Geofencing
Also known as: geo-fence, location triggers
Triggering an action when a vehicle or device crosses a virtual boundary around a customer site.
Geofencing in field service uses GPS to detect when a technician's vehicle or phone enters or leaves a defined geographic boundary — typically a circle around a customer's address. Crossing the boundary fires an event: clock in, clock out, send the customer an "on the way" SMS, time-stamp the start of work, or notify dispatch that the job has begun.
Geofencing trades manual time-tracking accuracy for passive accuracy. Technicians don't have to remember to start a timer; the system does it. The downsides are battery drain on the device, GPS imprecision in dense urban areas, and the privacy/labor implications of always-on location tracking. Most FSM platforms expose geofencing as opt-in per business and surface the captured timestamps as suggestions a technician can confirm or override.
Related terms
Dispatch
Assigning jobs to specific technicians or crews on specific days, with the right skills, parts, and routing in place.
Field service management
Software for coordinating work that happens at customer sites — scheduling, dispatch, quotes, invoicing, and crew tracking.
Work order
The structured record of a job to be performed — what's needed, when, where, by whom, and at what price.