[thelist] auto repair database

[alan herrell - the head lemur]

> Looking at Mitchell's data tools, it's exactly what I was looking for. If AllData is similar, at least we've got two potentially competitive sources. 

If you are going to mitchell write down this number
1-800-854-7030
this is the tech support line
you will be using this a lot
there is a woman (cindy or sandra who knows more about this than anybody 
else) I think she has powersteering fluid for blood. Highly recommended 
if you can ever talk to her.

Oh yeah during the first two weeks of an update cycle, the hold times 
are around 2 hours. experiencing high call volume, dontcha know:)
the website is useless.

I do support for bodyshops and wrecking yards
and two out of three months updates go okay
the other one is a two hour ordeal.

the bad news is the customer service folks usually have to move you up 
to the tech support level, which then requires rebuilding the databases 
and the archives, and remembering which machine the updates are managed 
from. You will need an high speed internet connection, and they load a 
VNC type program to perform a lot of these tasks.
They upgrade their versions, which usally requires the latest windows.
They are up to XP now. I will leave the business when they decide Vista 
is a good idea.

the good news is that you can now move the data to the harddrive now.
before you needed the CD in a player, and accessed across your network, 
which until recently was Novell only for multi user.
Also be ware of the fact that Insurance companies have different 
databases and are updated more frequently.
this matters on supplements.
RE: All Data. AD requires a hardware Dongle. and a DVD player.
prior to a year ago AD came on 62 CD's. Yes mechanics did a lot of disk 
swapping. Today it is 12 DVD's.
Still have to swap as there is no provision for harddrive data migration

BTW both of these companies software are time limited. After the time 
the software just stops.

But good luck

-- 
alan herrell - the head lemur
raving lunacy
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com