Connect Google Maps

Google Maps gives the system its addresses and distances: suggestions as you type an address, the miles that price a delivery and check your delivery limit, the drive times the route planner uses, and the map on Dispatch. Google wants a billing account and two keys: a server key and a browser key.

Steps

1. Follow the Google Maps setup guide to make a Google Cloud project, link billing and switch on four services: Geocoding API, Places API (New), Routes API and Maps JavaScript API.
2. Make the server key, restricted to Geocoding, Places (New) and Routes, with no website restriction.
3. Open Settings, System, Connections, Services and the Google Maps card.
4. Paste it in Server key and press Save.
5. Press Test the key. It should say Google accepted an address lookup.
6. Make the browser key, restricted to Maps JavaScript API and to your system's web address.
7. The browser key goes in your hosting settings, not on the card (the guide shows Netlify). If someone else hosts your system, send it to them.
8. Open Dispatch and check the map draws.

Good to know

• Google gives each maps service a free monthly allowance that a rental company's normal use stays inside. The system also remembers drive times so the same road is not paid for twice.
• Set a daily cap and a budget alert in Google Cloud, as the guide shows, so a mistake can never cost money.
• If Google ever refuses or a cap is hit, the system falls back to straight-line estimates rather than stopping.
• Your delivery limit and fee bands are company settings: see Delivery fees and distance.
• Measure on a record's map paces out a Distance or an Area on the satellite picture, or places a Tent: choose one of your tents (the ones on the quote or order come first) and its footprint drops on the address to scale, with a dashed stake line. Drag it to move it and turn it 15 or 90 degrees at a time. A tent needs a Width and Length (or a size in its name) to be listed; its stake line is its Ground needed size, or 3 ft past each side.

If something goes wrong

• Test the key fails. Check the server key has no website restriction and that all three services are ticked on it. Places must be the one named "(New)".
• Address suggestions work but the map is blank. The browser key is missing or its website restriction does not match your system's address. Add your own domain too if you use one.
• Google is holding billing. On a first Google Cloud account Google may check billing for a day.