Configuring the Fleet Monitoring plugin role - Fleet Monitoring 2.3.21.1

Security Center Fleet Monitoring Plugin Guide 2.3.21.1
Applies to
Fleet Monitoring 2.3.21.1
Last updated
2023-03-06
Content type
Guides > Plugin and extension guides
Language
English
Product
Fleet Monitoring
Version
2.3

Before you can use the Security Center Fleet Monitoring plugin, also known as the AVL plugin, to monitor and offload from your vehicle system, you must define your default, general, and automatic offload settings.

Before you begin

What you should know

You can choose the default type of information to offload: all data, or a subset to reduce the bandwidth and storage needed by your offload archivers.

To handle the video load in a large system deployment, multiple archiver roles can be used to offload data. To avoid overloading a single server, AVL units need to point to specific archiver roles on a per unit basis.

Procedure

To configure offload settings:

  1. From the Config Tool home page, open the Plugins task.
  2. In the Plugins task, select the plugin role from the entity browser, and click the Properties tab.
  3. In the Default offload settings section, configure the following:
    Destination archiver
    Default archiver for video archiver transfer. This should be dedicated for long-term video storage.
    Offload video data on
    Offload video for all events, or for specific types of events. You can also specify the duration, in seconds, of video preceding and following the events to offload.
    Automatic offload on
    Enable automatic offloads for the following:
    • WiFi connected: If your vehicle system uses a WiFi adapter, start an automatic offload when your vehicle system connects to WiFi.
    • GPS unit online: Start an automatic offload when a GPS unit goes online.
    • GPS unit alarm: Start an automatic offload when a GPS unit in an alarm state.
    • Custom event: Select a custom event to trigger an automatic offload.
    • Automatic offload areas: If you are using geofences to offload, select the geofenced areas that you want to trigger automatic offloads when a vehicle enters the area.
    Raise event on
    Trigger an event on the following:
    • Automatic offload requested: Receive events when automatic offloads are requested.
    • Automatic offload started: Receive events when automatic offloads start.
    • Automatic offload finished: Receive events when automatic offloads finish.
    • Automatic offload gap: Receive events when there is a gap between automatic offloads.
    • Offload fail: Receive events when automatic offloads fail.
    Maximum items in progress per AVL unit
    Maximum number of items that can offload data at the same time during a transfer, depending on the bandwidth available for offloading.
    Require WiFi connection
    If your vehicle system uses a WiFi adapter, only offload data using WiFi.
    Require recent location data
    Only offload data if the location data of the AVL unit is recent.
    NOTE: To set a time after which data is no longer considered recent, you can modify the Stale location age setting in the properties tab of the associated GPS unit.
  4. In the General offload settings section, configure the following:
    Prioritize manual offloads
    Send manual data offloads to the top of the queue.
    Chunk size
    Maximum video duration, in hours, that can be transferred before dividing it into smaller chunks to optimize transfers.
    Best Practice: Larger chunks more likely to fail mid-transfer and have to be re-tried. The recommended chunk size is four hours.
    Max AVL units in progress
    Number of active transfers allowed simultaneously.
    Offload monitoring interval
    The update interval for data offloads in the AVL data offload status task.
    Status page update interval
    The refresh interval, in seconds, for the AVL data offload status task.
    Completed status timeout
    The duration, in minutes, before completed offloads are cleared from the AVL data offload status task.
    Video offload pending timeout
    The duration, in minutes, before a pending video offload is canceled.
    Video offload in progress timeout
    The duration, in seconds, before an in-progress offload that is not sending status updates is canceled.
    Archive loss warning
    A warning is displayed in the My offloads task for offloads whose data time stamps are within the defined time threshold of being stored by the AVL unit's target offload archiver.
    Video offload ignore no other archiver errors
    Offloads for which the target is the same as the source are marked as completed instead of generating an error.
    Offload incident titles
    You can define Security Center incidents that are automatically generated during offload. This can make it easier to search and investigate offloaded data.
  5. In the Automatic offload settings section, configure the following:
    Offload
    Choose to offload AVL data, video, or both.
    Look back time
    Sets how far back to search for video to offload.
    Minimum delay before new automatic offload
    Defines a minimum time period that must elapse before a new automatic offload is queued.
    Minimum delay for previously failed item
    Defines a minimum time period that must elapse before a previously failed offload chunk is automatically re-queued.
    Maximum failures allowed per item
    Maximum number of times a failed chunk of an offload will be queued automatically.
    Maximum offload
    Maximum duration of data to offload.
    Minimum offload
    Minimum duration of data to offload.
    Overlap
    Ensures that there are no gaps between offloaded video.
    Offload order
    Set the order in which data is offloaded.
    Create incident
    Create an incident on automatic data offloads. If selected, set an Incident title.
  6. In the Manual offload settings section, configure the following:
    Default retries
    Define how many retries of a failed offload are permitted.
    Default retry interval
    Define a time period after which a retry of a failed offload occurs automatically.

To configure general settings:

  1. In the AVL unit status update interval (minimum) field, define a minimum time period after which the AVL unit's status is published.
  2. To log all real-time location data received from GPS units into the database, activate the Log GPS data to database check box.

To configure map settings:

  1. In the Map settings section configure the following:
    Stale data threshold
    Time after which the icon of an AVL unit reporting stale data turns gray.
    Icon timeout
    Time after which the icon of an AVL unit reporting stale data is removed from the map.
    Entity query interval
    The time interval after which the map object provider queries AVL unit entities to ensure you continue receiving events. To deactivate this feature, set it to zero.
    Show speed
    Activate this setting to display speed in icon labels on the map.
    Show speed units
    Activate this setting to display measurement units next to the speed in icon labels on the map.

To configure recent alarms:

  1. In the Recent alarms section, configure the following:
    Max age
    Define a time period after which an alarm is no longer considered recent.
    Max alarms
    Define a maximum number of alarms that can be considered recent.

To configure fleet health settings:

  1. In the Fleet health settings section, configure the following:
    Stale data threshold
    The stale data threshold is the duration, in seconds, after which fleet health data is considered stale and possibly inaccurate.
    Logging
    If you want to create fleet health reports, you must configure the plugin to log fleet health information. To do so, activate this setting and configure the following:
    Log OK statuses
    Choose whether or not to log statuses indicating that there are Fleet Health is OK. If this setting is left deactivated, only fault statuses are logged. It is recommended to keep this setting deactivated to prevent excessive accumulation of unnecessary data.
    Log interval
    The time interval after which log statuses are collected.

To configure REST API:

  1. Click the REST API check box.
    API path name prefix
    Assign a name for the REST API
    REST port
    Define a port number. The mostly commonly used port is 443.
    Web SDK host
    Enter an SDK host name. The mostly commonly used host is localhost.
    Web SDK allow self-signed certificate
    Activate this setting to allow the connection to the Web SDK to accept a self-signed certificate instead of requiring a valid certificate signed by a certificate authority.
    Tip: You can configure the REST API at the AVL plugin level to integrate third party software with the plugin and initiate, monitor, and manage AVL data offloads.

To configure Route playback settings:

  1. From the Route playback settings section:
    Continue export failure
    Activate this setting to make route playback exports continue even if an error occurs.
    Show graph tile
    Activate this setting and the Route playback task automatically displays a graph tile. Deactivating this setting means that you must manually choose to display the graph tile.
    Map tile history trail max points
    Define the maximum number of points that can be shown in the history trail section of the map tile.
    NOTE: This setting affects the granularity of the known location icons that are shown in the map tile in the Vehicle route playback task to avoid excess clutter on the map.
    Map tile default zoom
    Define a geographic area that map tiles automatically zoom to fit.
    Map tile export minimum zoom
    Define a geographic area that is automatically zoomed to during an export if the map is not already zoomed to this level.
    Map tile show overlay
    Activate this setting and the map tile shows an overlay including longitude, latitude, speed, and heading.
    Seek video tiles while dragging timeline
    When this setting is activated, dragging the route playback timeline causes video tiles to seek the selected time as you drag.
    Show location tile
    When this setting is activated, the Vehicle route playback task automatically shows the location tile. When this setting is deactivated, you must manually choose to display the location tile.
    Location tile
    Choose the metrics that you want to include in the location tile display.

GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) is a data specification used by transit agencies to publish schedules and information about their fleet. To configure GTFS settings:

  1. Click the Monitor GTFS realtime checkbox to activate this setting.
    GTFS realtime vehicle positions URL
    Enter the URL required to pull GTFS vehicle position information from the agency's GTFS realtime vehicle positions feed.
    GTFS realtime poll interval
    Define a period of time after which the system will poll for new data from the GTFS realtime feed.
    Vehicle descriptor field for AVL identifier
    Select the GTFS vehicle descriptor that is used to map an entity in the feed to an AVL unit's GTFS identifier.

To configure Automatic AVL unit addition and removal:

NOTE: This feature only works if there are one or more GPS plugins that are configured to automatically create GPS units.
  1. Click the Automatically add AVL units checkbox to activate.
    Add AVL units to area
    Click Edit and select an area where automatically created AVL units are placed.
    NOTE: It is recommended that you create a specific area for automatically-created AVL units.
    AVL unit for configuration
    Click Edit () and select an AVL unit whose configurations are be copied when a new AVL unit is automatically added.
    Automatically remove AVL units
    Activate this setting to automatically remove automatically added AVL units whose associated GPS units have been automatically removed.
    GPS plugin filter
    Select a filter to create AVL units only for GPS units created in the selected plugin. This setting exists for use in systems containing multiple GPS plugins.
  2. Click Apply.