***WARNING***ATHENA CANT ADD******

[dbiggers]

Bill --

Actually, the feature is in Athena and it does far more than just things like Bradford's rather crude adjustment tool -- it's called the Worksheet PowerView. It's an Excel-compatible spreadsheet environment built into Athena, and with it you can literally make any adjustment automatic (using all the incredible power of full algebraic Excel formulas). You can also apply the features -- including text operations, such as making a checkbox on the front page automatically stick "2 car" in the garage field on the comps grid, etc. -- to any field in any form, creating a permanent link between that field and the formulas in the spreadsheet. It's nothing short of amazing. We've even seen people put full regression formulas into the report.

The really cool part is that the spreadsheet is stored inside the appraisal report, so you just "build it once" and use it repeatedly after that. It's like having a full mathematical model built right into your system, and it's automatically preserved as you clone reports or use templates.

This is all explained in the manual, and we have a sample spreadsheet in our Athena Sample report in the Tutorial folder on your PC. Our seminars cover this feature too, and it's often one of the biggest "oh, wow, I didn't realize I could do this" sessions that we teach.

Finally, the WinTOTAL Yahoo user's group had a long discussion recently on the Worksheet PowerView, and it was interesting to watch the "lights go on" as people realized the time-saving power contained in that one feature. In fact, they started writing spreadsheets and saving them in the user group's library. Join the group if you haven't already and grab some of the spreadsheets they did.

Oh, last thing -- no, lenders can't change your signature. And with Athena, they can't steal your data, either. It's all encrypted. We're the only vendor with completely "data mining proof" files, so you can send in native format and be able to sleep well at night.

Dave Biggers
CEO
a la mode, inc.

Slacker,

Have your used anything else. In all my years, I have used several. THe best, by far at time savings is Toolbox. (Bradford and Robbins). I had a very large client that went to EDI in native Wintotal format. I had to change or loose the client.

Youknow how you can do the GLA calcs automatically in wintotal? How would you like to be able to do that for every numeric field on the grid? Yup, time, age, site size, number of rooms. bedrooms, baths, GLA, basement sf, finished bsmnt sf, garages, fireplaces, etc.? Toolbox does all that. How would you like to make maps in a bout a tenth of the time you do now? Does that too. How about not having to click through all the forms. One file one report. You can just scroll through the whole thing. How about a comps data base that you can search by sales price without having to enter a subject's sales price? How about being able to search by with a sales date without having to enter a subject's sale date? How about being able to search by every field on the grid? Yup, toolbox does it all. How about a true neighborhood database? Yup, got it too.

Now you want to know the funny part. I discussed all this with the people at alamode way back. Know what I was told? Just wait til athena....it will do all that and more. Then it came out. I called and asked what happened. Well, we wanted to get it to the market and didnt have time to get all that done. So basically, we got the same crap we had before in 16bit now to 32bit. No better than it was before.

I know alot of you are total fans, I just bet you havent used other software packages. You know, the Taurus might be the best selling car, but is it the best performing car?

 

[slacker]

They're suckin our money away; we have no recourse, cause they all have empty promises - and they've joined the liers of the free world, as a matter of fact, they're gettin way to close to the suits.

I’m sorry, but this gets my vote for the most dramatic and theatrical post I have read in this forum. Empty promises and liars of the free world?? Please…….

Dude! If you don’t like what you’re seeing, change the channel and get on with it! I don’t think anyone is holding a gun to your head when it comes to purchasing software.

Besides, there are always other options. Perhaps you could deliver your appraisals in narrative format to your lenders by broadcasting them over your CB radio.

Breaker, Breaker, what's your 2055? Looks like we got ourselves a convoy of LO's coming through...........

It’s also interesting that you have a problem with suits and yet the image on all your posts is that of “Smithers” from the Simpson’s. He’s the ultimate “kiss ***, yes man” there is. I don’t get it?

 

[Ben Vukicevich SRA]

Bill,

They had the same problem way, way back with DOS Total, primarily on the extra comps forms, if I remember correctly. I used to see some pretty funky final "totals" and net and gross percentages when you merged in old info to overtype. The major clue of the error was when the net adjustment percentage was way over the gross adjustment percentage-something wasn't being "zeroed" out when carried over-The phantom adjustment. Also, if you cleared out all the adjustments on the grid, there were still net and gross adjustments shown at the bottom when they should have been 0.

Yep, I still have an old 486 around with DOS Total on it.

Maybe the errors are still around now because to me, WinTotal, is still nothing more than old DOS total with a graphic interface. I thought Athena would have conquered that with a seamless report but it hasn't. The old Main Menu is gone via Windows. It still shows only part of the appraisal on the screen at one time and jumps back to the hard drive to load other forms as needed.

I don't have time for that. It's archaic. Total was a great program in the old days. It just seems to have moved away from the needs of the one man shop to the larger shops. Too much stuff that I don't need and that slows me down.

I have Athena and I never use it. When I moved from DOS Total to Windows, I updated to WinTotal, never liked it and went off on the hunt for an easier program for a one man shop. So I, like you, use Toolbox.

But to each his own, I guess.


Ben

 

[Anonymous]

Mr. Biggers:

You didnt address the simple math problem.

Also, neat. An inteface with another product. Lets see, with what I pay for support, the software, and now go buy excel, hmm..thats alot of money. I dont like excel. I use quattro. Why not make the software itself do it?

You can make the software transfer data between the fields on the front and back? Why not MAKE IT do that?

In short, I was sold on something I didnt get. Cant prove I was told all those things were coming, so I guess I am just out the money. Call it a lesson learned Mr. Biggers.

As far as the excel importing. Sounds good. But if your cant add and subtract right, why should I assume your software can do import from other developers software without a mistake?

 

[Anonymous]

Seems like normal. You address an issue here and a few other side items get thrown it. Then those side items get addressed and nobody ever addresses the real issue.

Mr. Biggers, if you are still reading these, what about the math issue? This is not a new problem according to your techs. One told me, I only get 3-4 calls a month on this.... REALLY? That is a huge issue.

 

[dbiggers]

Sorry for the delay Bill -- I've been on the road and rarely check forums when I'm traveling.

There are several answers here so bear with me.

First, when Matt Krodel, our VP of Tech Support, said "send me a file where it happens so we can look at it", I took that to be an answer and assumed you had done so. I didn't think that I needed to answer that part since he already had, and you and he could/should have been having a discussion about that in the proper medium (regular tech support). This or any forum is no substitute for contacting support directly, since whne you contact us, we can gather much more system information automatically through our Tech Support Assistant utility. It saves the customer and us a ton of time.

Second, in your message, you raised the auto adjustments issue when complaining that we hadn't done a feature we promised (when in fact we had). Nobody had replied to that, so I did. It was a part of your question, was a false assertion, and deserved an answer.

Now, to reply to your subsequent reply <grin>, no, you don't have to buy Excel. We built an Excel clone right into WinTOTAL's main forms interface and simplified it considerably. Just click on the Worksheet button in your toolbar and you'll see it.

Before you jump to negative conclusions and accuse us of (1) not having the feature and then (2) requiring Excel, just try the feature one time, please, OK? You're assuming the worst instead of just trying it once or even checking the user manual. It's all right there. Nothing extra needed. And it's far more powerful than the original feature you heard about, since it does logical and mathematical alterations, in a completely customizable method.

Third, as for the number of times we take a call on "bad math", you'd be surprised how often the result is that there was no problem. Many times someone forgot they cloned an old report and hadn't redone the sketch yet (so the old sf's kept transfering in), or they "locked" a field intentionally but then didn't realize that "locked" truly means "locked" and transfers are blocked by it.

In the calls where that isn't the case, we often find physical file corruption and not surprisingly, high numbers of bad clusters on the user's hard drive -- and that's difficult for us to control in any way. You mentioned that our tech indicated we take a few calls a month on this, but put it in its proper context: There are literally millions of appraisal reports edited per month using our software. Over 400,000 of them a month even are transmitted through our servers here via EDI. So it should come as no surprise given that volume that occasionally some users believe and/or actually do have a corrupt file. Generate a million Word documents a month on 40,000 PC's and I bet you'll see corrupted Word docs too. There are simply too many variables -- most not under our control -- for it NOT to happen occasionally.

That doesn't mean we don't take it seriously or that we wash our hands of it. If we did, we wouldn't say "send us a file" so we can look at it and see how it was damaged. It's like forensic science; if a detective asks "How did this man die?", it's hard for the doctor to say how if the doctor can't see the body and deduce what went wrong. So please, send us a body and let us see what happened... ;-)

Dave Biggers
CEO
a la mode, inc.