List, In a follow up to my query about database needs of technicians I thought I should post what I do and my experiences... Remember the good old days when we use to carry a sales receipt book, our weekly/monthly appointment book, our customer 3 x 5 service cards (which we updated at the piano) and at night we would enter info onto our paper spreadsheet and put the updated cards ahead in a tickler file and pull them out in a future month and call to set up appointments..........Many still use that system and guess what it works great! The only real archaic part is the paper spreadsheet accounting which should be updated to Quicken/Quickbooks or some such thing but the paper accounting book will do the job. No system crashes, no program or system upgrades. If you put all your Steinway customers in an envelope and put that in your tickler file along with the other cards you had an quick way of finding all the Steinway customers if you were interested in that info. Of course it could grand customers or Yamaha customers etc. you just had to separate them from the other cards in your tickler file. Really not too difficult. What I'm seeing in our computer run businesses are more and more levels of unnecessary information. Information that we really don't want or need. Information that might be of some use if we had an office with several people making appointments, calls, entering the data etc and a business of several technicians trying to keep up. What do we of the one man/woman run piano business really need? I think our computer assisted business should follow the old adage of KISS. Keep it simple stupid! We should be able to keep customer/piano data whether they're institutional or private in one program. We should be able to enter data about particular customers or pianos as needed. We should be able to schedule those customers from the same program. We should be able to print out that schedule onto paper for use in the car (and for the paper trail required by the IRS, i.e the appointment book. I 3 hole punch my appointment sheets and put them in a 3 ring binder as my record of where I've been) We should be able to write letters from that program with basic customer info already on the screen. We should be able to look at our schedule by day/week/month/year etc. and be able to move appointments around effortlessly all from the same program. We should be able to find anything we want from that same program such as all the Steinway grands in a certain area or I remember her name was Bertha and query the program to find every customer info containing Bertha. We should be able to access all the customers needing service this month. All from one program. Accounting would be nice from this same program but unless it does everything Quicken/QuickbooksPro does why enter that info twice. Piano Service Manager does all of the above including low level accounting i.e. receipts (which I don't use) and much more. Granted it is a DOS program and a mouse is of no use. All keystrokes (which is 10 times faster than moving the mouse and clicking your way through a multitude of windows). Granted it costs a bit of money, less than one days income for me! If I look at how much I'm worth per hour and the amount of time it takes to make a program that's "JUST RIGHT", I could be making money and want no part of it. I want someone to write that program for me. I will pay for there expertice just as I pay for various piano work I sub to technicians. I have looked at all the Win95 programs (I think) made especially for piano techs and find them overly complicated and with no advantage except they're Win95 based and use a mouse. No advantage so far for me. I do look forward to a Windows/Mac program that can KISS! Thanks for your time and excuse the length of this post! David Ilvedson > I've heard this from Gregg before and although Piano Service > Manager is everything "I've" needed in a database/scheduler for > my customers, it made me wonder just what do other piano > technicians want from a database for their business? Please > respond with your wish list. > > David Ilvedson, RPT > Pacifica, CA > > Gregg Newell wrote: > "That program was never really what I needed in the first place > and ,I believe, grossly overpriced." > > > > I'm sorry PSM didn't suit your needs as well as you hoped. I worked > > very hard on it to make it as widely useful as possible. It's still used > > by quite a few technicians and continues to sell well. It runs fine on > > DOS, Win 3.1, Windows 9x or Macintosh/RealPC. A free demo version is > > available at our web site. Its the only program of its kind I know of > > with 800 number support. > > > > While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I would take issue with > > your assertion that it was overpriced. Frankly, for the amount of time I > > put into the project and the number of copies I sold I would have been > > better off to just tune pianos. The market is very small in our field, > > necessitating that complex specialized software be priced higher than > > say a program like Microsoft Word which will sell tens of millions of > > copies. > > > > I have close to 1000 hours of programming and beta testing in the program. > > At least several hundred hours have been spent by Marty and I over the > > years helping "newbie" computer users who simply didn't have a clue what > > they were doing use PSM or their computer. The amount of support time > > required by a program of this type is enormous. > > > > I'm not really complaining, and not sorry I wrote PSM. The programming > > expertise I gained with PSM and other programs gave me the skills to > > write RCT, which is very successful. > > > > >Now the only reason I won't have what I need is if I didn't create it > > >correctly. > > > I have already opened all the database files in both Approach and in > > >FileMaker Pro so I know it's possible. I guess the step now is to create > > >a form to import all the info into. PSM does split up the info into more > > >than one database as you so intelligently suggest. I did not find a file > > >that showed the main screen or form which opens 3 databases initially. > > >They are customer, piano, and schedule (this last one alternates with > > >the invoice database). These are all tiled on screen at the same time one > > >above the other. This is the view I wish to create for my wife ( at > > >least initially). I will sit through the tutorials but that is a little > > >like asking directions when we're lost isn't it? :>) > > > > I hope you are successful in this. Filemaker Pro is a great program. I > > did not know that it could even read dBase 3+ or Clipper (PSM) files. I > > would be very interested in helping you in this project. I'd love to > > see a set of Filemaker Pro templates which could be used in Windows. > > > > You may even rediscover why I've had to charge what I did for PSM. It > > takes lots of time and expertise to set up the user interface,the screens > > and relationships. > > > > I've thought many times of writing a Windows 9x and Macintosh version of > > PSM but the market size for that niche product didn't make it worth while > > in the last few years and it doesn't seem to me that it is worth it now > > either. I'm going to reevaluate this later this year. If anyone has > > comments on this feel free to email me privately. I would have to almost > > completely rewrite the program. > > > > Maybe programs such as Filemaker Pro will eventually make specialized > > database programs such as PSM obsolete. That would be fine with me! > > However there are large numbers of users who are simply not as computer > > savvy as you and can't set this up. > > > > -Dean > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > Dean L. Reyburn, RPT RPS, Inc. email: dean@reyburn.com > > 2695 Indian Lakes Road web page: www.reyburn.com > > Cedar Springs, Michigan, 49319 USA > > 1-888-SOFT-440 (or 616-696-1002) Fax: 616-696-8121 > > > > > > > > > David Ilvedson, RPT > Pacifica, CA > ilvey@jps.net > > > David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA ilvey@jps.net
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