matthew.brough

My point being, gazar will look at a job, it's neatness, stickers on panels etc etc and rate it dogs danglies but the reality might well be the programming breaches 3/4 standards it's certed to, not contain the required clauses in paperwork, have incorrect standby capacity, have incorrect arc records but would preach that his 'brothers' were doing a sterling job as that's how he sees it.

It doesn't work like that. Cancelling call outs on receipt of a signed order is one thing. Cancelling invoices that are raised in accordance with a contract that all parties agreed to on the a whim and a prayer you might get an order at some time in the next 500 years isn't acceptable and exactly why my lot can't do it as they'd do what you do. Let them off the hook and be loved by the end user and they'd feel all warm and fluffy inside that the customer loves them thinking they are doing good for the company whereas the reality is the total opposite. Bollox. Accuse me if many things but I was, and still am, awesome at my job. How many have you audited and what qualifies you to audit them to backup your statement? Ie how do you know you are capable of forming that view. Neat trunking and shiny glands are not part of the standards and count for naff all in terms of compliance.

That's you. 99% of the industry ain't you. I have to build procedures around my weakest link and field based 'engineers' are my weakest link by far. Don't know, don't want to know. I have NO doubt if I sent you to do a job for me it would be bang on in every way. I can't say that about your colleagues. I see some of the systems you have out in the wild that quite frankly are a crock of ****.

Absolutely. 2 separate issues. Does your local garage give out free mots incase you might by a new car from them? No, but if you buy a new car from them you might get the mot knocked off.

The whole point of ISO and your shiny gold badge is standardisation and procedures. You continually prove that in the real world that does not happen. What happens when engineers have too much control is **** ups of the highest magnitude. Got a fail to operate today. Engineer who knows it all goes and fits some detectors as instructed however didn't follow the get arc to enable them bit. **** it he thought, I'm an engineer, I'm the daddy, I can do this myself and all I need to do is program them as intruder which he did. Tested it all onsite and very pleased with his little self as they all worked except when they got robbed as there were no alarm response plans to the new zones as they hadn't been enabled yet MAS did absolutely nothing. Regretfully this is one of the panels where engineer code was needed on site. But still, engineer knows best eh.

But MAS does all that automatically. Service contracts are quite black and white. Give an engineer the option to make non chargeable and they are likely to use it an will be the customers bezzy mate. I'll give you an example. We replaced a DT a couple of weeks ago de to f/a and we've gone back out as it didn't resolve the issue. MAS knows we replaced that specific zone only 2 weeks ago and won't charge for any more work on that zone for 12 months from when it was replaced unless a job cause is in the category of malicious damage. It also leads to unfairness. You might let someone off but another customer with the exact same contract will get billed by another engineer. Surely with your socialist beliefs fairness would be a top priority? Knew it would somehow be my fault. Always is Trade secrets?

Give my an example

An engineer has a bypass billing option. Oh dear I wouldn't say twice as good, no. In many ways it's well past it as is AM but I'd much prefer cash to am.

By codes I assume you mean job cause and job resolution?

Don't know how many jobs you do a month but think how much ca$h the odd missed job x no of engineers x 52 weeks can add up to. I found out about £30k of jobs it didn't invoice luckily when the data was cleaned up it picked up the missed jobs. Was a nice month that one

It was the human not putting the right data in in the first place that screwed the automation up!

You're right to be worried. It took us a good 6 months of field use to find all the issues with field use including it 'forgetting' to send invoices Can't disagree with you there gaz

I do not agree So gaz. You a C++ or C# man?

Be a long wait

IT whizz kids and developers are 2 different people. All our software we have done costs me an arm and 10 legs

If you like. I've heard this 'it's cheaper to write your own' argument a million times and I dot buy it. Alarm master dogs danglies version is £3000 and £3k buys no time with a developer. That product took PC data years to write so unless they work for 1p an hour (trust me they don't, try £40-100 per hour if uk based) then the numbers don't stack

You recon you got a developer to write a complete crm with all the features that am has for less than the 50p they charge for it?

You might just manage to meet this lower specification

You're right. I don't

It's been rumored for over a decade. I wouldn't worry just yet . . .

The hidden cost of ditching one for the other is the implementation. $$$$$$

Megabuck$ As a rough guide 30-50% more than am equivalent modules The only thing that makes cash look cheap is MAS

But it's cheap I'd agree cash is no 2 in the good software league tables

There are members here that do. Not a fan of the platform myself . . .