Workforce GPS Location on Wifi

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05-16-2018 07:24 AM
BenGrod
Occasional Contributor III

Has anyone experienced the GPS location of mobile workers being represented as the IP address of the VPN server when a mobile workers is connected to Wifi? We are seeing field worker locations jump between remote field areas then into major cities (miles away). We are just starting to investigate it but my hunch is it is related to the Wifi they pick up at field sites. Anyone come across this and identified a solution, perhaps a setting in Workforce or on the mobile device needs to be changed? 

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2 Replies
CraigGillgrass
Esri Regular Contributor

Hi Ben,

We haven't seen this with Workforce. One thing to check is whether other apps on the device that also use Location are exhibiting the same issue (i.e. other Mapping apps or Weather apps).

Knowing this will help to narrow down the issue.

Craig

RobbieBagby
New Contributor III

Yes we have experienced this issue as well. We have been testing around Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Google maps the IP address of WiFi networks when they collect street view images. One of the problems of using high accuracy location of Android is that when GPS is not available due to obstructions of satellites (being in a parking garage) the phone will attempt to find your location using WiFi. Sometimes these WiFi networks move for whatever reason (mobile hotspot, etc.). If this WiFi network moved in range of your phone, the phone will report your position to the original location that Google mapped. 

We've seen this happen every time at the stadium which can most likely be attributed to losing GPS signal when workers are in parking garages and buildings. We found that you need to not only turn WiFi off on the phone, you also need to turn off WiFi Scanning to prevent the phone from detecting these WiFi network locations that are out of date. You lose the high accuracy capabilities that provide redundancy when GPS is not available but at least your workers won't be reported miles away from where they are not. 

We have identified areas around the stadium where GPS will be spotty and know that when workers are in these areas, location could be off anywhere from 100 - 300 ft. Only Androids were tested.

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