Set It and Forget It: Scheduled Arming and Smarter Vehicle Monitoring

Vehicle security should not depend on someone remembering to press a button at the end of the working day.

For a small business, one missed manual arming action can leave a van, car or piece of equipment less protected than it should be. The same applies to vehicle monitoring. If a tracker stops reporting, a vehicle leaves the depot unexpectedly or a van spends too long at a job site, you need to know without checking screens all day.

DrivePro’s new scheduled arming and vehicle monitoring features help you automate these routine checks. You can set rules for each vehicle, receive alerts when something needs attention and use new site reports to understand how your vehicles are being used.

It gives you a more practical fleet monitoring system for everyday security, operations and job costing.

How to set up monitoring

Monitoring is configured separately for each vehicle.

1. Open the vehicle in DrivePro.
2. Go to the vehicle’s Settings tab.
3. Open the new Monitoring section.
4. Choose the features and settings you want to use.
5. Save your changes.

You can also set up or change these features by asking a connected AI assistant. For more information, read Ask Your Fleet Anything: DrivePro Now Connects to AI Assistants.

1. Arm vehicles automatically outside working hours

Manual arming is easy to forget, especially when your team is finishing late, working at different sites or returning vehicles to the depot at different times.

With a scheduled arm setting, your vehicles automatically arm outside the working hours you choose. They disarm during those working hours, so drivers can use them normally without needing to manage the schedule themselves.

You can select:

• The working days, such as Monday to Friday
• The working hours, such as 07:00 to 18:00
• Overnight working hours, such as 22:00 to 06:00

The schedule uses your DrivePro account’s time zone and handles the clocks changing automatically. That means you do not need to update the schedule manually when the clocks change.

How scheduled arming helps

When a vehicle is armed, movement triggers the usual movement alerts. This helps cover the periods when vehicles are most likely to be parked and unattended, including evenings and weekends.

For example, a landscaping business might set its vans to disarm from 07:00 to 18:00 on weekdays. Outside those hours, movement alerts remain active automatically. The owner does not need to remember to arm each van every evening.

Manual control still works. You can manually arm or disarm a vehicle whenever needed, and the schedule respects that manual choice until the next scheduled change.

This gives you flexibility for:

• A vehicle being used outside its normal hours
• Weekend call-outs
• A late return to the depot
• A planned overnight shift
• Temporary changes to a vehicle’s routine

2. Know when a vehicle leaves its home site

A vehicle’s home site is the location where it is normally stored, such as your depot, yard or business premises.

You can give each vehicle a home geofence and receive an alert if it leaves. A geofence is a virtual boundary drawn around a real location. DrivePro already supports geofences for monitoring areas such as job sites, storage locations and depots. Learn more about DrivePro geofencing.

Practical example: unexpected movement from the yard

Suppose your vans are normally parked at your depot overnight. If one leaves the home site unexpectedly, you can receive an alert and check its location.

This can help you identify:

• A vehicle leaving the yard outside expected hours
• An unauthorised use of a company vehicle
• A vehicle being moved during the night
• A possible security issue at the depot

The home site setting works particularly well alongside scheduled arming. The arm schedule monitors movement, while the home geofence highlights when the vehicle has crossed the boundary of its normal storage location.

For a business with several vehicles, configure the appropriate home site for each one. A vehicle may be assigned to a main depot, a regional yard or another regular storage location.

3. Find out when a tracker stops reporting

A tracker that suddenly goes quiet needs attention.

It may have been unplugged, tampered with or lost power. In other cases, the vehicle may simply be somewhere with a temporary reporting issue. Either way, you should not have to keep checking every vehicle manually to find out whether it is still reporting.

DrivePro’s not-reporting alerts let you choose how long a vehicle can remain silent before you receive an alert. For example, you could set an alert for 24 hours without a report.

When the tracker starts reporting again, you receive a follow-up “reporting again” alert.

Why this matters for small fleets

A not-reporting alert gives you a prompt to investigate while the information is still useful. You can check:

1. Whether the vehicle has been used recently.
2. Whether the tracker has lost power.
3. Whether the vehicle is still at its expected location.
4. Whether the vehicle needs inspection by a driver or technician.

For an individual vehicle owner, this adds another layer of awareness when a car is parked for a long period. For a business, it helps you identify silent vehicles across the fleet without relying on manual checks.

4. Understand time spent at each site

Knowing where a vehicle went is useful. Knowing how long it stayed there is often more valuable.

The new Time-on-site report shows activity for each vehicle and site, including:

• Number of visits
• Hours on site
• Days on site
• First arrival
• Last departure

This turns location history into information you can use for job costing, client billing and fleet utilisation.

Use site time for job costing and billing

If a vehicle is assigned to a customer project, the report can help you understand how much time it spent there.

For example:

“The tipper was on the Farnham site 12 days in September.”

That information can support your internal job records and help you prepare clearer client billing. It can also make it easier to review whether vehicle time at a site matches the work that was planned.

Identify underused vehicles

The report can also show which vehicles are spending too much time parked.

For example, you might discover:

• A van remained at the depot for most of the month
• Two vehicles were regularly visiting the same site
• A tipper spent more time on one project than expected
• A vehicle was rarely used compared with the rest of the fleet

This helps you make better decisions about vehicle allocation and utilisation.

You can find the report in the Reports section. Like other DrivePro reports, it can be scheduled and emailed automatically. You can also ask for it through a connected AI assistant.

Alerts arrive where you already use DrivePro

Alerts from these monitoring features arrive by email and app push, just like your existing DrivePro alerts.

They also appear on each vehicle’s timeline, giving you a record of what happened and when. You can review movement, site activity and reporting events without having to piece the information together from separate systems.

This makes it easier to move from an alert to an action:

• Check the vehicle’s current location.
• Review its recent trips.
• Confirm whether it left a home site.
• Investigate a tracker that stopped reporting.
• Review time spent at a customer site.

DrivePro supports both website and mobile access, so you can manage your vehicles from wherever you are. If you need a tracker for a new vehicle, explore the available DrivePro tracking products.

A simpler way to monitor every vehicle

Scheduled arming removes one more task from the end of the working day. Home site alerts help you identify unexpected departures. Not-reporting alerts highlight vehicles that need attention. Time-on-site reporting gives you clearer information for jobs, billing and utilisation.

Together, these features help you create a more consistent monitoring routine without adding more daily administration.

Set up your vehicle rules from the Monitoring section in DrivePro, or ask your connected AI assistant to help manage them. Visit drivepro.io to get started and contact the DrivePro team if you need help choosing the right setup for your vehicle or fleet.

Set your rules once, stay informed automatically and keep your fleet moving with confidence!