Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0 Offers Advanced Tools for Location, Job and Time Management
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (November 23, 2004) – Xora, Inc., a leading provider of Mobile Workforce Management solutions, today announced the availability of its second-generation Xora GPS TimeTrack service, a hosted software application that runs on GPS-enabled phones.
“Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0 goes further than any other phone-based mobile workforce management service, with features and functionality that can not be found in other competing systems,” said Brent Iadarola, Program Leader for Mobile Communications at Frost & Sullivan. “Having firmly established itself as a market leader, Xora is raising the bar with this latest release in terms of making mobile worker’s time, location and job information even more useful. If you are the manager of a mobile service organization in any industry that is seeking to improve the productivity and accountability of field staff without investing in expensive software or hardware, you would be wise to check out Xora GPS TimeTrack v2.0.”
Xora GPS TimeTrack already is being used by more than 20,000 mobile workers across the country every day to locate and manage field employees. Managers of field-service organizations report that the Xora service helps them to keep track of mobile workers’ activities and billable hours, often resulting in significant time and cost savings for the companies. In fact, Xora GPS TimeTrack has been shown to cover the cost of the phone and the service and still save at least $1,500 per employee per year.
But for the most advanced companies, the use of technology simply to track location and job information is no longer sufficient. Instead, these companies are requiring solutions that make the information enabled by the location technology more active and intelligent. For example, rather than just knowing the location of his crew, the manager of a construction company may want a recording of any time that team, or a particular worker, arrives at or leaves a job site.
Among the new intelligent location tools available with Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0 is the Smart-Job Zones feature. From the office, a Xora administrator can create a “geofence” around a given geographic area. Whenever a mobile worker enters or leaves this region, the “job start” or “job end” activity is captured by the Xora service. Also, a series of landmarks can be ‘stringed’ together by the Xora administrator to define a “smart job route.” This results in a ‘hands free’ approach to job data capture leading to a more accurate and detailed account of mobile worker billable hours and activities, which helps to improve worker accountability.
Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0 also includes a module that can be used by supervisors and foreman in the construction and trades vertical. A supervisor can now enter time and job data on behalf of crew members. In addition, the location of the supervisor can be viewed on maps using a PC with an Internet connection. This module allows for payroll automation in industries where temporary labor is used extensively and where it is not economical to provide a phone to each crew member.
Data delivered from the field to the office by the Xora service is also more active in Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0. The Xora Data Shuttle has the ability to pick up job information from a company’s existing dispatch application and subsequently transport that information to the mobile worker’s phone. Completed job data is then sent back to the company’s database. The Xora Data Shuttle can read data from something as basic as an Excel worksheet to an advanced enterprise-class Oracle database. Out-of-the-box integration with the Intuit Master Builder Service Module is available with the Data Shuttle. Another powerful integration option allows customers to integrate data with route optimization software. This capability enables customers to view scheduled versus actual start/stop times for deliveries.
“Adoption of the Xora GPS TimeTrack service has been dramatic and extensive, reaching new industries and more workers at a phenomenal rate,” said Ananth Rani, Vice President of Products and Services at Xora. “While we continue to make it easier for companies and workers to use the Xora service, our most advanced customers are calling for new features and greater functionality, which led to the development of Xora GPS TimeTrack 2.0. Our goal in version 2.0 was to make the information captured and delivered by Xora more active and intelligent, such that our customers and their workers could experience even greater levels of efficiency and productivity.”
About Xora
Xora delivers hosted GPS/location based mobile solutions that allow customers to realize improved productivity, reduced cost of field operations and provide superior customer service. With Xora GPS TimeTrack, companies can use GPS-enabled mobile phones to easily and inexpensively track and record timesheet, job and location of their mobile employees. Founded in 1999, Xora has raised more than $11 Million in venture capital and is privately funded; the lead investor is Dawntreader Ventures. Xora partners include Motorola, Nextel, Oracle and RIM. For more information about Xora, call 650-314-6460, visit http://www.xora.com or e-mail info@xora.com.
For more information, please contact:
Ananth Rani
Xora, Inc.
(650) 314-6472
arani@xora.com
Kevin Wolf
Tool Guy PR for Xora, Inc.
(650) 654-2856
kevin@toolguypr.com
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