Has anyone converted from Total FBO version 5 to the new version 6 yet? Curious to know what the new bells and whistles are. What is everyone else using out there for their maintenance tracking, inventories, and parts tracking?

Join in and Be Heard,
Mike

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Join in and Be Heard.
Are you a pofessional or are you just here for the paycheck?

To bad that all the different maintenance management software companies are paid advertisers. I think they would be a good subject matter for a head to head comparison with atleast three different type Part 145 facilities providing the criteria to come them against each other........ We need a Aircraft Maintenance version of Consumer Reports......

Join in and Be Heard,
Mike

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Join in and Be Heard.
Are you a pofessional or are you just here for the paycheck?

The only draw back is that it has taken months (data loss wiped out the previous post) to get Davids input. Apparently everyone else must be using Coordidor or something else. Wish there was a way without hurting the companies feelings to have a head to head comparison like they do at comsumer reports. Each company having a presentation like the one on the other aviation maintenance webstewaasn't that informative in the department of head to head.

Just my thoughts,

Join in and Be Heard,
Mike

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Join in and Be Heard.
Are you a pofessional or are you just here for the paycheck?

I agree that this would be helpful. I've actually been trying to find a way to do this for several years. The primary problem is the resources required to do a consistent and FAIR evaluation. Not to speak for the other aviation pubs - but I know that we and they don't have a staff of scientists/analysts/testers that can provide a scientific and objective evaluation. The best we can do at this time is to provide you with a forum like this one so you can ask questions to your peers. One thing you need to keep in mind, however, is the type of operation and the variables of the person giving the advice/info. If it's a corporate operator, for instance, they will have way different needs than an FBO or an MRO and the evaluation will be skewed towards that. The advice above is indeed valuable - and that's why we started this forum. Things are running smoothly now and we won't lose any more data!

My name is George Lehmann, owner of Horizon Business Concepts and chief programmer on the TotalFBO product. I'd like to add some information to this post and invite questions, comments, and critiques.


This started with a meeting at the NBAA conference in October where he told me not of the total loss of tracking on serialized parts, but of the loss of tracking on key fields for serialized parts when receiving these items into stock, and was hooked up with Richard Ramo in David's shop for details. Within weeks we had added code to record the Install Date, Installed On, Sold To, and Shop Order # fields (the fields Richard advised were needed) as part of the receiving process, and published the update on 10/14/08. I advised Richard by email of the change. I received no response after that and presumed the issue had been resolved.


TotalFBO indeed does not have a function for extracting the email addresses on customer accounts despite the ability built into the program to select and use these email addresses individually to send invoices, shop orders, customer statements, and any general report. In hindsight this is an obvious need, and I am addressing this in the current development version. We will have a report to list and export email addresses soon.

Regarding the effort to manually extract David's email list, the data is accessible using manually written SQL queries or from any third party report writer such as Crystal Reports. After he sent us his database we were able to correct the manual extraction which had previously only found 3 email addresses. Within 48 hours of receiving their db we sent them a spreadsheet with 473 email addresses. Their response was that this was too broad, they only wanted certain customers. I never received a response to my request to David for what criteria should be used to narrow this list.


Everyone has their definition of 'industry standard' hardware. We've been led down that road where a customer proclaimed a certain device "the industry standard" and after writing customized code for it nobody else ever made use of the functionality. I've not been advised of what printer Leading Edge is trying to use so I cannot comment on what issues there might be on this problem. If such a printer is identified (I'd be interested to hear from any of you on this issue as to what industry standard printers you're using), I'd be happy to look into what customizations are possible. Loan me your printer and I'll make it work.


My exact words to David in an email dated 1/2/2009 are reproduced here:
"I wish TotalFBO could instantly, with a single click of a button, produce whatever results customers desired in any format they desired, but the sad fact is it will never reach that utopian state. Using your comparison [of TotalFBO to Microsoft Quicken], Microsoft has the luxury of building a product much less complex and far-reaching than TotalFBO and funding it with a market tens of thousands of times larger than ours. And even with all that money, Quicken does absolutely none of the aviation-specific things you have to have. We could provide that level of functionality and service for the small aviation community, but then nobody could afford the hundreds of thousands it would cost to get there. TotalFBO is a compromise between complete custom software nobody can afford, and cheap off-the-shelf software that costs mere hundreds of dollars but falls totally short of the mark."

I do not want this to become a flamefest. I'm only posting here because a friend brought this post to my attention and thought I might like to respond. I've worked for 21 years to make TotalFBO the most responsive, most well-rounded, best value-for-the-buck software program in the aviation industry. I know it will never do everything that everyone wants it to do, but we do try to get as close to that mark as possible while keeping the software affordable for almost everyone.

In the last year, we've been working on our Version 6 which has big enhancements in the shop area. Without turning this post into a sales piece, we've eliminated the locking procedure previously required in receiving and batching parts/labor to shop orders, added many new fields in shop order data entry and new reports on labor writeoffs and efficiency, and much more, as well as a major effort to make the program PCI compliant (a necessary step for anyone taking credit cards through the program, which David's company does).

David, if you still need something I'm not delivering to you, please advise me directly via email (george@hbcinc.com) or by phone (918-355-3469). I'd also invite anyone else who has question to contact me directly as I do not plan on being a frequent browser of this forum.

As far as a shootout or an editorial comparing our software to others, I'd be happy to participate in such an effort.

Thank you for your time,
George Lehmann,
Vice President, R&D
Horizon Business Concepts

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the welcome. I'll try to keep my posts from becoming sales pitches. I'm happy to provide any information that is useful.

V6 has had a lot of work done in the shop arena. You can now have unlimited 'misc supplies' items, creating 'sets' of default charges and having those auto-populate new shop orders. Each misc charge can be named what you want (ie, 'Hazmat Fee', 'Consumables', etc.) and can automatically charge percentages of the various charges on the shop order.

Discrepancies can now have unlimited charges, where 5.30 just had the 7 fixed fields. You can provide alternate names (the defaults are still the usual Outside Repair, etc.) and you can have multiples of each type such as one outside repair line for each unit brought in instead of lumping them all together in one charge field.

Hours billed and written off are much more flexible, and written-off time can be assigned to individual mechanics. Though it's not completed yet, this will lead to efficiency reports on individual mechanics.

The lockout on shop orders to post batch mode parts/labor and to receive from inventory that you're used to in 5.30 is gone. This makes it much easier for a larger number of users to be inputting data to a given shop order at the same time.

There's a new Shop Floor Assistant screen which is really just a streamlined batch mode parts data entry. It allows good use of bar code readers and really cuts down the clicks and keystrokes required to check out a part and put it on a shop order to a minimum.

That's a few of the highlights. Let me know if this sparks more questions.

Thanks,
George

George; good to see you participating here. You mention you are not planning on being a regular contributor here. Why not? What have you got to lose? You're talking DIRECTLY to the folks that use/will use/or have used your product (myself being one of the latter). Your participation on this forum could be a fantastic learning experience for yourself as well as your past, present and future customers.
I say stick around!

I can not speak first hand for TFBO software but did spend over a year evaluating maintenance management software for a part 91/135 operator. I looking extensively at Corridor, MTrax, and Ebis systems for the most part and spent time at trade shows and online demos as well. What I ended up recommending to the owner of the company was Ebis Systems from Datco Media. I ended up using the software for nearly two years as the acting maintenance administrator then as the company DOM until they closed the business in 2006. I was so pleased with what it did that when I started my own company Aircorp Aviation to provide maintenance management consulting services, I bought the program and licenses from my former employer. I have been using this software for nearly 4 years now and couldn't be happier with its capabilities and ease of use not to mention a tech support dept that has always been there when I had a problem, which have been very few. Granted I do not use all the modules they offer at this time but work every day with the maintenance tracking/compliance, work orders, purchase orders and tool control functions and can say that I could train anyone with basic computer skills to use this software within a few days. It is very much a windows based feel rather than DOS and eliminates the need to enter data in multiple locations since information cascades thru the modules when you enter it as the program steps require. I have used other programs like this before and find Ebis to be straight forward and intuitive, I couldn't imagine operating my business without it. Check it out on line for yourself to see all the modules offered.....

Aircorp1

these are quote from other memebers

TotalFBO indeed does not have a function for extracting the email addresses on customer accounts despite the ability built into the program to select and use these email addresses individually to send invoices, shop orders, customer statements, and any general report. In hindsight this is an obvious need, and I am addressing this in the current development version. We will have a report to list and export email addresses soon.

My exact words to David in an email dated 1/2/2009 are reproduced here:
"I wish TotalFBO could instantly, with a single click of a button, produce whatever results customers desired in any format they desired, but the sad fact is it will never reach that utopian state. Using your comparison [of TotalFBO to Microsoft Quicken], Microsoft has the luxury of building a product much less complex and far-reaching than TotalFBO and funding it with a market tens of thousands of times larger than ours. And even with all that money, Quicken does absolutely none of the aviation-specific things you have to have. We could provide that level of functionality and service for the small aviation community, but then nobody could afford the hundreds of thousands it would cost to get there. TotalFBO is a compromise between complete custom software nobody can afford, and cheap off-the-shelf software that costs mere hundreds of dollars but falls totally short of the mark

Just a feature EBis3 has you can pull all email address out, also you can run a list of all upcoing annuals, ELT, or many oterh task and send a email to all customers that are due by date with 1 minutes then print a list to follow up with if need, this lets you market your services if you buy a car they always send you a note telling you your oil needs to be changes so this give the user the same easy way of getting customers thinking you are really caring for their needs

Message from Greg Napert:

Folks - I've had quite a bit of experience with Forums and have witnessed quite a few that have been extremely helpful - but have also seen quite a few go to the dogs.

The nice thing about forums is that you can speak without fear of retribution - but that also can foster some irresponsibility. It becomes a he-said/she-said!

How do we validate accusations and/or accuracy of comments? Who's to say that a competitor might be trying to destroy their competition by making a product look bad? Not to say that's happening here - but I'm sure you see the potential!

My favorite forums provide support and help, positive suggestions and solutions!

That's the kind of forum that I would like this to become!

As a result of seeing the potential problems with uncontrolled criticism, we have decided to create some forum rules! In General, they will not allow the use of peoples specific names (since most of you don't use yours!) and they will encourage positive contributions and solutions.

They will be posted shortly.

Thanks for your continued support and patience!