GPS Breadcrumb Trail
The GPS Breadcrumb Trail overlays the path a technician's phone recorded during their shift onto the Time map — not just where they clocked in and out, but the route in between.
Who Can Access This
| Role | Access Level |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Full access |
| Office | Full access |
| Sales | Full access |
| HR Admin | Full access |
| Payroll Admin | Full access |
| Field Technician | Not available — their location is recorded automatically from their device during a shift, but they don't view the trail |
This feature may need to be enabled for your company. If you don't see a GPS trail checkbox in the map panel, contact your administrator to check your feature settings.
Overview
The Time page's map panel normally shows pins for clock events only — where a technician clocked in, clocked out, arrived at a job, or left a job. The GPS Breadcrumb Trail adds a second layer on top of that: a line tracing the path recorded by the technician's phone while they were on shift, with small markers along the way.
This is useful when a clock-event pin alone doesn't answer the question — for example, confirming a technician drove a sensible route between two jobs, or that they stayed on a property for the time billed, rather than just that they clocked in and out at its address.
Key Features
- GPS trail checkbox — turns the trail overlay on or off for the technicians currently shown on the map.
- Include overnight — also pulls in trail points from a shift that started the day before and crossed midnight.
- Path line and waypoints — a colored line follows the technician's recorded path, with dot markers along it; a green marker marks where the trail starts and a red marker marks where it ends.
- Waypoint details — click or tap a waypoint for the technician's name, whether it's the start or end of the trail, the recorded time, speed, and GPS accuracy.
- Automatic thinning — if a shift recorded a very large number of points, the trail shows a representative subset rather than every single point, so the map stays readable.
How to View a Technician's GPS Trail
- Navigate to Office > Time.
- Set the date and open the Map panel.
- Check the GPS trail checkbox in the map's filter bar.
- If the shift crosses midnight, also check Include overnight so the full trail is included.
- The path line and waypoint markers appear for each technician currently shown on the map.
- Click or tap any waypoint to see its timestamp, speed, and accuracy.
Common Tasks
Confirm a technician's route between two jobs Turn on the GPS trail and look at the path between the job-departure pin at one property and the job-arrival pin at the next. A direct, steady path supports the clocked times; a long detour or gap is worth asking about.
Check whether a technician stayed on-site With the trail on, waypoints should cluster near the property for the duration of the job clock. Waypoints that wander away and back may just reflect normal GPS drift — check the recorded accuracy before raising it with the technician.
Tips and Best Practices
- Turn the trail on only when you need it. For day-to-day review, the clock-event pins are usually enough; add the trail when a specific time or route needs a closer look.
- Check the accuracy figure before drawing conclusions. A low-accuracy reading (a large ± value in a waypoint's popup) means the point is a rough estimate, not an exact location.
- Use Include overnight for late shifts. Without it, a shift that starts before midnight and ends after may show only part of its trail.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Solution |
|---|---|
| No GPS trail checkbox in the map panel | This feature may not be enabled for your company. Contact your administrator. |
| "No trail data available" | The technician's phone didn't record location data for this shift — for example, device location was turned off. |
| "Partial trail (too many points)" | The shift recorded more points than the map can plot individually; you're seeing a thinned-down version of the full path. |
| Trail markers are missing for part of a late shift | Check Include overnight — a shift that crosses midnight needs it checked to show the full trail. |
| Waypoint timestamps look offset from the clock-event pins | Read the time from the waypoint's own popup — clock-event pins can represent a different moment in the shift. |
Related Articles
- Timeline and Map View — The map panel's clock-event pins and Link mode
- Day Clocks — Shift start and end times
- Job Clocks — Arrival and departure at customer properties