Fleet software: time to upgrade?

What are the timescales for upgrading?

A major upgrade could require months of planning. You will also need to factor in testing and training.

“If it’s a minor change such as adding the document and image management module that takes less than a week to test it and go live,” Goodstadt says. “If you’re switching from one version to another it could be six weeks.”

Nasr says: “For us it was more about familiarisation than training. Because we’ve used Tranman before it’s not too steep a learning curve. Two or three of the fleet team were involved in implementation and they were able to support the rest of the team. The developers were also on hand to help.

“It took about three months to implement because we spent a lot of time thinking about what fields we needed.”

What are the potential pitfalls of upgrading?

If you upgrade with the same supplier there shouldn’t be any data loss, but if you switch from one supplier to another there might be.

“We can’t convert every bit of data; we just take the essentials,” Goodstadt explains. “If the existing data is poor a client may decide to start from scratch rather than put bad data into their new system.”

Black adds: “We had customised some fields and they didn’t transfer well so it was a manual process to tidy up. But we didn’t lose anything detrimental.”
 

Updates are about more than fixing bugs

All suppliers issue regular updates – usually bug fixes or minor adjustments – but there are differing approaches with major upgrades.

Rather than build a new system, Jaama and Mycompanyfleet both issue service packs as part of the service agreement.

“Every six months there’s a major service pack release for one area of the system,” Jason Francis, managing director of Jaama, says. “We release guides to show the areas that have changed and the customer decides if they want to implement it. As Jaama hosts most customers’ systems we can update the main server and the next time they log on it updates.”

Francis believes this approach has helped Jaama to win business and ensures existing customers are less likely to shop around every few years.

“Having regular upgrades is simple and effective,” says Marie Jarrold, car fleet controller at British Car Auctions, who has been a Jaama customer for four years. “We are not obliged to upgrade but as the developments are enhancements to the system we always do.”

Goodstadt says most of Civica’s customers upgrade within five years but they support versions going back 10 years. He suggests a major change every six months is too often.

Francis disagrees: “If you have the system for years and you upgrade it’s a significant change. It can be frustrating finding your way around the new system. If there’s a change every few months it’s a lot less painful.”