Zetifi launches Microsoft-native fleet safety tool

Zetifi has launched Marshal, a Microsoft-native connected fleet technology product for lone worker safety, and is deploying it to beta customers in Australia.

Developed with input from Telstra on the needs of large organisations, including Telstra's own field services fleet, Marshal is designed to bring duress alerts, automated check-ins and incident data into a customer's Microsoft 365 environment rather than leaving them in separate vendor systems.

The launch targets a long-standing issue in workforce safety management across transport, utilities, agriculture, emergency services and field service operations. Safety systems often generate alerts through telematics platforms, cameras, radios and apps, but those alerts can remain disconnected from the software where managers already handle operational tasks and compliance processes.

Marshal takes data from several sources, including Zetifi's Smart Antenna Pro gateway, Icom UHF radios and third-party systems such as Geotab telematics. It connects over cellular or Wi-Fi and feeds events including lone worker duress, check-ins, location updates and incidents into Microsoft tools such as Teams, SharePoint and Power Automate.

The model is intended to shift safety management from alert generation to workflow execution. It includes an acknowledgement loop that requires a customer's Power Automate flow to post back to Zetifi, with backup communications sent by SMS or email if no acknowledgement is received.

This is intended to reduce dependence on staff monitoring separate dashboards or acting on basic email alerts. It also creates a record of the event, the policy triggered, the action taken, the acknowledgement and the outcome.

According to Safe Work Australia, 42 per cent of workplace fatalities involve vehicle incidents. The figure underlines the scale of risk for businesses that rely on distributed field teams and fleets operating outside fixed workplaces.

Marshal accepts inputs from any source and applies the same policy and workflow regardless of where an event originates. That means telematics data, radio alerts and signals from onboard gateways can be handled through the same operating process inside a customer's Microsoft tenant.

The product also reflects a broader market shift toward integrating field technology with mainstream business software rather than relying on specialist portals. For many organisations, Microsoft 365 has become the default layer for collaboration, records, automation and reporting, making native integration a selling point for vendors in safety and fleet management.

Big Springs Water is among the early users combining Zetifi and Geotab. Peter Braneley, General Manager, Big Springs Water, outlined why the company chose the setup.

"We chose Geotab and Zetifi together because they fit the way we operate. Zetifi's integration with Geotab means our safety alerts flow straight into the Microsoft tools our team already uses, and we can tailor what we see to suit our needs. That alignment is what made it the right choice," said Braneley.

How it works

Zetifi's Smart Antenna Pro acts as a multi-protocol edge gateway. It connects through Telstra Cat-M1 cellular or Starlink terminal Wi-Fi, while also supporting short-range BLE and integration with Icom UHF radios under a global partnership with Icom.

Events are ingested through Zetifi's AWS IoT environment, where they are normalised and supervised for delivery into Microsoft workflows. Critical events are sent to Zetifi and the customer's Power Automate webhook in parallel, creating two independent network paths.

Inside the customer's Microsoft setup, actions can be managed through Teams cards, SharePoint records and Power Automate escalations. The Marshal Console, which provides an operational map and worker status view, is also built on the customer's SharePoint environment.

Dan Winson, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Zetifi, said the product was built to ensure safety events are acted on rather than merely observed.

"With Zetifi Marshal, no safety event is silently dropped. Organisations can take their compliance and duty-of-care to a new level. Marshal produces a continuous evidence trail (event, policy, action, acknowledgement, outcome), which means no manual chasing and being audit-ready for records from day one," said Winson.

Telstra input

Telstra's involvement adds weight to the launch because the telecommunications group provided insight into enterprise customer requirements and its own field fleet workflows. That input appears to have shaped the product's Microsoft focus and its approach to automated responses and escalation paths.

Ben Green, Head of muru-D & Incubation, Product & Development Technology, Telstra, described the system as a new operational model for connected safety.

"This collaboration demonstrates a new category of connected safety platform, integrating hardware, connectivity and workflows into a single operational system. It reflects the kind of applied innovation that can reshape how organisations approach worker safety at scale," said Green.

Channa Seneviratne, Technology Development and Innovation Executive, Telstra, linked the work to a broader convergence of connectivity, artificial intelligence and business process tools.

"This joint work between Telstra and Zetifi establishes a new model of worker safety, where connectivity, AI and enterprise flows operate as one system. It moves beyond monitoring to reliable execution, which is a step change in how safety is delivered in the field," said Seneviratne.