Comments on: Integration? What’s that and what do I do with it? What about my DMS?

By: Matt Watson

Matt Watson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:56:51 +0000

The bottom line is do you trust the vendor with your data? Which methodology they used to get the data doesn’t really matter if you ask me.

By: Reynolds Locking out Third Parties - DealerRefresh Automotive Technology Forums

Reynolds Locking out Third Parties - DealerRefresh Automotive Technology Forums — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:28:46 +0000

[...] is just annoying… and not really that great of a prevention measure… Reynolds is just making integration complex for no good [...]

By: 3rd Party

3rd Party — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:35:34 +0000

I work for a 3rd Party company the intergrates with DMS systems. We have gone thru the “expensive certification” with the BIG DMS vendors. Our company did this because we wanted to make sure when we were extracting information to our system we did it securly so that none of the customers information was able to be stolen or hacked. where as our competition does not do this and the information from thier system is very vunerable to hacks and theft.

By: Better Integration Among Vendors - DealerRefresh Automotive Technology forums

Better Integration Among Vendors - DealerRefresh Automotive Technology forums — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:06:11 +0000

[...] to that cause. You can find a link to that in the comment string in an article I wrote about data integration on the DealerRefresh Blog. In fact, I think you were the one who provided the link It is Open [...]

By: Umer Farooq

Umer Farooq — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:40:42 +0000

@Matt “Crisis Avoidance Specialist”

By: David Book

David Book — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:49:16 +0000

@ DP

Your post is so spot-on and important. There are many many implications with “slinging information around” that almost nobody thinks about when they enter a agreement with a new vendor.

I think our industry is asking for trouble if we simplify (like I did in an earlier post) the integration issue. But, we cannot afford to ignore it. Seems to me that these yet-to-be-developed standards should start with a solid data protection and security plan.

Thanks for sharing from your perspective
David Book

By: DP

DP — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:14:16 +0000

Great Post! When vendors tell you that your group is overprotective they might be referring to the fact that you actually take the time to run third party requests for integration through a legal team. All too often I witness dealers and office staff who sign these types of contracts and agreements without even browsing over them. Many times, these contracts include clauses or disclaimers that release the third party vendor from liability for data loss, corruption, or theft caused by the integration hence the responsibility often falls solely on the dealership.
I do work in the industry for a third party company that does invest in secure integration with several DMS partners including the “Big Three” as you refer to them. We view the certification process as an important aspect of our business that allows our clients to do business with us in confidence. Unfortunately, it’s not always the easiest or most popular stance to take. If you think about it, many of your customers would probably be happy if you told them them that they can neglect costly procedures in their maintenance guide and still enjoy optimal performance from their new car. Much the same way a vendor might tell you to ignore your data providers cerification policy guidlines for protecting your system and data. The argument to keep using vendors that rely on hostile integration to access data is often based on a broken correlation: Nothing negative has occurred to this point, therefore nothing negative will ever occur. My point is, it’s always easy to “drink the kool aid” and there will always be plenty of companies happy to serve it as long as decision makers are willing to drink.
In today’s market, clients often place focus and expectations on fast and easy. As we’ve all witnessed in the credit card industry, fast and easy doesn’t always mix well with private or sensitive information. In making credit cards faster and easier to use than ever, credit card companies and the vendors that process them have made it easier in many cases, for criminals to commit data theft and fraud. Sometimes it might make sense to be careful what we wish for, at least before we consider unintended consequences. (Ask any individual who has gone through identity theft or a company that’s been through a class action lawsuit for failing to adequately protect sensitive data)
Data security can be like auto insurance. Unfortunately, it’s often just not that important until a problem occurs. The saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” seems relevant when talking about this issue. To anyone faced with decisions involving data security and integration, I recommend examining motivations and agendas of the companies using non-certified integrations to gain access to data just as you scrutinize the companies that implement and maintain the certification programs.

By: Matt Young

Matt Young — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:24:12 +0000

The biggest problem with integration is that there are very few people who actually understand how it all works together. You must be able to tell your vendors exactly what your want. I have all of our systems working together thanks to some great IT people at vAuto, The Cardone Group, Autouplink and eBiz Autos. Where other vendors said they couldn’t, we have found creative ways to make it all work together. Here is the list.
Six New Car Franchises
Two Used Car Lots
Four Separate Buildings
One DMS with one (YES,1!) F&I Log On
One (YES,1!) Vehicle Account
Three different Parts and Service Accounts(Does anyone else have these kinda problems)
Six New Car Websites
One Group /Used Car Site…. and the list goes on.
We have ADP as our DMS, Autouplink polls our inventory, and breaks it down into multiple feeds based on different filtering criteria. vAuto both pulls from and pushes to Autouplink. It also separates the used car inventories based on which lot, so we have one place to price our used cars.
We have four separate dedicated ePencil servers, with a web based Enterprise CRM solution courtesy of Cardone/Dealerpeak(big shout to Gus, Vincent and Laymon the best in the business). We also have 12 different vehicle accounts for our web sites. Believe it or not it all works together great. And when there are problems, 99.99% of the time somebody put in the wrong data.
Worst case scenario, I can always write an “English Statement”, export to a csv file, convert the data to an Excel Spreadsheet and FTP it to my vendors.
It helps that we have General Managers and a Dealer Principle that understand the importance of the technology. Almost all of our Sales Managers have bought in, and one of our Used Car Managers who was as “old school” as they came is now a Dale Pollack fan and it shows. Our used car sales, grosses and turn rate are all way up, and we cut our used car inventory in almost half!!!
And yes we still have one (YES,1!) “old school” sales manager and we have been dragging him kicking and screaming the whole way! I think even he’s actually starting to get it. Either that or he’s just found something else to kick and scream about.
Matt Young
IT Manager /Crisis Avoidance Specialist
Jack Ingram Motors

By: Cem Avsar

Cem Avsar — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:36:26 +0000

Do not forget to clear (delete) all DMS VPN access. You will be surprise when you find out your previous employees still accessing your DMS via VPN. Remember REYREY does NOT care !

REYREY offers VPN access !

Get a security report from REYREY and good luck.

Happy selling.

(by the way I still use dial up connection, it works)

By: Umer Farooq

Umer Farooq — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:57:16 +0000

@david I 100% agree with you on principle of “Develop a standard database schema”. There are many specs already for exchanging customer data(ADF/STAR), financial data (STAR), Warranty and others… but we are lacking a standard for inventory exchange. Lets all work towards getting a standard in place for vehicle inventory. That addresses…

1. What data we must have in the DMS. (I’m frankly exhausted of figuring out what color is Silver2 or entries like dblue vs dkblue vs drkblue)
2. Layout of inventory feeds. Every provider has their own standard… why do I have to write a different import for HomeNet, VinSolution, DSI, CDM… or a export for ATC, CC, Vehix.

To get started… on #2… I have created this xsd… http://www.autojini.com/xml/xsdDocs/index.html (still needs tons of work)

I would also add that actually implementing the standard fully is the key. To date I have not found any CRM provider that fully supports the ADF standard. Mainly… ADF clearly supports Inline or Attachment based data… most providers take only inline data. There is a perfectly logical standard for processing errors in ADF but so far no one has actually implemented correct error handeling in ADF. i.e send the errors to the ADF data provider not the dealer.