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Data Services 2010

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Welcome to a new era for data services at D-Tools! Back in January, our CEO Adam Stone took a hard look at how we collect, publish, and manage data for our MVP and Data Subscription customers. What he found, and what we heard from users, was that our tools and processes in this area were not up to par with the rest of our operations, resulting in data that was often incomplete, inaccurate and out of date. In short, not the quality of data that our customers rely on us to provide.

Quality data drives our software. It’s like gasoline. With it, you can go far, quickly creating proposals and schematics, streamlining operations to achieve significant efficiency gains. Without it, you have to stop at every station, always filling up a little bit, but never quite able to just drive to your destination.

So began the year of data at D-Tools. Adam was determined to make dramatic improvements in this area, and brought me on in April to lead the charge. Together, we have been working behind the scenes to improve the way we collect and process data internally, so that we can begin to publish the quantity and quality of data our users demand.

We laid out a roadmap which looks as follows: first, improve our internal processes. Second, improve our data services products (MVP and Data Subscription) to improve response time and add other valuable services, such as a QuickStart service for new customers. Third, upgrade our client software (System Integrator) to take advantage of the new data being produced and allow greater participation from end users of data.

So where are we now? Halfway through phase one. Already, we are publishing 4 times the number of products every month than in the past, and we expect this to rise to 10x or more by the end of the year. Each and every month we are making dramatic improvements in this area.

Additionally, the depth of data is greater, with features, long descriptions, as well as more images and documents. If you haven’t checked out our new Data Search, it’s a great tool to see what we’re doing.

Next up will be improved services. We’re already updating MVP data much more often, and we have begun a QuickStart service, in which we create a database of 250 products for new users. Faster response time for Data Subscription requests is not far behind.

We realize that we have a way to go to give users what they need – fast, accurate, up-to-date data when they need it. However, with the focus of the entire D-Tools team on data this year, I’m confident that we will reach this goal. Stay tuned for further developments.

Randy Bownds
Director of Data Products
D-Tools, Inc

http://www.d-toolsblog.com/?p=5506

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