Installation Or Implementation – Which One Are You Doing?
Over the past 25+ years, I have written extensively and blogged regularly about how to make your investment in Roof Wizard software work best for your business. The Roof Wizard is a full scale, professional roofing and cladding estimation software that, if used to its full potential after installation, will make a substantial contribution to your bottom line. Maybe I should not be surprised, but given the number of times I see our software used to only a minimum extent, especially by long-time clients, it is clear that somehow my message is not getting through, or worse, is not acted upon and thus contrary to our valued clients’ best interest.
We want to make your software investment count, and in investigating where the gap lies, we have found that typically, there is confusion between installation and implementation of a software.
What Is The Difference?
Installation is not the same thing as implementation and when you stop and think about it for a minute you will know what I mean.
Depth of the Software’s Functionality
The AppliCad software in particular has very deep functionality and no-one is going to get all this working without an implementation plan, discussing with all the stakeholders and understanding the objectives of each. Depending on your business needs, you will need to explore what you want to achieve and configure the software accordingly. This will almost certainly include setting up your own custom material and labour pricing database in the software. You do this once and then you can draw from it for each job. One of our clients has a database of over 75,000 items to cater for all their needs. It took a little while to set it up, but the economies achieved on each job this client quotes are immense.
Interaction With Other Business-Critical IT Systems
The Roof Wizard successfully interacts with business systems such as the Microsoft Office suite, accounting software, CRM and ERP systems, and even Roll-Forming Machine Controllers. Integrating the Roof Wizard with your other systems can be seamless, and it means your information flow is based on single data entry, a single source of truth, thus minimising the inherent risk of transcription errors and resulting rework. Map your systems environment and talk to us about how the Roof Wizard software can positively affect your information flow throughout.
Training
We know the Roof Wizard is complex, and that is on purpose. We have developed the program to work for roofers all over the world, for all types of roofing and cladding systems – for labour and material calculations, quoting, and ordering. Roof Wizard software had a manual that was about 1000+ pages when we shipped a printed version. Our biggest frustration is the market’s expectation to be able to operate this most complex software with minimal training effort, as you might for a simple tablet app. If you do not train your staff properly, and this includes giving your staff the time and resources to do so, you cannot expect to reap maximum outcomes. We offer a range of training methods to choose from; there are face-to-face training sessions, self-paced online modules, YouTube tutorials, and extensive online and in-program help menus. Yet, we only typically see minimal training efforts being applied, and we hardly see training effort for staff other than in the estimation department. To achieve the trickle-through benefits for the entire organisation requires a complete picture of how all the discrete processes in your business may benefit by sharing information created at the estimation stage.
Why Does It Matter?
Let’s be very clear about this – the process of setting up the Roof Wizard for your business only starts with the software installation. In order to get the most from the program you need to understand what problem you’re solving and then how to make the installed program deliver the solution by implementing it according to your business needs. First you plan, then you implement, then you monitor and adjust as required. If you don’t know or can’t figure it out yourself, our amazing support team here at AppliCad are available to help you.