Customer tracking links: share live delivery progress in one tap
Send a customer one link and they watch their delivery move on a live map — no account, no app download, and the link quietly expires when you decide it should.
What is a customer tracking link?
A shareable URL tied to one job. Open it and you see where the delivery is on a map and what state the job is in — assigned, collected, en route, delivered. It gives your customer the parcel-tracking experience the big carriers offer, from a fleet that might be four vans and a Transit. Send it by text, email or WhatsApp; it works wherever a link works.
The immediate payoff is fewer where-is-it calls. Every "any update?" phone call is a dispatcher interruption; a tracking link answers the question before it is asked, continuously, without anyone picking anything up.
Why don't customers need an account?
Because the link itself is the credential. Each URL is signed, meaning it contains cryptographic proof that it was issued by your fleet for that job — it cannot be guessed, and tampering with it breaks it. So the customer clicks and sees their delivery, full stop. No registration screen, no password to invent, no app store detour. For one-off consumer deliveries — the person receiving a sofa, not a logistics manager — any signup requirement means the feature simply goes unused.
How does link expiry work?
You choose how long each link lives, anywhere from 5 minutes to 14 days, and after that it stops working. Location data is sensitive — a URL that exposed your driver's position forever would be a liability, so expiry is built in rather than optional.
| Expiry window | Suits |
|---|---|
| 5–30 minutes | "Driver is nearly with you" — final-approach visibility only |
| A few hours | Same-day courier jobs, watched end to end |
| 1–3 days | Next-day work and removals spanning a move date |
| Up to 14 days | Long-lead jobs where the customer wants the link early |
Where does the live position come from?
From the driver's phone. Smart Strix uses app-based GPS — no black box or fitted hardware — so the same signal that draws your internal live map powers the customer's view. GPS tracking, and therefore live tracking links, sits on the Advanced plan; see pricing for what each tier includes. The customer sees the single job you shared, never your fleet map or your other customers' work.
What does the customer see besides the map?
The job's status, updating as the driver posts check-ins from the driver app — so even between map movements the page tells a story: collected, on the way, delivered. One honest note: Strix shows live position and status rather than a computed arrival-time countdown. There is no automatic ETA engine; the map lets the customer judge proximity themselves, which for local delivery work is usually exactly what they wanted to know.
When would a fleet use tracking links?
Anywhere a customer is waiting on a vehicle. Couriers send them with the booking confirmation so recipients self-serve their curiosity. Removals firms share them on move day so the family at the new house can time the kettle. B2B fleets give site managers a link so the goods-in team is ready at the bay. And after the delivery lands, the story continues into proof of delivery — signature and photos on the same job the customer just watched arrive. The professionalism is the point: for a small fleet competing against national carriers, a tracking link makes you look — and operate — like the bigger operation, as part of the same platform that runs your dispatch board.