Samsara & Distinctive Coach Manager
We have a turnkey platform for connecting Samsara & Distinctive Coach Manager that is used by over 25 bus companies across the US & CA. Our platform bridges the gap between ELD providers, booking systems and other 3rd parties to maximize the value of each to improve your operations and customer service.
Our platform is built and hosted using reliable cloud technologies that allows us to quickly and efficiently onboard customers and add new features. We typically get a fleet up and running on our platform in a few hours and can build most custom solutions in a few days.
Requirements & Setup
Services
Requirements
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you must be using Coach Manager v4.92.01 (September 2019) or newer to use this integration
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you must have Samsara devices installed in 1 or more vehicles
Setup Steps
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email support@initekconsulting.com and ask us to onboard your account
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we'll send you a standard service agreement for your review/signature
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we'll invoice you for the 1st month of service
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pay the invoice to kick off the setup process
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add a user in Samsara for us to setup API access and verify account data & settings
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add ben.oday@initekconsulting.com as a Standard Admin with access to the Entire Organization
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enable the bookings feed from Coach Manager
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Initek will provide the connection details
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email nasupport@distinctivesystems.com and ask them to enable the booking feed with these details
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booking data will then be sent using a secure FTP connection to our servers
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view booking & actuals results on our portal
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you will receive a welcome email with a credentials to our Fleet Integration Portal
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you can view bookings and actuals results and access all of our other features
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pull actuals into Coach Manager
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simply configure actuals to retrieve from our platform
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Our Platform Packages & Features

Bookings & Actuals Integration
We connect your vehicle ELD and booking platforms to create routes and calculate actual times & mileage for each booking. This data can then be used by our custom reports and your booking platform to streamline driver payroll, customer billing & improve operations.
We combine data from multiple systems to provide specific operational views & reports. These allow you to see your planned data alongside actual ELD data for vehicle & drivers to support forecasting, analytics, on-time reporting and much more.
This package shows your vehicles alongside booking data & vehicle status to provide custom views. These views provide additional map views not available in Samsara to your staff. These views can also be shared to provide real-time locations to customers based on vehicle, booking IDs or booking types.
These SMS & email alert features allow you to notify staff, customers and passengers about booking, vehicle & driver events. The goal of each is to notify the right people at the right time to improve overall fleet reliability and improve end-to-end customer service.
We have a web & SMS based solution to manage vehicle readiness status in real-time. This allows your cleaning, maintenance & dispatch teams teams to share status changes and notes about each vehicle. We also show upcoming booking times & driver info and update the vehicle status in real-time based on vehicle events (leaving, arrivals & DVIRs).
BUS SOS - Vehicle Breakdown Assistance
Working closely with our partners, we created a web & SMS based solution to help you find a replacement vehicle during a breakdown event. This feature allows your staff & drivers to find nearby vehicles and also broadcast requests to nearby companies. Companies can then respond to your request if they have vehicles available.
We charge a simple monthly fee for each package based on your vehicle count and usage. This gives you access to all current and future package features. There are no setup fees, you will simply be invoiced monthly for any active packages and you can cancel at any time.