TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview

This document explains how ASR’s Eleos integration can be configured to allow Eleos messages to attach or detach multiple trailers in Geotab, if the trailers entered by drivers are different than what is currently attached in Geotab.


How it looks through Geotab interface

When trailers are attached, they are seen in Geotab through a driver’s HOS logs, along with a period that they were attached, and information about the shipment. You can find this by going to your Geotab URL, signing in, and expanding the “Compliance” section. Go to HOS and click on “Logs”. 



After searching for a driver, at the bottom of the HOS log there may be records of trailer logs being attached to the HOS log. When they are attached the log will display as shown below:

 


Enabling the feature for automatic Geotab Trailer Logs 

For the feature to automatically attach and detach trailers in Geotab, you will need to ensure that it is enabled in appsettings.json, and the trailer field’s form code is defined within CurrentTrailerFormKey’s setting value.


Appsettings.json

In the appsettings.json file within the “Geotab” section, Geotab needs to be enabled by setting Enabled to true. This would be true for any Geotab related processes to function properly, along with valid credentials for the integration to access the Geotab database. A username, password, database, and server are all required.

 

Once enabled there are two settings under the same Geotab section that control this feature. FormsManageTrailers determines if forms should control connecting and disconnecting trailers in Geotab.

 

 CurrentTrailerFormKey defines a specific form field code to read from workflow message submissions for the driver’s current trailer.


For example, if the CurrentTrailerFormKey in settings is set to "TRAILER-NUMBER", whenever messages are received from the driver, the value within the "TRAILER-NUMBER” field is retrieved with an attempt to attach or detach the trailer in Geotab. More information on configuring your Eleos App Manager Forms can be found in the following section.


Adding Form Field to Eleos Form

In the Eleos App Manager, you will need to add a field matching what is defined within appsettings.json for the CurrentTrailerFormKey setting value in the previous step, for any forms that you want to allow drivers to attach or detach trailers from. This is used mostly on workflow forms such as WORKFLOW-DELIVERY and WORKFLOW-PICKUP. You can insert multiple fields on a form to allow drivers to enter multiple trailers. If you want to allow the driver to specify additional trailers you must add a form field that begins with the same code as what was defined in appsettings.json. For example, if the code defined in settings is “TRAILER-NUMBER”, you’d be able to insert a field for “TRAILER-NUMBER”, “TRAILER-NUMBER1”, “TRAILER-NUMBER2”, “TRAILER-NUMBER-TEST”, etc.

 


How the integration handles forms with CurrentTrailerFormKey

When configured, the integration fully syncs trailers in Geotab with trailer values entered by the driver.  When a message with a form field containing the CurrentTrailerFormKey is received, the integration retrieves already attached trailers and compares those with the trailers entered on the driver’s form submission. Trailers from the form submission that are not already attached will be attached to the log. Trailers previously attached to the log that were not part of the form submission will be detached in Geotab.


 Please note that when using this feature, any field code that contains, begins or ends with the value specified in the CurrentTrailerFormKey setting will be considered by the integration for Geotab log updates. It is imperative that you choose unique fields that will not create conflicts with pre-existing form definitions.