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It’s been a few months since I actually did a post here so wanted to update everyone on our progress and things that are going on inside the Lizzy camp. We’ve been hard at work on a number of fronts, but I will try to just hit the high spots for now.
1) We had our first training class a few months ago and have already scheduled to have another in the next 2 weeks. We realize a lot of you have gotten busy, so we’ll probably be holding off on any further classes until the fall, but the response we’ve received from the classes so far have been a bit overwhelming. We are also looking into having more regional classes where we travel to a certain area and you guys don’t have to travel as far to participate.
2) The learning center has been updated with tons of new videos and more are on the way. The learning center is becoming more and more, the go to spot for all of our Lizzy customers to keep up with new features and to refresh on things they might have forgotten or never learned yet. We should be starting phase II on this part of our solution in the next month which will allow your employees to actually login, and we’ll be able to track which videos have been watched and which have not and provide feedback to the owners so they know the progress being made.
3) As of this Friday 4.8.2011, we will be rolling out a new Time Clock Module that will allow employees that don’t use the system, but do need to clock in and out for payroll, to be able to do just that. The module is free and there is no additional charges for the employees needing to use it. We’re also going to be working on a touch screen version of it that will allow the employees to choose their name from a list and login simply by entering their password. A future version will also support finger print devices for them to login.
4) We have released our new Rental system that includes a pretty advanced scheduling system to schedule and keep track of rentals. You can take certain units out of service when needed, sell them, convert new and used units into Rental Units and so forth. The final complete system should be going into beta next week and its looking really nice.
5) We have added a new system that will allow customers to schedule and reserve items from your own website that plugs into Lizzy’s database for your company. This is the first step in starting to develop our web store processes and getting that project off the ground once and for all. We’ve pretty much decided that we’re going to do it and have already started laying out plans to get it done.
6) The master price system has proven to be a bit more complex than we would have wished due to all the manufacturers getting a little crazy with the part numbers and processes related to supersessions and cross references. We think we’ve finally nailed down the processes that should work for everyone, and are starting beta with the system next week. Keep your fingers crossed on this one as it will be huge if we can pull it off.
7) I am going to be adding a blog entry in the next few days that documents a recent TBA to Lizzy conversion we did at Lifestyle Cycles in California. We went out there a few weeks ago to help them with the conversion and we were confident that they’d be happy when we left. However, the process and flow we encountered was far more successful than even we thought it would be, and I want to discuss the specifics about the trip so that you can all get a closer view as to what happened and how it went.
As usual, there are tons of things going on in the background and we’re very excited and happy to have the chance to be doing what we do everyday. I hope to announce something in the next month that is going to change everything with respect to a certain area of your business and if all goes well you should find out about it very soon.
Stay tuned for the latest and I promise I’ll try to write more…
Glenn
Just wanted to let those of you know that might be waiting on us to call you back that we’re experiencing some problems with the phone system at the moment. We’re working on getting the problem corrected and hopefully everything will get back to normal shortly.
Thank you for your patience.
Glenn
Many of you have asked when will Lizzy™ support interfacing to PartSmart, well that day is today. This article will guide you through installing the Lizzy™ PartSmart interface software.
First a some of requirements, before installing.
Once these requirements have been met, you will need to download the interface software, Click here to download. When your download completes, double click on the LizzyPartSmart.exe file, this will launch the installer for the interface software. The software will ask if you want to install it, once you click “Yes”, it will then check if you have Java installed. If you have not installed Java the installer will close without installing the files. At this point you will see a screen asking for you Lizzy™ Authentication Key, simply paste the key into the provided field and click “Next”. The installer will install the necessary files, once it is done you can click “Close”.
Now that the interface is installed, you will need to configure PartSmart to use the interface. If PartSmart is not already running go ahead and start it, once it is started click on the “Utilities” tab and go to the “PartSmart Options” sub-tab. You should now see a field name “BSV Path”, in that filed enter the following without the quotes “C:\Program Files\nizeX\psl\psl.bat”, now click “Apply”.
The next step is mapping the PartSmart prefixes to your manufacturers in Lizzy™. The first thing you will need to do is login to Lizzy™ and go to the CRM module. Once there locate a manufacturer that you want to link to PartSmart and click “Edit Contact”. On the page you should now see a region titled “Manufacturer Prefixes”, click the drop down list and pick which manufacturer this is from the list of standardized names, after you have selected the appropriate name click the green plus sign to the right of the name. Do this step for each manufacturer that you use PartSmart with. Once you have completed editing the contacts, go to Settings->Inventory->Map Prefixes. On this screen you will see a drop down list titled “Standard Applications”, select PartSmart from the list. You will now see a region titled “Current Application Prefixes” appear. Select a manufacturer from the manufacturer drop down list, and then enter PartSmart’s prefix in the prefix field to the right, then click the green plus sign to the right. Do this for each of the manufacturers that you setup in CRM.
You have arrived at the final step, setting up you computer names. For this step you will need to go to Settings->Invoicing->Computer Names. This step will help Lizzy™ to identify the computers that will be submitting pick lists. On each computer that is running PartSmart, go into Control Panel and click on the System icon. Once the System Application appears on your screen click on the “Computer Name” tab, here you will see a field that titled “Full computer name”, enter this name into the name field in Lizzy’s™ Computer Names screen and click the green plus sign.
You should be able to pull pricing and stock information in PartSmart, and be able to push pick lists up to Lizzy™.
ATTENTION ALL CURRENT & FUTURE LIZZY USERS – OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS!! Win an iPad while in Atlanta! Read on for details …
We knew when we were working on Lizzy that it would be one of those once in a life time achievements for us, and I’m sure for those of you that have spoken to us you probably heard it in our voices. I however, had no idea just how quickly we’d be adding new customers, nor how many of our existing customers would be jumping on board to convert so soon.
Over the years, we’ve tried many different things with respect to training. From sending trainers to our customers’ facilities, to scheduling time on the phone and doing it over the computer. With Lizzy, we’ve pushed the bar a little higher by offering an online Lizzy Learning Center (LLC), which has had a significant impact on learning the new system. However, we wanted to go one step farther.
In February we will be holding our first ever on-site training class here in Georgia. The rates are very affordable and include the Hotel, training facilities and breakfast. The facilities that we’ve arranged are about 20 minutes south of Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, right off Interstate 75 in McDonough.
The idea is to bring us all together so that we can share and listen to ideas from other dealers, learn to use Lizzy, find out about where we’re headed with new features and processes, and allow you to interact with the developers to see who’s behind all of the things you guys are using. We’ll be digging into all areas of the system during the 3 day class, and want to get feedback everywhere we can to help us gauge our progress, and to help dictate the things we’re going to be doing in the future.
This is not the typical training class where you come in and get taught by someone that barely knows the system. You’ll be getting taught by the developers themselves and will be able to find out just why things work the way they do. If you ever wanted a chance to have things changed, this would be where you’d want to be. We’re even raffling off a brand new iPad computer system during the last day of class.
Come learn Lizzy and help her to become the world standard in business management systems. Contact our sales staff as soon as possible as the class is filling up quick and we have limited seating in this first event.
–glenn hancock
I’ve talked about this in previous posts but it’s been a while, and for some reason this question has been raised a lot in the last few weeks. I figured I might as well explain it again, just to make sure people are aware of just exactly what Lizzy is and is not.
What is a Cloud Solution?
The term “Cloud” surfaced a few years back and has been firmed up by companies like SalesForce.com that have made a nice mint off of providing these types of solutions. A Cloud solution is a solution where software has been designed by developers all over the world in smaller unrelated projects and then brought together as a final solution. So instead of me writing tax code, I might borrow the tax solution created by Bob in California and the invoice module developed by Cindy in Arizona and put them together and offer a single solution that provides invoicing to my customer or my business. On the surface, it is always held up as the cheaper solution, because you’re not having to develop, or redevelop as it were, the code in-house. In reality it has been proven over and over again that while it might save on up-front development, it actually costs more on trying to keep the solutions working together. This is because the developers doing all the work are not related and in some cases could care less what others are doing with their modules.
Because of this problem SalesForce.com actually started an entirely different company to handle the integration and maintenance of their software solutions. The main reason these solutions are called Cloud solutions is because of the fact that you’re basically picking things out of the clouds to build your solution and really have no idea where the pieces are coming from or who is maintaining them. You just need something, grab it, plug it in and use it.
Lizzy is not a Cloud Solution but rather is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. The difference here is that 100% of our code is developed in house. This allows us total control over what we do and allows our solution to be more secure and stable due to us controlling everything ourselves. Our developers all work together and have a central focus in mind as we move down the road. This is why Lizzy runs faster than any other solution out there and has many more features.
So while it may appear as though there is no real difference between the two, there are actually considerable differences. Lizzy is our pride and joy and knowing that all of her functionality is ours to mold any way we wish, is what fuels our ability to move faster and provide more stable solutions than anyone else in any market. Sure, it’s true that our American developers might cost more than what we might get in India, but at the end of the day we all speak the same language, eat the same food and drink the same beer. We’re here to kick some butt and show that while others are farming out all their programming to other countries, there are those of us here that can still hold our own.
So when you purchase Lizzy and start using her, know that she’s 100% down home American grown with no air for clouds.
–glenn hancock