2010 Back in the USA...
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"Control the Present, Predict the Future ..." |
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Hello Everyone… |
2010 Back in the USA… |
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Back from six weeks in S.E. Asia working with our development staff. Top priority (once again) was how to deliver a more stable product as we roll out new features. Not an easy balancing act! We have managed to slow down the updates to once per month. Most software companies roll out a maximum of one update per year. I have never been patient enough to tell a client that they have to wait a year for something they need. At any rate, my tech support staff is telling me there is already a noticeable improvement. We will keep a close eye on it. |
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Besides the obligatory elephant ride (photo below) with my friend Patrick Bertrand who joined me this trip (IT director of Blue Green, a CPS client in France), I made a side trip to Jakarta, Indonesia for a golf weekend. 98 degree F at 98% humidity gives you a ‘real feel’ temperature of around 120 degree F. An umbrella for the sun was a must as we played Jagorawi Golf and Country Club. http://www.jagorawi.com/. Wearing shorts… I inquired with my caddie about the type of dangerous creatures that inhabit the jungle we were in. Caddie: ‘Kimono Dragons, Snakes… Big Snakes… ‘ (and after a long pause… ) ‘oh! and scorpions.’ Me: ‘Scorpians?’ Caddie: (looking at the ground around my feet) ‘Scorpions. Many many scorpions - all over the golf course!’ Yikes! Explains why he wears long pants and long sleeves in that heat. For service the top club in S.E. Asia is Thai Country Club. The course is nice, the service and clubhouse - among the best I have seen. Each member of the staff at the club receives and is required to memorize the list of members playing that day. All I had to do in any part of the facility (pro-shop, locker room, snack bar, dining room, etc) was mention that I was playing with Mark. As I just met mark in Jakarta I didn’t know his last name. Immediately I was greeted with a smile of recognition and treated as a member myself (at a place I was sure I was about to hear someone yell… ‘Hey you - kid! Get out of here!’). As you have heard our PosExpress v3 has been PA-DSS Validated. We are not using some 3rd party solution for compliance as many others are. Why is this important? Because prior to PA-DSS everyone was handling Credit Cards. Part of the overall process is to ensure old data is encrypted or deleted. Using a 3rd party solution could still leave a merchant liable for losses due to fraud. Following PA-DSS Validation we are re-certifying with each of our processing partners so that there are no surprises when we switch over. The first certification with ETS is complete and we already started changing over US based ETS customers. We are just finishing up the Canadian PIN Pad testing and that will complete the Canadian ETS certification and those sites will follow. Next up is our new TSYS platform which has gone thru the certification scripts for everything except Debit Pin Pads. PIN Pads are always a challenge due to the way they are secured. We have to get a different set of Pin Pads for each processor. Shift-4 is on deck and we are waiting on the scripts to run from them. IPPF/Chase Paymentec, for the two remaining legacy clients, is on the radar. This is the spring install season. Keep in mind that many of our techs are out installing new clients and updating existing ones. As a result of fewer techs in the office combined with new clients learning the software, call times increase. Once the install season wraps up (early June) it is back to having all the phones manned. I could double the number of techs so there are shorter wait times, but I would have to double the amount of tech support fees to do so. In these times I am trying to keep as lean as possible so that we can provide our services at a reasonable fee. I know there are some frustrations out there - I’m open to suggestion. Our new iPhone app for booking tee times is scheduled for publication on April 9. The first one is for Cog Hill (photo below) which will be followed by San Louis Ray Down. I will send out an announcement when it is listed in the App Store for download. If you are interested in one of these for your club don’t wait. There is some setup time involved. There will be other iPhone Apps to follow. I have a new team in our Thai office dedicated to building iPhone Apps. We will be rolling out a new Web Site next month. It will look very similar to the one we have today. The difference is the new one will allow us to edit content on the fly, write blogs, post photo’s and many more feature to come. The idea is that it provides a web site without the need for a web company to update it! Note: This product will be available for you as well. So if you are contemplating a web site change, sit tight for a bit until you check this one out. I will devote a future newsletter to this new product soon. | |
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Ok, it’s not all work! At least for me, the elephant wasn’t so happy hauling us thru the jungle in the heat especially after we ran out of bananas and sugar cane. That is me in the CPS hat discussing with Patrick about who is driving this thing! |
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iPhone Tee Time Booking - There is and app for that! COG Hill is first up on the CPS iPhone app. This app is built specifically for your club. Your golfers can download Your app from the app-store free of charge. They can then look up and book tee times on your course directly from their iPhone. |
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Until Next Time… Enjoy J If you need anything, let us know. Also, if you would like something specific covered in one of these Lessons, send the request my way. See all the great tips in our prior newsletters posted on our website under the Lessons from the Pro link. Thanks
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