Check out a few industries that employ Hexnode’s location services.
Location tracking has come a long way since Hansel and Gretel left the long trail of breadcrumbs.
For corporate employees and officials in government services, security, healthcare, education and construction industries, location services may seem like an ominous word. To them, it implies that someone is watching over them and keeping tabs on what they do. As a result, they may feel like it’s a breach of user privacy. This in turn, becomes the reason why many IT admins seem reluctant to enforce UEM location services and their related functionalities in the enterprise. But we’re here to squash that myth out for good.
3 common myths about location services
1: Location services infringes on our employees’ privacy
On the contrary, user privacy is given number one importance when implementing location services in the enterprise. There are laws and regulations in place that restrict these services from using your location data for anything other than the intended purposes. As a result, these location tracking services must state their intended uses and obtain consent from your employees before functioning on their devices.
2: Location services are helpful only for large enterprises
Another misconception. Location services aren’t just about keeping track of your work devices, it’s also about increasing the productivity of your employees, reducing your overhead expenses, and improving the quality of your work. It doesn’t matter if your enterprise consists of 15 to 20 employees, or its numbered above thousands. With a good location services functionality, your business is equipped with a suite of features to improve their overall security and productivity.
3: Location services is too complicated to implement and use
It is not. On the contrary, location services don’t require any additional hardware or software to function. Moreover, with Hexnode’s Unified Endpoint Management solution, location services come built-in with our cloud-based UEM functionalities. As a result, IT can choose the location service features that are required to implement in their enterprise and subscribe to just the specified plans according to their business requirements.
Why location services?
But why do we even need location services, you ask? Well, observing how our work culture is evolving, we’re witnessing a shift in the way people get their work done. Our work devices are no longer bulky computers that sit plugged in one place. Instead, they’re laptops, smartphones, tablets and wearables that go wherever your employees may go.
Now, this poses an issue. If compromised, these work devices could easily disclose your company’s sensitive information, which could in turn deal a fatal blow to your business. This is where the need for a solid UEM location services functionality comes in.
Let’s examine a scenario. Take Bob, for example. Bob is a loyal, hardworking employee. But, he tends to be quite forgetful (frankly, we all are). While away on a business trip, Bob lost his company-issued smartphone, and now he fears it may be compromised. With Hexnode’s UEM location tracking feature, IT can easily track and recover Bob’s lost assets. Going a step further, they can receive notifications if Bob’s corporate assets move out of their designated work zones. And what’s more, they can even restrict services and functionalities based on Bob’s location (This feature is handy for enterprises employing a remote workforce). And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Use cases
With location services, businesses can,
- Evaluate the performance of their frontline workers and on-site employees by assessing the time they’ve spent on the field.
- Identify the real-time location of their mobile workforce and assign or reschedule tasks based on the location data they transmit.
- Notify on-site workers if the accidentally breach fenced areas.
- Automatically lock down enterprise endpoints to just the required functionalities when they’re within corporate/high security zones.
- Track their fleet of company-owned vehicles gain insight into their route of travel, along with the time they’ve spent moving through each location.
- Enable remote workers to check-in with their real-time location and provide reports on their day’s schedule of tasks.
- Obtain detailed reports the location of their mobile endpoints and ensure their safety and security even when outside the work zone.
And just, so much more.
Why choose Hexnode UEM for location services?
Now, there is no end to the number of vendors out there that offer location services to keep an eye on your enterprise endpoints. With so many options, making the right choice between these services is definitely a task that requires quite a lot of time and research. So, allow us to help you out by showing you exactly when and why you should choose a Unified Endpoint Management solution to fulfill your location tracking needs.
Here are the benefits of Hexnode’s UEM location services.
Benefits
- Multi-platform support
- Apply configurations and restrictions based on location
- Receive in-depth analysis with location reports and audits
- Simplified UI controls for even novice IT technicians
- Realize all your management needs, with just one solution
Multi-platform support
The most attractive feature that a Unified Endpoint Management solution like Hexnode offers is the ability to provide comprehensive support for all your corporate endpoints, regardless of its platform. Require tracking your laptops, tablets and your smartphones? No problem! Have Apple, Android, and Windows devices in your enterprise? We’ve got it covered. No matter what device or software version your users are on, as long as it’s got a GPS receiver or a network connection, Hexnode can track its location.
Apply configurations and restrictions based on location
Now, what if you could limit your employees’ work devices to just the required apps when they’re in the office, and then lift these restrictions when they’re back at home? Or maybe, you need your students to access only the approved educational content when they’re on school premises. Or, you need your health workers to have an environment that’s free from distractions when on the job. With a UEM solution, all of this and more is made possible. You can apply flexible configurations and automatically push them to your work devices, depending on their location information.
Receive in-depth analysis with location reports and audits
In addition to just tracking your devices’ location in real-time, a Unified Endpoint Management solution also equips your business with the ability to schedule location reports and audits and have them generated in a timely and organized manner. You can have clear and concise information on where your users travel with their work devices, and how much time they spend there. This in turn, enables managers to better evaluate their employees’ performance, especially in the case of frontline workers.
Simplified UI controls for even novice IT technicians
Along with the rich set of features it offers, Hexnode UEM is also pretty straightforward to get the hang of. With an excellent support team that’s always available to answer any queries, even novice technicians with no training whatsoever will find it very easy to push location tracking policies to their work devices.
Realize all your management needs, with just one solution
Location tracking isn’t the only forte’ for Hexnode’s Unified Endpoint Management solution. We provide enterprises with a comprehensive Unified Endpoint Management solution that caters to all their management needs. From device onboarding and deployment to monitoring, management and retirement, we can cover the complete lifecycle management for iOS, tvOS, macOS, Android and Windows devices, with no additional costs.
Services that conform to privacy regulations
With Hexnode UEM, you can rest assured that there’s no shady stuff happening in the background. At Hexnode, data security and privacy are integral elements of our policies. All our policies are enforced such that IT can never use any personal data without consent from the end-user. In addition, Hexnode’s UEM solution is compliant with regulatory guidelines including GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA.
Hexnode UEM location services – List of features
Alright enough talk. Let’s get straight to the grit with a complete list of all of Hexnode’s UEM location services features.
Location tracking
With Hexnode’s location tracking feature, enterprises can set up periodic intervals – that range from 15 minutes to 24 hours – to fetch the location of their work devices. Location tracking makes use of your devices’ GPS functionality. However, in case your device does not have a built-in GPS, Hexnode can use your devices’ network information to estimate its location.
Scan device location
Hexnode’s remote scan location actions enable IT to instantaneously fetch the real-time location of all your work devices and save them in the Hexnode console for your IT to view.
View real-time locations on Google Maps/OpenStreetMaps
IT can view the location of your enrolled devices in real-time on the OpenStreetMap/Google Maps tab in the Hexnode console. Hexnode’s default map is sourced from Open StreetMap, which is a free, community-driven open-source map. IT can also change the map provider to Google Maps by integrating the Google Maps API with Hexnode UEM.
Geofencing and dynamic groups
Geofences are virtual barriers that can be placed around geographical locations, that enable IT to set up work zones and restrict functionalities on managed devices within the zone. Using Hexnode’s Unified Endpoint Management solution, IT can create multiple geofences and define security policies based on the parameters set by enterprises. Also, with the help of dynamic groups, IT can automate tasks by pushing policies based on device location. With Hexnode, IT can even configure devices to automatically lock themselves down when leaving work zones, or alternatively, have them put in an immersive kiosk mode with inside the work zone.
For Windows and Mac devices, automated lockdown based on location is currently not completely supported.
https://www.hexnode.com/blogs/geofencing-and-hexnode-mdm/?utm_source=hexnode_blog_uem_location_services&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=blog_embed
Schedule audits and generate reports on location history
With Hexnode, enterprises can view information on the location history of their enrolled devices, and filter these reports based on their recorded dates. These reports can also be exported as CSV files from the Hexnode console and sent to your configured mail ID.
Enable end-users to check in with location notes
Hexnode UEM enables users to check-in from their enterprise endpoints and send location notes. These location notes can then be viewed by IT admins from the UEM console, and even exported as CSV files.
Final note
Hexnode’s arsenal of UEM location services can be a super effective way to keep an eye on all your work devices, from one centralized console. With more and more industries relying heavily on remote devices to handle their ever-growing heap of tasks and assignments, it becomes critical to not only monitor these devices, but also to secure and manage them. And with an ever-expanding list of management functionalities, Hexnode does just that. However, having said that, it is critical to make sure that the solution you employ actually satisfies all your management requirements. You really don’t want to end up with a case of buyer’s remorse. Well, what better way than to take it out for a spin yourselves.
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