TAM Online

[bunnylarsen]

We are a 20 person agency and have been tossing around the idea of going to TAM Online?  Those that are on TAM Online are you glad you made the change?  Did you have any problems when you made the change?    I am looking for feed back. 

Thanks for your help.

Bunny Larsen
Johnston Fiss Insurance
Prairie Village, KS
TAM 10.7, Fax Advantage 7.2.0, Exchange

[Mark]

Hi Bunny,

Welcome to AU!!  I am not a TAMonline agency, but I still wanted to welcome you!

[brinkerdana]

There are advantages and disadvantages to going to TAMOnline. 

Advantages:

Off site server--good for disaster planning
Applied does updates
Problems easily solved with tech help.
Applied does backups
Unlimited storage.

Disadvantages:

You still need to host your own server for email, 3rd party programs, etc.
Applied does updates whether you want them or not
Scanning & attaching requires extra steps


There are other advantages and disadvantages, but your agency will need to look into costs, etc and make that determination.

I've been with 3 agencies that host their own TAM and I've been with 3 agency on TAMOnline.  Two of the TOL agencies were happy with it, one wasn't, but they've also had problems with linking into TOL servers that phone company and Applied have not been able to resolve.

[Jeff Zylstra]

One thing that I noticed with TOL was that the customer file and prospect files can take a bit of time to load sometimes.  I was helping another agent out with a conversion where everything was dumped into prospect, and had to be moved from prospect to customer.  There was considerable lag time going between customer and prospect in TOL that is not there with a locally hosted TAM installation.  I'm sure that there are other lag times as well, but I never experienced them since it was a short transition.

[JohnGage]

We run TAM LAN for our main location and TOL for the branches we purchased a few years back.  There is no question that we prefer the LAN environment but I'm still a supporter of TAM for many agencies. 

A couple of clarifications
* You don't need to host your own internal server for email.  Applied will sell you Exchange access for an additional fee.  You keep your domain name and the same access you have today in terms of Outlook Web Access and ActiveSync.  What they don't offer is a solution to archive your email, wish they had that.
* If you opt for the more expensive TOL Cloud Plus Applied will install 3rd party applications in the TOL environment.  I'm sure they won't install ANYTHING and everything but it's something to look into.
* Speed is dependent on two primary factors - the load on the server (is not the problem it was when TOL first came out) and your internet connection.  Your internet needs to be fast and reliable, and then you need a second circuit for when that first reliable circuit goes down.
* I'll agree that the scanning workflow in TOL is less than ideal but TWAIN compatibility is what it is and I'm not sure if we'll see changes in that anytime soon.


In my opinion, if you can't at least come close to replicating the remote access and disaster recovery aspects of TOL with in-house solutions then TOL is something to consider.  Is an Agility contract cheaper than the extra support expense with TOL - I think so but don't quote me on that. 

[Ben Thoele]

Can you get an appropriate Internet connection? Business grade Broadband or Metro Optical Ethernet.

[Conan_Ward]

Can you get an appropriate Internet connection? Business grade Broadband or Metro Optical Ethernet.

I'd like to say that in addition to this, the networking equipment in your office, especialy having a good router. I can't speak to recommend a certain make/model off personal experience as a systems tech may be able to (option 7 on the phone menu) and we no longer have official recommendations for what we've tested.

Generally speaking, your off the shelf best buy router is probably not recommended in a business environment and are a fair bit pricier, but, lower end models/residential models may not have all the options available to change that you'd need, especially a timeout option (how long a connection can be idle before it kicks it offline). Last thing anyone needs is to get disconnected before their night utilities is set to start.

[Jeff Zylstra]

Can you get an appropriate Internet connection? Business grade Broadband or Metro Optical Ethernet.

I'd like to say that in addition to this, the networking equipment in your office, especially having a good router. I can't speak to recommend a certain make/model off personal experience as a systems tech may be able to (option 7 on the phone menu) and we no longer have official recommendations for what we've tested.

Generally speaking, your off the shelf best buy router is probably not recommended in a business environment and are a fair bit pricier, but, lower end models/residential models may not have all the options available to change that you'd need, especially a timeout option (how long a connection can be idle before it kicks it offline). Last thing anyone needs is to get disconnected before their night utilities is set to start.

+1 for the good advice on the router.  There are definitely different grades of routers.  There's the $100 home varieties, then there's the $1,000 and up "business class" varieties.  The difference in them is both hardware and software.  Business class routers have more powerful processors, and thus will probably have cooling fans.  This is important because heat is the enemy of electronics, and heat leads to instability and lockups, as well as less performance.

Bigger processors also mean that your data is more safe over the internet.  Business class routers employ "UTM" or "Unified Threat Management".   According to Wikipedia, this can include "network firewalling, network intrusion prevention and gateway antivirus (AV), gateway anti-spam, VPN, content filtering, load balancing, data leak prevention and on-appliance reporting.". 

One of the more popular ones is the SonicWall brand of routers.  If you're a smaller agency with less complex needs, this may be a nice way to go as it is a "turnkey" type of unit with decent support.  Others here prefer Cisco routers, but they're usually geared for larger and more complex networks, and are the choice of dedicated IT guys.

Some of these devices are getting fairly sophisticated, so before you button down security using one of these, make sure you know what you're doing and leave a trail of breadcrumbs to get yourself back if you get lost. 

[bunnylarsen]

Thank you very much for all the responses.  You have given me great information.