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Reynolds Locking out Third Parties

Per one of my managers who has been looking into this: "The contract between Reynolds and third party providers does not allow Reynolds to raise the rates, so Reynolds took it to court and the court ruled that the only way to raise the rates would be if dealers agreed to let Reynolds "pull the plug", then they could re-integrate at higher rates."
 
Hey Guys,

What techniques are being used to overcome the security question? Is the only option to learn the question database and answer correctly? I know each dealer can apply to Reynolds and sign an agreement to have a userid become exempt but this won't scale up very well.

My second question is currently I do some relatively small marketing for 2-4 dealerships. Reynolds and ADP, what is the best software to access the report generator, or english statement screens and download the reports. My goal would be to have a PC at my home on a VPN with the dealerships, and automate the tedious process of exports. I have some programming background but would also consider hiring out the work. Are there any programs that are compatible with both systems that has a good API to allow reports to be fetched?

I spend hours every week doing these repetitive tasks and I'm ready for a better solution. Anyone with experience doing this? Or if you're a dev and is interested in quoting please contact me directly.

Great forums, Thanks!

Dave Reed
dreed [at] edgeonetechnologies.com
 
Hey Guys,

What techniques are being used to overcome the security question? Is the only option to learn the question database and answer correctly? I know each dealer can apply to Reynolds and sign an agreement to have a userid become exempt but this won't scale up very well.

My second question is currently I do some relatively small marketing for 2-4 dealerships. Reynolds and ADP, what is the best software to access the report generator, or english statement screens and download the reports. My goal would be to have a PC at my home on a VPN with the dealerships, and automate the tedious process of exports. I have some programming background but would also consider hiring out the work. Are there any programs that are compatible with both systems that has a good API to allow reports to be fetched?

I spend hours every week doing these repetitive tasks and I'm ready for a better solution. Anyone with experience doing this? Or if you're a dev and is interested in quoting please contact me directly.

Great forums, Thanks!

Dave Reed
dreed [at] edgeonetechnologies.com

Contract with a company like DMi, Authenticom, Integralink, or others to pull the data for you
 
Hey Matt,

Thanks for the advice. I will give them a call tomorrow.

I actually worked with Matt Bench recently on an ILM setup for one of the dealers I support. I was very impressed with his knowledge. From that conversation I gathered you guys are doing all of your own DMS interaction? Can you reveal if you developed something from scratch in house or if you are working with an existing application / api? I'm really just curious how hard it is to emulate the vt440 or whatever eralink/reflection is using.

Thanks,
Dave
 
Hey Matt,

Thanks for the advice. I will give them a call tomorrow.

I actually worked with Matt Bench recently on an ILM setup for one of the dealers I support. I was very impressed with his knowledge. From that conversation I gathered you guys are doing all of your own DMS interaction? Can you reveal if you developed something from scratch in house or if you are working with an existing application / api? I'm really just curious how hard it is to emulate the vt440 or whatever eralink/reflection is using.

Thanks,
Dave

We do it all in house from scratch. I personally did all the integrations. They aren't fun and I would recommend using a 3rd party unless your going to do a lot of it.
 
We've all heard horror stories about Brockman and UCS. Now we are feeling the pain. Simply put, the Dealers database is just that, their database. No one, especially Mr Brockman, has the authority to block a Dealers Vendor from accessing that data. Dealers enter into contracts with their vendors, and grant them access accordingly, which is soley the Dealers decision to make.

From what I've heard, Reynolds is wanting to charge the Dealerships Vendor a fee to acquire the data. I think Dealers should look at their contracts with RR, as I doubt there is any language in there which allows RR to do this.