Date Fields

[Jim Jensen]

I wish Applied would get the date fields all resolved in TAM into a consistent format. Some are YY, some are YYYY and you can't always tell which it is. I just entered a claim closing date as MM/DD/YY and it errored, telling me there " " characters in the field. Well, not only was it a YYYY field, it would not change 08 to 2008. The error confounded me enough that I chose the date from the calendar at used 2008. "Ah, there's problem - why don't they just say so!" or better yet, finally convert all remaining 6 digit fields to 8 and have consistency.

Ah, feel a little better, if not patient.

[Gene Foraker]

I think they have kicked that one down the road for a while.

Applied has (or should have) several important things they should be focusing on and prioritizing before adding any new features in future releases.

1.  Get rid of important Bugs.   I know, there will always be bugs, but V10 had some serious ones, though I think 10.4 should fix most of them. 

2.  Get all Accord forms up to date.  Have a commitment to have any new Accord form in TAM within 6 months of release.

3.  Support Windows 7.   I mean seriously, how long have they known about this?  7 is just an extension of Vista.   It has been said that either the next Windows version or the one after that will be only 64bit.  This could be as soon as in 5 years.  Start planning now!

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

Some of the issue with supporting the older Applied software (read TAM) with newer operating systems comes down to the 16-bit curse.  I've been berating Applied since starting in this business 9 years ago regarding the existence of 16-bit code in TAM and it's never gone away entirely.  AFAIK, Vista and 7 are 64-bit operating systems that support 32-bit code, whereas XP is a 32-bit OS that supports 16-bit code.  Which means (I think) TAM will not run natively on the newer platforms. 

Now I think 7 has an XP mode, which is basically a VirtualPC session running XP.  So you're now running TAM on XP on 7 with a side of slaw and a coke, no ice.

[Gene Foraker]

I have not read that anywhere, though that doesn't make you wrong.   Win 7 comes in both 32 and 64 bit versions and they are different.  I believe you are right that 16bit support is finally gone.   (Except for emulation)

And this is supposed to be a surprise to Applied?   Just what is their road-map for the future?  By the end of the year, it will be harder and harder to tell people to downgrade new PC's to XP.   Applied has stated that TAM will go on for the foreseeable future so what will it be?   They should have known for several years that 16bit would no longer work in Windows, so what resources have they put into that problem?   Even if they have to take code writers and programmers out of Epic development to rewrite areas of TAM, they just need to do it.  NOW!

By the way, these are things that the ASCnet board should be communicating to Applied at the mid-year meeting.

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

Not sure about the 32-bit version of 7... which is akin to opting for the 4 cyl. Mustang IMO.  I'm not sure what the 16-bit support is in this case, but if it's also XP Mode, then already you're better off 64-bit to start with.

But I have to agree - ASI should have coded all the 16-bit crap out of there by now.

[Andrew Carrick]

1.  Get rid of important Bugs.   I know, there will always be bugs, but V10 had some serious ones, though I think 10.4 should fix most of them. 

Can you give us poor saps still on v 7 some dea of what to expect in v 10?

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

in version 10, the bugs are more efficient and a bit faster

[Robin Deatherage]

in version 10, the bugs are more efficient and a bit faster

LOL!

[Gene Foraker]

In my eyes, the biggest things are bar-code backend scanning added in Ver 9 and front-end scanning in Ver 10.   There is also the improvement to attaching emails from Outlook.

I use the back-end scanning and it truly is amazing how it changes imaging, document management and workflow in the agency.   This has had the biggest impact to our agency in years.

[Jan Regnier]

1.  Get rid of important Bugs.   I know, there will always be bugs, but V10 had some serious ones, though I think 10.4 should fix most of them. 

Can you give us poor saps still on v 7 some dea of what to expect in v 10?

I am especially happy with TAM finally having an Employee Benefits "beginning" - granted it has a LOT of growing up to do...but it is a start.  We also like the drop and drag email feature (single or multiple emails) and the fact that attachments stay with the email when attached to TAM.

[Andrew Carrick]

I was more interested in the bugs in version 10. We're planning on upgrading this year, so I'd like to know in advance what sh*t is going to hit what fan.

[Jim Jensen]

1. Gene, I'll grant that there are higher priority issues than the date fields, they just bug me at times. I'd agree with what you listed, particularly forms - not only updating them, but adding a couple that could be really useful like the Auto Certificate of Insurance and actually integrating with the Certificate of Property insurance for more than the name and address. I'm pretty certain that 11.0 will include the new Acord 88 & 89 (Personal Lines Applicant Section and Residential section [replaces HO & DP apps, though HO was reintroduced]). They are both included in EPIC's current release.

2. TAM on Win 7 w/ XP Mode - from what I've seen on my Win7 notebook at home, XP mode has to be set for each individual program. Since Tam calls many different files to run, you'd have to know which ones and set them all. Don't know if there's a method to set all the files in a particular directory or not.

3. Andrew - 10.0 bugs? Well 10.0 and 10.1 were full of them, 10.2 and 10.3 fixed several of the worst and created only 1 or 2 new ones and 10.4 hopefully will correct most of the remaining ones. They've held off on 11.0 to get 10.x fixed more completely. I think the whole attachments area was updated post 7.x also.

[Robin Deatherage]

Andrew, we went from 9.4 to 10.3 and I think the majority of the bugs in the 10 series were fixed by this release.  There have been a few things here and there but nothing so serious that I can really even remember them to be honest with you.  I did have some problems doing the upgrade itself, it was related to the update forms utility.  I think this issue was specific to us though as others I've spoken to didn't have a problem.  I say go for it!

[Andrew Carrick]

Thanks Robin.