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.

[Mark]

Epic is NOT web based.

[Jim Jensen]

Epic is NOT web based.

True and thanks for clarifying my poorly worded response. My thought was simply because of when it was developed and with the clear intent of the online hosting from beginning, it *may* have better workflows than TAM. I haven't seen it so I can't say that it does, but no mention of it at all, I thought it good to bring into the conversation, at least for consideration if someone is thinking of moving from LAN to online anyway.

[Mark]

Yes, workflows are way better in Epic.

[GeorgeW]

We are Epic Lan based. From a hardware standpoint, I'd think you'd save quite a bit of money going On-line. Of course, we are probably larger than most, but hardware costs alone are huge!

[Alice Mooney]

Regarding scanning/attaching large items, would that affect bandwidth and slow others down?  Like if I scanned a 7MB commercial doc, and attached it during busness hours, would that not affect useage and slow Tam down for others?  Unless there's a way to schedule the upload/attaching after hours so it won't affect anyone.
Something I just thought about regarding the road we are going down...

[Mark]

Regarding scanning/attaching large items, would that affect bandwidth and slow others down?  Like if I scanned a 7MB commercial doc, and attached it during busness hours, would that not affect useage and slow Tam down for others?  Unless there's a way to schedule the upload/attaching after hours so it won't affect anyone.
Something I just thought about regarding the road we are going down...

I'm going to just throw out a "yes" right away without even thinking about it.   

[brinkerdana]

Regarding scanning/attaching large items, would that affect bandwidth and slow others down?  Like if I scanned a 7MB commercial doc, and attached it during busness hours, would that not affect useage and slow Tam down for others?  Unless there's a way to schedule the upload/attaching after hours so it won't affect anyone.
Something I just thought about regarding the road we are going down...

I'm going to just throw out a "yes" right away without even thinking about it.   

Has not been my experience.   We scan large policies all the time and don't experience any slow-down.

[Jeff Zylstra]

I seem to remember some kind of utility that scans the items locally, then forwards them to the remote server after hours when traffic isn't so high.  Is that part of TAM Online, or was that some other remote scanning utility that I am remembering?  I would think that a large file would negatively affect internet speeds unless you had bandwidth to burn, or were using a separate internet connection.

[GeorgeW]

You are able to scan directly into TAMonline. They used to have an upload center to upload documents to TAMOnline and that would send smaller files immediately and larger files overnight. Our TAMOnline agency users at the time always just emailed themself the attachments and then attached instead of using the upload center.

(BTW, I hated TAMOnline)   

[Conan_Ward]

jeff, you're probably thinking of the old upload center, which works as George stated, the program for scanning can scan directly in (once you start the scan process from TAM). Thankfully the newer upload center just does everything right away and without using the portal to make things easier once its installed...at least to me, it seems to be more user friendly like that.

I think part of TOL to a lot of people, to have it work well is mostly having the bandwidth to burn since all your work is based around your connection. Those who don't decide to make sure they have enough to go around or add users faster than they add bandwith (or just one person who likes to use pandora at their desk) tend to not enjoy the environment as much.

Most of what i'd say for/against has already been covered, plus I think my opinion would need to be slightly biased anyway

[Ben Thoele]

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.

We have a new vendor in central Minnesota that's filling a gap in the "cloud" IT space.  Until now your two choices in most areas were either to host all your own stuff or outsource to an ASP.  In the ASP model cost goes way up and control goes way down.  If your agency has good IT staff then the only problem with hosting your own is the DR question. What happens if the building and it's contents are gone. The new hybrid model is the best of both worlds. http://www.vaultas.com/ Vaultas You still leverage your office as a backup target and then you move your datacenter, one server or ten to a dedicated data center.  A vendor neutral data center!  I repeat, a vendor neutral data.  You still buy all your stuff using the best partners like a Quick lease from Dell and you host it from a climate controlled building. 

The partner we talked to sets many of their customers up with 100Mb or 1Gb internet.  If your Internet gets cut you fail back to your backups,  something you can't do with an ASP.

Check out is model, it maybe an option for you.

[Billy Welsh]

We are doing something similar - but the independent data center is for the DR copies.  Our contract IT firm has the hardware in the data center, and essentially rents us virtual servers and offsite backup storage.  In the event of a disaster or evacuation, the backup servers are put on-line and the most recent data is restored.  At that point all you need is an internet connection, the correct ip address, and the term server client.

Being a small shop in a hurricane area, this is a nice solution for us.  No need to train the whole staff on Term Server unless and until we have to use the DR site.

[Hans Manhave]

This would mean that you have all remote offices, possibly with one "local" station at the colocating/hosting site?  With everything online, it would be debateble if rented office space at a datacenter is any different than rented office space across the street.  I guess no workstation needs to be hardwired to the server, but what is hardwired anyway?  There are always switches to go through and adding one or ten more switches really doesn't change anything when considering if something is connected or not.

Interesting thought.

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.

We have a new vendor in central Minnesota that's filling a gap in the "cloud" IT space.  Until now your two choices in most areas were either to host all your own stuff or outsource to an ASP.  In the ASP model cost goes way up and control goes way down.  If your agency has good IT staff then the only problem with hosting your own is the DR question. What happens if the building and it's contents are gone. The new hybrid model is the best of both worlds. http://www.vaultas.com/ Vaultas You still leverage your office as a backup target and then you move your datacenter, one server or ten to a dedicated data center.  A vendor neutral data center!  I repeat, a vendor neutral data.  You still buy all your stuff using the best partners like a Quick lease from Dell and you host it from a climate controlled building. 

The partner we talked to sets many of their customers up with 100Mb or 1Gb internet.  If your Internet gets cut you fail back to your backups,  something you can't do with an ASP.

Check out is model, it maybe an option for you.

[Jeff Golas]

We are Epic Lan based. From a hardware standpoint, I'd think you'd save quite a bit of money going On-line. Of course, we are probably larger than most, but hardware costs alone are huge!

Just looked at your sig and I'm curious how this lays out? Do you have a central office or multiple servers replicating? Why did you guys choose to keep it in house and take on that hardware cost vs just having Applied host it?

In my opinion, other than SAN storage, hardware/servers/network is a LOT cheaper in terms of what you get for the dollar these days. Its the software licensing (SQL) that kills you.

(BTW I still prefer in house for some things, and hosted for others...there's so much available to you now on an IT level, and in some cases running it yourself does keep some control in your hands).

[GeorgeW]

I can't give you the details you are wanting most likely as I'm a lowly helpdesk tech.   We have one huge Epic database for all of our offices with all the hardware here in the home office. Each office has their own local file server for shared files, etc.  Not sure but there are a number of servers involved for just Epic. I believe the main reason to not go on-line is they wanted to be in total control of the data. We had used TAMOnline for one of our smaller agencies for awhile and were happy to move away from that. If you wanted to talk to someone about the specifics of our setup, I'm sure I could arrange that. I believe we may be one of the largest LAN based Epic's around right now. Applied was very involved in helping configure our setups so things would work.

A smaller agency should probably not even consider lan based and just go with on-line. Larger agencies would need to weigh all the costs and manpower involved in hosting locally.

Sure this didn't help much! 

We are Epic Lan based. From a hardware standpoint, I'd think you'd save quite a bit of money going On-line. Of course, we are probably larger than most, but hardware costs alone are huge!

Just looked at your sig and I'm curious how this lays out? Do you have a central office or multiple servers replicating? Why did you guys choose to keep it in house and take on that hardware cost vs just having Applied host it?

In my opinion, other than SAN storage, hardware/servers/network is a LOT cheaper in terms of what you get for the dollar these days. Its the software licensing (SQL) that kills you.

(BTW I still prefer in house for some things, and hosted for others...there's so much available to you now on an IT level, and in some cases running it yourself does keep some control in your hands).

[Lance Weaver]

Going to visit a 30-user TAMonline agency tomorrow.  Looking forward to checking out TAMonline in person, with real agency data.

Some questions though:

We use 3 monitors at our CSR workstations.  I talked to Applied Tech Support today and they told me that the TAMonline environment supports no more than two monitors.  Is this true?  Are any of you using more than two monitors in the TAMonline environment?  I am currently supporting one 3-monitor CSR station on my own Terminal Server using an application called SplitView, so I don't know why Applied couldn't make this happen also.  Especially since the Applied Tech told me that Applied is also using the Splitview application in the TAMonline environment (does anyone know if AS really uses SplitView on their RDP servers?).  If I remember correctly, the max spanning resolution is handled by the RDP client and not the server.  The SplitView app is simply there to created seperate "screens", the number of which you can choose and change at will, as we do from time to time when someone goes from their 3-monitor pc at work to their 1-monitor pc at home.  I am confused...

Lance

[brinkerdana]

Currently using only 2 screens on TOL.  But, I can view multiple smaller images on one screen and have something else (TAM) open on the other if I need to see 3 things at once. 

[GeorgeW]

Just glanced at my signature and realized there was a typo!!! We have 268 licenses, not 2680!!! LOL, wow! 

Just looked at your sig and I'm curious how this lays out?

[Alice Mooney]

Just glanced at my signature and realized there was a typo!!! We have 268 licenses, not 2680!!! LOL, wow! 

Just looked at your sig and I'm curious how this lays out?

wouldn't that make you a stock holder then? 

[Lance Weaver]

Visited the 30-user agency that I mentioned and they love TAMonline.  They seemed to be a much different environment than us though.  I suspect that we demand quite a bit more out of our hardware and software systems.

The person that showed us the system kept saying that the thing that really makes TAMonline fast for them is the solid-state hard drives in their PCs - is there any truth to this?  They use a cable Internet connection, which isn't known to be all that reliable in my area (the carrier does continue to improve...).  They were not really paperless so I didn't get much info about TAMonline and scanning.  How well the front-end scanning process works with TAMonline is one of my larger concerns (we do quite a bit of scanning).

Lance

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

SSDs in a local system should have little effect on the speed of any kind of terminal session RDP/ICA etc. If it's fast, they have a good network connection and ASI is keeping things up on their end in the data center.

[Ric]

+1 what BJK said

SSDs in a local system should have little effect on the spend of any kind of terminal session RDP/ICA etc. If it's fast, they have a good network connection and ASI is keeping things up on their end in the data center.

[Mark]

+1 y'all beat me too it!

[Ric]

 

[JohnGage]

As an agency that just recently made the switch from LAN to TAM Online I can give some insight into the frustrations that exist within the TOL environment.

• Fax@vantage only available within TOL environment - workflow to fax a piece of paper also frustrating
• Workflow to email a piece of paper without using Outlook on local station
• Inability to see if a connected user is working or just forgot to logoff @ end of the day (may be different if you purchase the private cloud product)
• Printing issues when trying something a little advanced, such as printing to multiple trays from a single document
• Inability to ever work past 1AM - Certainly understand the need for a maintenance period but has gotten in the way a few times

[brinkerdana]

•Inability to ever work past 1AM - Certainly understand the need for a maintenance period but has gotten in the way a few times

Oh, just go to bed, John!     Nobody needs to be working at 1 AM!

[Charlie Charbonneau]

There are times that an all nighter is necessary unfortunately!!!   

[Hans Manhave]

What about time zones, working while out of the USA, when one has a bright idea (I know, those are rare, but I had one at 4am earlier this week). 

[JohnGage]

Regular maintenance periods are 12-4 CT Mon-Fri and 12-6 CT Sat-Sun.  Add in extra time for TAM upgrades or the occasional infrastructure upgrade. 

In our office I have always tried to allow users to work as late as they want, their efforts are appreciated.  Then I do the backroom IT work later in the evening.  That's just not possible when all utilities need to be completed prior to 1 AM ET.

[Lance Weaver]

John,

We are PST and I was told that for us, maintenance windows would be Midnight-2:00A PST M-F and Midnight-6:00A PST SAT-SUN.  I guess it must depend on what server you are on... ?

Lance

Regular maintenance periods are 12-4 CT Mon-Fri and 12-6 CT Sat-Sun.  Add in extra time for TAM upgrades or the occasional infrastructure upgrade. 

In our office I have always tried to allow users to work as late as they want, their efforts are appreciated.  Then I do the backroom IT work later in the evening.  That's just not possible when all utilities need to be completed prior to 1 AM ET.

[brinkerdana]

There are many a night that I'm working at 3 AM.  Being West Coast, the TOL utilities are done by then.  The only time insomnia pays off.

[Conan_Ward]

Should be 12-4 central regardless of if you're Denver or Virginia, so, 10-2 and 10-4 respectively.

regarding:
•Inability to see if a connected user is working or just forgot to logoff @ end of the day (may be different if you purchase the private cloud product)

I don't suppose shadowing via the AOM utility would be any help? There is also a messaging feature via AOM though it's not used all that often and replying would be difficult (could ask the user to email you a response perhaps).

[Lance Weaver]

Shadowing via AOM would be the ticket as long as the idle session does NOT need to confirm the shadow request.  Is this available in the standard AppliedOnline offering and is this available in the Private Cloud offering?

Thanks,

Should be 12-4 central regardless of if you're Denver or Virginia, so, 10-2 and 10-4 respectively.

regarding:
•Inability to see if a connected user is working or just forgot to logoff @ end of the day (may be different if you purchase the private cloud product)

I don't suppose shadowing via the AOM utility would be any help? There is also a messaging feature via AOM though it's not used all that often and replying would be difficult (could ask the user to email you a response perhaps).

[Mittonman]

Our firm hass 55 users and has been contemplating going to TOL. Our main reason is Epic. We have been told repeatedly by our AS rep that most brokerages that go to Epic eventually to to TOL due to the amount of IT that is required to run Epic.

Anyone else heard that?

[Jeff Golas]

Going from TAM to Epic, you will have some investment to deal with, basically buying SQL licensing, but I've been running Vision for 12 years and its one of my lower-maintenance systems. Of course they want to sell you on it its huge $$ for them!

[Conan_Ward]

Shadowing via AOM would be the ticket as long as the idle session does NOT need to confirm the shadow request.  Is this available in the standard AppliedOnline offering and is this available in the Private Cloud offering?

Thanks,

Should be 12-4 central regardless of if you're Denver or Virginia, so, 10-2 and 10-4 respectively.

regarding:
•Inability to see if a connected user is working or just forgot to logoff @ end of the day (may be different if you purchase the private cloud product)

I don't suppose shadowing via the AOM utility would be any help? There is also a messaging feature via AOM though it's not used all that often and replying would be difficult (could ask the user to email you a response perhaps).

I'm not sure if that could be enabled for a private cloud user, in standard AOM they do need to confirm. I was going by the logic that if the employees were there, it could be another tool in addition to emailing/calling/etc with that user to confirm if they were still there. If they were there and knew to confirm if they were to see that prompt come up, it could be another tool that can be used.

If there is no response to anything, then in theory you can look at logging them off. Generally speaking...if they were still there, you'd hear about it at that point.

[Lance Weaver]

Conan,

The Admin should be able to take control of an abandoned user session.  If it is not this way now, then it should be.  Especially when I am on my own "Private Cloud".  I should be able to make my cloud do whatever I want.  Unless of course, Applied tech support is available at Midnight (that's midnight PST for me)...

Thanks,

Lance

Shadowing via AOM would be the ticket as long as the idle session does NOT need to confirm the shadow request.  Is this available in the standard AppliedOnline offering and is this available in the Private Cloud offering?

Thanks,

Should be 12-4 central regardless of if you're Denver or Virginia, so, 10-2 and 10-4 respectively.

regarding:
•Inability to see if a connected user is working or just forgot to logoff @ end of the day (may be different if you purchase the private cloud product)

I don't suppose shadowing via the AOM utility would be any help? There is also a messaging feature via AOM though it's not used all that often and replying would be difficult (could ask the user to email you a response perhaps).

I'm not sure if that could be enabled for a private cloud user, in standard AOM they do need to confirm. I was going by the logic that if the employees were there, it could be another tool in addition to emailing/calling/etc with that user to confirm if they were still there. If they were there and knew to confirm if they were to see that prompt come up, it could be another tool that can be used.

If there is no response to anything, then in theory you can look at logging them off. Generally speaking...if they were still there, you'd hear about it at that point.

[Mark]

What is this "AOM" anyway?  Is it just the ability to remote control an RDP session?

[Conan_Ward]

It's got a few different features, such as managing user accounts (add, disable, grant limited permissions) and managing sessions, so, remote control, logoff.

Lance, I do not know if that can/will be enabled. I'm aware that there is a setting for windows servers for that, but i'm not sure if the server admins would allow that to be on for specific users. That would have to be a concern that should be brought up with sales/implementation to see what they can do. 

I'm not sure i'd like to consider the issues that would stem from having 24 hour general support (or costs), though there is an option in the portal to alert our admins to any potential issues after hours for online issues, since the datacenters do have people keeping an eye on things 24/7/365.

I know these are probably not the answers you want, but they are the best that I can provide personally. Hopefully whoever is helping co-ordinate the migration for your office might be able to help work something out.