of the vehicle.
- Under final testing Allowable area policy: Ability for you to define the zones or areas allowed for the vehicle to be used in. Violation will be logged when the vehicle is driven outside of the allowable area. Useful if you wish to force the vehicle to be used only within a certain area (ie, 4×4 support vehicles should only be used in Selangor & KL).
- Under final testing Movement policy: Ability for you to prevent the vehicle from being used during a certain time & day. Useful if you wish to prevent the vehicle from being used at night or weekends (ie, company vehicles should not be used for personal reasons at night or during weekends. It has to be parked at the office during those times).
4. Violations log in Vehicle Profile
2.0.0 With the introduction of policy enforcement features, we are now keeping a log of each policy violation. This log is available in vehicle profile page and will provide a detailed information of the violation.
To complement the violation log, we are coming up with a feature to allow fleet managers to export this data into Excel & PDF.
5. Monthly travel distance and total odometer
2.0.0 We have added a new feature to virtually count the travel distance of your vehicle. This distance is retrieved based on information from GPS & GLONASS satellites, thus it will be as close as it gets to the actual travel distance of your vehicle.
On top of that, Katsana 2.0 also shows the total odometer of your car. In the future, we are adding an ability for you to submit the current odometer of your vehicle so that it will also reflect the most up-to-date and precise travel distance.
6. Performance optimizations
2.0.0 This is a bit technical, so I hope you can bear with us. The old version of Katsana 1.0 utilized Ajax Long-pull to retrieve latest vehicle location from our servers. While this is adequate for our usage, the technology behind it may not be suitable to cope with our growth. Ajax Long-pull may create some bottlenecks as we grow.
Thus, we have improved the live tracking page to use Server-Sent Events which reduces bandwidth and improves our performance by a wide margin. In our test case, a 7 hours live tracking of a particular vehicle created almost 6000 http requests with 8.5MB data transferred. On SSE, we only initiate 550 requests with only 3.5MB data transfer.
What does it mean to you? In short, the new live tracking page in Katsana V2 is faster on smartphones due to smaller memory footprint, reduces your phone bill due to less data usage, and generally more efficient for our servers!
For more information about this new technology, you can browse this link Server-Sent Events Implementation in Katsana V2.
7. New Mapping Service provider – Mapbox
2.0.0 Older version of Katsana relies on Google Map. Due to several restrictions imposed by Google Map and to cope with our growth so far, we have decided to the next best thing in mapping service – Mapbox.
You may notice that your map is much more responsive and agile compare to Google Map. And it may look tad nicer than th
e older Google-powered map. However we notice that in certain less populated areas, the map shown in Mapbox may not be as complete as Google Map. To rectify this, we have implemented a new feature which will be elaborated in the paragraphs below.
On our end, Mapbox allows us to design our map better and is more flexible when it comes to development and feature integration. We also find that in term of mobile development (for iOS and Android), they have a complete and fun-to-use SDK that makes it easier for us to come up with dedicated Katsana app for iPhone and Android devices.
8. Vehicle Parking Information
2.0.2 This is one of the most awaited features we believe.
It is now easier than ever to see the vehicle start & stop log. You will now able to view the location, time of stopping/parking event, and also the duration of the vehicle being parked. Awesome, isnt it?
To view this data, simply use ‘Route today’, ‘Route Yesterday’, or select any specific dates that you have in mind. Katsana will display entire route travelled for the specific dates, and will mark any occurrence of parked vehicle.
9. Ability to open current vehicle location in Google Map app or Apple Map app
2.0.4 Our migration to the awesome Mapbox instead of Google Map has brought a slight drawback. Thus, in order to provide our users with a more detailed map, we have added an option to view the current vehicle location in other mapping solution that you may have.
Depending on the device/smartphone that you are currently using, the button will:
- Android: Allow you to choose to open the current location in mobile Google Map, or in dedicated Google Map app.
- iOS (iPhone/iPad): Automatically open the vehicle location in Apple Map app.
- Windows: Open a new browser which displays Google Map.
- Max OSX: Open a dedicated Apple Map application.