What's the latest verdict on TAMonline?

[Lance Weaver]

I have been asked to look into TAMonline again.  Can anyone share their overall experience going from Tam in-house to TAMonline?  We are a 50-user TAM license agency.

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks,

Lance

[Mark]

Lance!

You probably don't want TAM Online.  What is the selling point that triggered the interest?

[Gene Foraker]

I'd agree.  It does work for some agencies (normally smaller than you), though they always pay more for it.    The exception for you might be if you have 60 people spread out over 10 locations.

[Mark]

Lance,

I'm sure you were looking for a better answer than what I offered.  Gene is absolutely right.  My original answer was just based on what I can remember of our conversations at past conferences.

[Jeff Zylstra]

I've got the server based TAM, and my wife's agency has TAMOnline.  I prefer the server based version after working in both.  I helped her assign some customer numbers over from prospects, and it was slow.  Especially when initially loading the customer or prospect files.  There were other small issues as well, but that one was the most glaring. 

Another thing is that you usually get the latest version, whether you want it or not.  If you are using the system in an unorthodox or customized way now, any changes to the system will upset your procedures.

The disaster preparedness and backup issues are nice, but I back up to a fireproof and waterproof hard drive, and also to portable USB drives that I take offsite every day so that doesn't impress me as much. 

A couple other things is that the Microsoft and third party software issues may still require you to have your own server.  Scanning is a little awkward as well, as you are essentially uploading those files to an offsite server each time.  Email may be a little clunky as well.  If you have a larger agency, I'd stick with a server.  On the other hand, if you have many locations, TAMOnline might have slight advantages.

[Lance Weaver]

Anyone else want to chime in?  Anyone that's migrated from TAM to TAMonline?

Thanks guys.


Lance

[DebAmstutz]

Our agency is TAM LAN and we don't have plans to go TAMOnline.  The owner wants his data in-house, not in the cloud.  That could change someday as we are somewhat partnered with a TAMOnline agency and they like TAMOnline (they are a lot smaller, so that makes sense-less IT to deal with).  Personally, I don't like the idea that a buggy update might have to be dealt with until a fix is implemented.  I have waited to update TAM for months until I'm sure the agency won't be negatively impacted.  The last thing I want is to be stuck with something that messes up day-to-day operations.  I know adjustments would be made to printing and scanning processes, and multiple monitors are handled somewhat differently.  It just seems easier to deal with things in-house.

[Mark]

Lance,

Unless you basically want to outsource some of your IT, I'd suggest that in-house makes better sense for 60 users.  You'd have to change workflows, possibly increase WAN bandwidth, become 100% dependent on your WAN connection, and it basically turns your office into a complete "remote office".  However, you'll still have to maintain Active Directory, print servers if you have any, third party software if you have any, etc.

I can't tell you there is no business reason to switch to TAMonline.  there very well could be, but you'll want to weigh the additional costs involved.  I'm not so much worried about updates as everyone else is, but that's probably because we've never been bitten by a TAM update over here.

Can you share the "why" you are looking into TAMonline?  That might get you some better or more specific feedback.  It does work well for many agencies, both large and small -- but comes at a cost which will obviously vary in specifics per individual agency.

[Gene Foraker]

OK, the question I would have for the rest of you is with 60 people on TAMOnline, would you still need a full time IT person on staff?

[Billy Welsh]

We are much smaller than you guys, and we looked hard at it and I could not justify the cost.  As others point out you cannot ditch the local server, which made it very difficult to get the numbers to work, especially when you can virtualize the TAM server.  If TAM were in the cloud, we could spend a little less on that local hardware, but we'd more than overcome that with the workflow changes & increased bandwidth needs, not to mention the higher out of pocket costs of TOL compared to local TAM.

[Mark]

OK, the question I would have for the rest of you is with 60 people on TAMOnline, would you still need a full time IT person on staff?

I say yes.

[Bob]

Yes with 60 users would still need IT support.  You don't lose your workstations, still need a server of some sorts to share resources across a network, still have security issues and internet, updates, viruses can go on and on and on.   

[Lance Weaver]

The reason for interest is that some principals here are 1.) interested in the disaster recovery benefits of having TAM hosted elsewhere and 2.) believe that it will be easier on IT (me) and 3.) believe that if I get hit by a bus, no one else can take care of TAM.

Another driving factor is that we've been using the web-based BenefitPoint system for some time now and our people love it.  We have very few problems with it and it's rarely down so we are saying "what if we could do this with TAM too...?"  The problem that I see is that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison as we went from having a very weak benefits management system (TAM) to Benefitpoint, a true browser-accessible web-based app, so of course they love it.  The TAM in-house to TAM-online comparison is a little different as, as far as I know, TAMonline is really still just a TS environment.  So it's for us, it's not really a good comparison to think "because we love Benefitpoint" then "of course we'll love TAMonline too".  My fear is that, due to moving TAM into the TS environment, workflows will get more complicated and slower, general overall performance will be slower due to Internet link, dependancy on Inet link now becomes an achiles heel (over the last ten years, we've had many more issues with our Internet connectivity, than we've had disasters that take down our systems).

It's a tough call.

[Mark]

While the benefits you suggest are applicable to TAMOnline, aside from the Benefitpoint comparison as you mention, your fears are completely applicable.

My opinion is that the items listen in your fears far outweigh the benefits.

[Jim Jensen]

While I've not seen EPIC, it was designed with online atmosphere from the beginning, so it may fit that comparison better.