Northern BI Professional Services – what are they?

At Northern BI, we offer a variety of professional services to clients looking to make the most of their Geotab telematics experience. Our clients receive help with implementation and training, along with continuous support, but sometimes they want to do more with their Geotab data – and that’s where our Professional Services come in. Some of the most common service requests include custom system integrations and specialized Excel reports. Many requests involve pulling Geotab data into other platforms, such as Tableau, QlikView, Microsoft Power BI, and various maintenance applications.

We augment our in-house resources through strong partnerships with three software companies: BesLogic, Inovex, and Quetica. BesLogic is based in Montreal, Q.C., and assists with any bilingual requests from clients. Inovex is from Oakville, ON, and has data and software development. And finally, Quetica operates out of Minnesota and specializes in route optimization across multiple industries including government.

What can our clients expect from professional services?

Clients can expect flexibility when working with Northern BI on professional services. We work with the information available to extend the capabilities of the Geotab system to meet the client’s maximum potential. This is about asking our clients the right questions. We examine their data requirements, current software systems, reports, and end goals. We are equipped with over 15 years of experience leading to a deep understanding of how your goals can most efficiently be met using MyGeotab or the Geotab SDK. Your dedicated Customer Solutions Manager acts as your project lead and oversees the service implementation from start to finish.

When it comes to technology, the sky is often the limit. If there’s something special a client wants to do with their data, such as feeding it to another system or building custom business applications, the best thing is to simply ask us!

Types of professional services: 

• Route optimization 
• Custom reporting 
• Software/system integration
• Data interpretation and analysis 
• SDK development
• Mobile app add-ins
• System monitoring

Who benefits from professional services?

There are many kinds of clients who can benefit from Northern BI’s professional services. Generally, customers who have achieved their initial telematics goals, and are looking to move to the next level of integrating telematics into the expanded operational process such as driver incentive programs, consolidated reporting, or maintenance programs are great candidates for professional services. Many of these clients include governments looking to leverage their data for specific departments such as snow removal and waste collection fleets. But you don’t have to be a government client to reap the benefits. We also help small and mid-size clients leverage their data or build custom reports so they can run their businesses more efficiently. We want clients of all sizes to know we’re here to help them. Clients who don’t have the in-house resources to expand their needs are also contenders for our professional services.

Who have we done professional services for?

Northern BI is pleased to have delivered professional services to clients across Canada. For example, the City of Vancouver’s sanitization department needed a way to track their trash bin pickups. The city wanted to not only track the number of bins picked up per truck but needed a way for drivers to log obstructions preventing them from completing their routes. The city had a unique request, but it wasn’t too big for Northern BI! Together with our partner Inovex, we developed a custom mobile app integrated with ESRI sourced route maps, Geotab to help drivers view and report any obstructions or issues they encountered, and their 311 system for bidirectional dispatch and creation of service requests to count the number of bins collected on a given route, the Geotab IOX-AUXM hardware was installed. Now, supervisors and teammates can easily see real-time progress – how many bins any given driver has picked up or has left on their run. As you can imagine, the custom app has become a valued tool for the city’s sanitization department. As a result, the fleet has been able to operate more efficiently!

An entirely different professional service was delivered for one of our energy clients. They wanted to find out how and where their vehicles were being used combined with the time it took to make trips. Understanding that most trips could be completed in 25 minutes or less, Northern BI created a custom utilization report to see where their vehicles were going and the trip time. The client was able to create zones inside Geotab and mark off areas of interest, including gas stations, garages, offices, and more.

Other notable professional services Northern BI have done for clients include idling reports, custom Geotab Drive SDK tools for ELD clients, and leveraging Geotab’s Data Science Package.

Not sure where to start? Just ask!

Northern BI is happy to talk with clients to answer any questions or ideas you may have. “If there’s one thing we’d like our clients to know about professional services, it’s to just ask! Chances are if you can dream it, it can be,” says Northern BI President, Dwayne Primeau. Northern BI is very excited to have conversations with clients to create products that will help them move forward with their Geotab solution.