I have a truck that was installed approximately 2 weeks ago. All was fine until last night. My driver called at 2am and said the truck was not populating within the list of available trucks. I located the number and saw there serial number of the unit was zero'd out. I was successful in talking him through getting the truck back in our database, but it still does not answer why it happened in the first place.
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Why is my Geotab serial number reverting to zero's after several weeks installed?
TFinl-1224
Original Poster
Edited by EishiFUN
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Top Answers
Hey, @TFinl-1224!
Do you have Automatic vehicle management enabled in your MyGeotab system? This would account for the "000-000-0000" in your system:
(You can find this by going to Vehicles > [vehicle in question] > +More details and then scrolling to the bottom of the page.)
What this doesn't account for is the fact that you were able to add the vehicle back in. (If it were Automatic vehicle management, there would be a new version of the device showing up in your Vehicles list with a funky name like, "G81A2B3C4DDE (Formerly in truck 31415)".)
The other possibility I can think of is if someone actually did unplug the device in your system. You could look this up by going to Administration > System... > Audit Log and searching around the time frame this would have happened in for "Add device" and "Remove device" events. Here's a quick video on How to Use the Audit Log in MyGeotab.
Hope this helps! :)
Best,
6 Replies
Hey, @TFinl-1224!
Do you have Automatic vehicle management enabled in your MyGeotab system? This would account for the "000-000-0000" in your system:
(You can find this by going to Vehicles > [vehicle in question] > +More details and then scrolling to the bottom of the page.)
What this doesn't account for is the fact that you were able to add the vehicle back in. (If it were Automatic vehicle management, there would be a new version of the device showing up in your Vehicles list with a funky name like, "G81A2B3C4DDE (Formerly in truck 31415)".)
The other possibility I can think of is if someone actually did unplug the device in your system. You could look this up by going to Administration > System... > Audit Log and searching around the time frame this would have happened in for "Add device" and "Remove device" events. Here's a quick video on How to Use the Audit Log in MyGeotab.
Hope this helps! :)
Best,
Just to note, the Unplug Device option would show up in the Audit Log as 'Archived device (made historical)'. I think that might be what you meant by 'Add Device' as it used to be 'Add Historical Device'. :)
TFinl-1224
Original Poster
Here's the thing, some of my vehicles do have it enabled, then some are not enabled. I had my driver use the Ryder ELD service icon we have on our tablets to put the truck back in the system so he could use it. Now I have TWO trucks with the same number, one with the serial number one without. I can't find any history on the without, probably because it was "removed". I'm really not sure.
Should all of my vehicles have the Automatic vehicle management enabled?
Hi, @TFinl-1224!
Whether you use the Automatic Vehicle Management or not is really a matter of personal preference. It *can* be useful in one case that I am aware of:
Automatic Vehicle Management can be used effectively if you have GO units that are constantly being swapped from one vehicle to another and you do not have your people trained to manage them properly in MyGeotab (i.e. they don't know how to archive units and then add them back in as a new vehicle when they put an old GO unit into a new vehicle).
However, I personally think that this feature can cause more problems than it's worth for the following two reasons:
1) If a GO unit misreads a VIN you get two copies of your vehicle, an archived one and an active one. This causes the data to now be split up, requiring you to have to run reports including historical data just to get the full picture of what's going on with a GO unit from a time before it was archived until now. Not great.
2) If a GO unit is archived with Automatic Vehicle Management you won't know about it unless you're keeping an eye on your vehicles to see those ones that have weird names about formerly being in another vehicle.
Although it is a pain to manage, you can have Geotab copy data over to another vehicle if you did have an issue where someone just moved a GO unit from one vehicle to another (I don't see this happen too often, especially when the training has been in place to show how to do this move). Personally, I prefer this method in these rare events because then you at least don't have data for one vehicle being split up into multiple versions of the same vehicle in your system. Some people still prefer to use Automatic Vehicle Management and, like I said, it's ultimately a matter of personal preference.
I do think that for consistency's sake it would be better to have them all set one way or another. (Again, just my own personal preference.)
Here's a quick video explaining how to properly move GO units from one vehicle to another so that your data remains consistent:
Removing or Replacing a Vehicle's GO Unit in MyGeotab
Hope this helps! :)
Best,
TFinl-1224
Original Poster
Thank you! This actually helps me tremendously! My position in the company is to manage the vehicles and the ELD system itself. If I lose data from the unit, my drivers logs are wrong!
I have been shown how to archive the vehicles. Especially when we have a sub unit come in. And I have noticed 2 of my vehicles showing the "formerly" name. Still need to figure that out as they are vehicles in my out of town terminals.
Glad to be able to help!
If you're interested in learning more about the Geotab Drive ELD or just MyGeotab in general, I've built a few training courses to walk you through most of the features:
https://training.fleetnavsystems.com/
You may also be interested in checking out our YouTube channel; I've been livestreaming on there for the past few weeks, highlighting features that might be useful to drivers and admins, and taking questions in the chat box:
youtube.com/fleetnav
Hope these resources can help you out! :)
Best,
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