In this article we explain why and how you can create a Google Maps API Billing account.
All Fleet Solutions components such as the Dispatch Panel, Web Booker and Passenger Apps have been built with the Google Maps API to support international address and location standards.
When you first activate your Fleet Solutions License, it is setup to use our shared Google Maps API key. For this setup YourDriverApp charges an extra fee per job to cover these extra costs on you next Fleet Solutions invoice.
While this setup is easy to start, we strongly advice our customers the more cost efficient setup where the Fleet Solutions account is configured with their own Google Maps API key. For this Google gives each billing account a free $200 monthly credit that can be used for the Google Maps API. When any of the Fleet Solutions Components are used to search for addresses and book jobs, the API usage is monitored under this Google Maps Billing account.
More information regarding the Google Maps API:
The GoogleAPI prices can be found here: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing/
YourDriverApp Fleet Solutions uses the following API's:
Google Autocomplete including Google Places. This includes resolving a selected place and gathering its address information. (This excludes address autocomplete, that is a separated API.)
Google Direction service to calculate ETA (This is optional) - only used in the driving to pickup status when the client has the app open.
Google Directions to show route when departure and destination is selected.
How to get a Google API key:
1. login and create/select project
Log in and select your project at the top of the screen. If you have not created a project yet click on the dropdown 'select a project' at the top of the screen and then select 'new project' in the popup that opened.
Open the menu and select 'APIs & Services'
Select Enable APIs and Services at the top of the screen.
Search for 'Places API' select this and enable this API, After enabling this API select library in the menu on the left side.
Search for 'Directions API' select this one as wel and enable this API.
Search for 'Geocoding API' select this one as wel and enable this API.
Search for 'GoogleMaps Javascript' select this one as wel and enable this API.
Search for 'Maps Static API' select this one as wel and enable this API.
Search for 'Distance Matrix API' select this one as wel and enable this API.
2. Link your Google Billing account
Open the menu on the left side and select Billing. If there is no billing account yet, please add a new one by clicking Create Account. if you already have a billing account then go to the next step.
After adding your billing account select 'My projects'. Here you should see the project that you selected/created earlier.
Click the 3dots on the right side of the project name and select change billing. then select the desired billing account.
3. Get the Google API key
Open the menu again and select 'APIs & Services -> credentials'
Now check if there is already a 'Browser key' entry in the 'API keys' section created by Google. If there is not a key then select '+Create Credentials' at the top of the screen and select API key, Copy the key that is shown in the popup.
Copy the key by clicking on the copy icon and go to step 4.
4. Link your Google Billing account to your active Fleet Solutions account
5. Secure your API key
Restrict your API key by HTTP referrers:
Still in the "Credentials" tab, click on the API key you just created. Scroll down to the "Application restrictions" section and select "HTTP referrers (web sites)".
Add your website's URL(s) to the list of referrers:
In the "Website restrictions" section, click on the "Add an item" button. Enter the URL(s) of the website(s) from which you'll be making requests to the Google Maps API. Make sure to include the protocol (http:// or https://) and any subdomains if necessary.
Add yourwebbooker.com as http referrer
Add portal.yourdriverapp.com as http referrer
Save your changes:
Once you've added all the necessary referrers, click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page to apply your changes.
Follow Step 1-4 to create your backend API key
In the contract menu select
Choose "Update Google Key" in the section "Google API Configuration and add your Google license key.
Check the option Apikey is secured
Add the backend apikey to the backend key section
6. Test your API key, open your Web Booker url
Check if address autocomplete is working properly
Check if prices can be calculated
Log in to the YourDriverApp Web Portal: https://portal.yourdriverapp.com/login
Make sure you already have an active Fleet Solutions License linked to your fleet.
In the menu on the left, select "My Contract" for the group that you wish to link the billing account to.
Choose "Update Google Key" in the section "Google API Configuration and add your Google license key.
Invite YourDriverApp administrator
For some configurations it is better to give the YourDriverApp developers access so that the keys in your account can be configured for you.
After registering you can go to IAM & Admin -> IAM in the menu
At the top of that screen you can add people and select the role, you can select different roles here, if you give us the owner role we can do everything necessary.
You can invite our default admin account yourtaxiapp@gmail.com