How APIs Improve Fleet Tracking Solutions

emnify’s REST API and no-code integration tools bring connectivity data straight to your fleet management application. This dramatically reduces your reliance on manual device management processes, streamlines your ability to track and process telematic data like coordinates and fuel consumption, and simplifies every deployment. 

By merging your application’s functionality with your connectivity provider’s, APIs enable you to access powerful new capabilities. But building integrations with an API also takes work, both to initially develop and to maintain—and how much work depends on the quality of that API.

Many APIs that collect cellular data can be difficult to use, and they don't offer the same functionality. If you have to develop integrations with multiple APIs from different providers, it leads to a disjointed fleet tracking customer experience. 

One of the main reasons fleet management providers and GPS tracker manufacturers choose (and stay with) emnify is our REST API. Here’s how our top-notch integration capabilities improve your service and your margins.

In-depth documentation sets your dev team up for success

Some connectivity providers lack the documentation your developers need to test and verify that it works properly. It doesn’t have the request/response information they need, forcing them to manually prove the data. Or it doesn’t give them the credentials they need to access test systems. 

This common pain point drastically increases the complexity and tedium of building the integration. Instead of simply following established steps, your developers have to either figure it out from scratch or spend hours on the phone to find the required solutions. 

emnify’s in-depth documentation makes integrating with our REST API straightforward, and our wealth of support resources ensures your dev team can always find answers to their technical questions. In fact, one customer even told us their developers didn’t even need a demo to test our APIs—the documentation is that good. Our knowledgeable IoT support reps are always available as well. We know that setting you up for success makes our partnership more valuable, so we compete to provide the smoothest integration experience possible.

Faster setup time lets you focus on your customer experience

We want you to build integrations fast, so you can quickly see what our partnership adds to your service and get back to work on your fleet management solution. Any extra time your dev team has to spend on an integration is time they could’ve spent on improving your customer experience. By reducing the time it takes to integrate with our API, you can leverage more of your product development budget on your product’s capabilities and improve your time-to-market. 

Fleet management providers have tested us against other connectivity solutions and found our APIs to be significantly faster to set up. Plus, once you’ve built that integration, setting up every device is faster, too. You can test and validate connectivity in real time before you deploy. There’s no need to call us to see if your tests have generated the appropriate response—you can see every network event right in your own application. (More on that later.)

And here’s the thing: if you can’t devote developers to building API integrations or don’t have the necessary expertise, you can still benefit from our APIs. We actually offer no-code integrations that utilize our API through Zapier. So even if you’re strapped for developer resources, we can still help you build your GPS tracking applications faster and streamline your workflows.

Automation saves you time on ongoing processes

As a fleet management provider, you have numerous routine processes that can take weeks or even months to complete manually.

Without APIs, every time a customer orders a new batch of GPS trackers, you have to individually configure thousands of devices. Your GPS trackers may have dozens of capabilities, but most customers only need a handful of them for their unique use cases. Even if all of these devices need the exact same functionality and settings, they have to be programmed separately. But with emnify’s REST API, you can set the configuration for a whole deployment at once, selecting the capabilities and connectivity parameters for thousands of devices automatically. And whenever an existing customer needs more devices to expand their fleet, you can automatically configure their new trackers based on the settings for that customer.

And what if, due to seasonal demand, your customers suddenly aren’t using hundreds or thousands of vehicles anymore? With our API, you don’t have to manually decommission each GPS tracker—you can automatically deactivate all of the SIM cards your customers no longer need. When the season picks up again, you can automatically reactivate them in bulk, too.

By automating more of your ongoing processes, we help you cut down on operational costs and give back that time to your business. With lower operational costs, you can enjoy better margins than your competitors, and with more time, you can devote more attention to your customers.

There’s one customer experience for all your deployments

Our SIM cards let your devices connect to more than 540 networks in over 180 countries. And for all of them, you only need one API: ours. Many fleet management providers are stuck restarting the API integration process every time they deploy in a new country. They choose a new local carrier to get the coverage they need, and roll the dice that they’ll get an API with the functionality and documentation they need to deliver their customers consistent service.

That’s not how it works with emnify. Every deployment uses our same API and gets the same functionality—you just change the configuration as needed. So you never have to worry about the experience your business provides in one country being different than what it provides in another.

Deeper integrations pass more information to your fleet management system

Some connectivity APIs don’t give your fleet management system much information to go on. This is usually the case if your connectivity provider doesn’t own their core network. (Which is common with MVNOs.) Their platform can’t actually record network events, so the information it passes to your application isn’t current. If you’re trying to troubleshoot a device that isn’t working properly, you have to wait for your provider to contact their partner’s customer service to find out what’s going on—all while your customers are waiting for you to resolve the issue.

We own our core network. So regardless of which carrier your GPS tracker is connected to, your application can see its connectivity status along with a log of the network events which led up to the issue in real time. You don’t even have to contact us (but our team is here if you need us).

[Insert image of what the network event log looks like in the portal or how it might appear in the customer’s application]

This increased visibility also enables you to streamline the factory test process. You can see activation and other network events as they happen, right in your application, so you don’t have to sit on the phone (with us or anyone else) to confirm that your devices are working as intended. Combine this with your ability to activate SIM cards in batches, and you just saved hundreds of hours on setup for every deployment.

See how a better connectivity solution leads to better margins

Fleet management providers are in a constant battle to reduce costs and improve margins. Utilizing better APIs is just one of many steps you can take to get an edge over your competitors and eliminate ongoing expenses. In the future, technology like this will be the norm. But right now, it’s a less-common cost-savings opportunity.