It’s virtually impossible to be a custom integrator and not know the name D-Tools, the long-standing software solutions provider for sales, system design, proposals, project management and more. In fact, at CEDIA Expo 2019 one of the two major talking and demo’ing points for D-Tools with visitors at its booth (#1343) will be the new version of the company’s System Integrator (SI) solution – now up to its whopping 13th iteration, to give a sense of how long it’s been around.
Yet another mark of D-Tools’ durability and responsiveness in the custom channel, though, is that the company has also evolved with the industry to now offer another form of its solution, D-Tools Cloud, which it debuted at last year’s Expo in San Diego.
“We’ve been in business providing solutions for dealers for over 20 years, and we’ve learned over those 20 years what really resonates to help dealers run their business,”
Tim Bigoness, D-Tools
“So it’s been in the market for about a year and we’ve learned a lot from our customers, and we’re expanding the capabilities of that solution as well,” says D-Tools chief marketing officer Tim Bigoness, who can also be spotted at the Colorado Convention Center during the Expo playing in the CE Pro All-Star band (Thursday, Sept. 12 at 5 p.m. on the Smart Stage).
“We’ve been in business providing solutions for dealers for over 20 years, and we’ve learned over those 20 years what really resonates to help dealers run their business,” Bigoness says.
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“So from the ‘on-premises’ side, the SI side, we offer a full solution from the initial quoting, scoping and budgeting through the proposal and integrate directly with the drawings in Visio and AutoCAD complete engineered drawings.”
More Project Power in Integrators’ Hands
He notes that D-Tools leverages its vast manufacturer library that pulls specs, model numbers, pricing and more from hundreds of brands to continually improve its offerings.
The software tracks features such as labor estimates and estimated install times, for instance, so end users know more clearly what to expect cost-wise and integrators can calculate their own costs and product margins, Bigoness says.
With the forthcoming SI 13 debut and latest capabilities of D-Tools Cloud, it puts even more power and precision into integrators’ hands.
“What we’re adding in our new version [of SI] is the ability to also create, define and manage service orders,” he says. “So we can bring that all the way back from the initial contract, through the proposal, through the documentation, through to install and service.”
Meanwhile, booth visitors will be shown how the Cloud solution is expanding from what was mainly a sales process management tool in its rollout to something more akin to system design feature functionality of SI, but with browser-based abilities that eliminate the need for outside drawing applications.
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