Тема: Controlling Google Geocoding API Costs
We have a few international customers in areas where Gurtam maps geodata is not as strong as Google maps geodata (geodata is used for street address lookups.) In these cases we can switch the user's "Geodata source" from the default Gurtam to Google in User Settings (https://docs.wialon.com/en/hosting/user/set/maps?s[]=geocoding), and address lookups will be done via Google API instead of Gurtam.
This works great, but user settings can be changed by any user, so curious users who play with their Wialon settings can also switch this setting to Google, even if they don't need it. This incurs unnecessary cost for Google Geocoding API calls, which is much more expensive than Google Maps API calls. A single user can cause several dollars per day of such usage simply by leaving the Wialon Monitoring panel open for their units.
We propose that an option be added to allow these settings (particularly Geodata source, but possibly also Map source) to be settable for users by Gurtam Partners, but not by the end users themselves. Partners like us could use this option to set this selection on a per-user basis without giving users the option to change these settings.
We realize there is an option in Services to turn off "Google (custom)" at the end customer account level, but I understand this disables Google as an option for both Map source and Geodata Source. Most of our customers prefer Google Maps with Gurtam Geodata. Perhaps another alternative is to split the Google service into maps and Geodata so they can be controlled separately for availability in the User Settings.