User Review
( votes)In this day and age of digital payments, there still are certain places where payments are done only in cash. If a person not too keen on carrying cash happens to shop at such a place, it takes him more time to hunt down a nearby ATM than it took him for the entire shopping process. Finding places of interest or needs is excruciatingly painful in too crowded areas as well as in deserted ones. In such situations, a person often desires of having a device or an app that directs him to his required place with accurate navigation steps.
Maplytics, the flagship product of Inogic and the preferred app on the Microsoft AppSource has a plethora of interesting features harnessing the power of locational intelligence for geo-analytics within Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. The POI Location feature particularly seems befitting for the situation above. Let us explore its working and application.
POI Location or Point Of Interest Location
If a user is traveling and requires facilities such as a gas station, a restaurant/ café, an airport, or something similar and he is unaware of the whereabouts or directions to that place, he can mark his current place as the POI Location over the map. Once done, he could select the icon of the facility he needs to explore around his POI Location. On selection, the places providing this facility are plotted over the map with multiple push pins. The user can find these places of interest in advance or ad-hoc, in real-time while being on the go!
Once plotted, that one pushpin that is probably the one nearest to the user’s POI Location, at a convenient distance, or along a convenient travel route, can be selected. This can even be added to the already plotted route of optimized travel and the travel route could be revised to accommodate the new addition.
The function is useful in a minute as well as complex searches and has a lot of applications for the field reps traveling extensively and beyond boundaries. Let us have a look at a few of such applications.
Case 1
Consider a delivery truck filled with holiday gifts traversing across the states. Due to the upcoming snowstorm indication, the truck driver receives a warning about potentially blocked roads ahead. He, at this stage, would gauge the time for the block and the time required for his travel along with the gas in the truck. To be equipped, he’d want to fill up the gas and hit the accelerator without a break. With the POI Location feature in place in the Maplytics app on his phone, he’d find the nearest gas station and plot a route to it, thus, saving a lot of time in searching.
Case 2
A doctor is summoned for an emergency delivery. He realizes that reaching the hospital would not be possible for the pregnant woman and the delivery needs to be done at her existing place. He needs to get the surgical equipment such as gloves, masks, certain medicines, cotton gauze, etc. on his way. He could quickly log on to the app provided by the hospital authorities, search for medical shops near his location, and collect the required material.
Case 3
We are aware that diabetics need to consume food immediately after an insulin shot. Thus, travels without food become dangerous for them. If a diabetic sales rep is on his way to a meeting location around lunchtime, he would need to consume food after his insulin shot. Thus, using the POI Location on his mobile, he could plot the nearest restaurant/ café and be food ready before taking his shot.
Case 4
With odd working hours, the field reps often need to travel late at night. Late-night travels aren’t really safe for anybody and especially a lady rep. If the tire of the car of one such female field rep ruptures while being on the go, she could call the car services and get her car checked and sent for repairs. However, she could decide against traveling any further, plot nearby hotels, and rest there for the day.
There is much more to the POI Location functions and the other functions of Maplytics. Maplytics being the preferred, 5-star rated app of the Microsoft AppSource has great applications across industries and multiple unique features for every business operation. To explore them further, do have a look at our Blogs and Video Library. Also, write us your mapping needs at crm@inogic.com and get a free demo and a Q/A session scheduled especially based on your requirements.
Until then, Happy Mapping!
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