Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/873536
14 FEDA News & Views You recently repositioned your design solutions as the "AQ Designer Family." What is it composed of? Starting with the AQ Designer Plug-In, which links a cus- tomer's AutoCAD to its AQ Catalog, the AQ Designer Family provides robust design solutions for FEDA members of all sizes and creates effi ciencies between the design and quot- ing teams. Our original offering, the AQ Designer Plug-In, is continually updated to parallel the latest AutoCAD release, giving users design and quoting capabilities in-house. For those without AutoCAD, we have a new offering: AQ Designer Deluxe. Powered by AutoQuotes and Autodesk, AQ Designer Deluxe gives our customers the ability to combine the quote, specifi cations and the drawing of the design within one pro- gram—with the added capability of creating 3D visuals and toggling between 2D and 3D work spaces. For those who do not need as much designing power, there's the recently upgraded AQ Designer (also powered by AutoQuotes and Autodesk), which gives AQ users the ability to combine the quote, specifi cations and the drawing of the design within one program. The response to the AQ Designer Family has been very positive, and our customers are fi nding new uses all the time. We've seen one create his own CAD drawings for different size food trucks and use AQ Designer Deluxe to spec, design and "see" the trucks. Dealers that begin with a design can now automatically create the quote and specifi cations, saving their salespeople valuable time. Any updates in one area are automatically updated to the other area. It's a "two-way street" between the design and quoting teams. You've just released AQ Analytics. Can you explain what it does? It was released in February as a free built-in reporting fea- ture within AQ. AQ Analytics lets you pull data directly from your projects in order to analyze your quoting activity, making it useful for the newest salesperson to the CEO. You can use fi lters to drill down to the exact details and time frames you want (e.g., results by manufacturer, salesperson and/or cus- tomer), whatever is most important to you to get the answers you need. For example, in most organizations, quotes do not make it into an ERP or other fi nancial reporting system. Only purchase orders as "wins?" are recorded. With AQ Analytics, you can now get the full picture. How many quotes to a certain customer? Or, to a certain market segment? Using a certain manufacturer resulted in how many "wins? AQ Analytics lets you slice and dice your quoting data to meet your needs. What's the latest on the OrderStatus feature? About 80 percent of FEDA members use OrderStatus and since this time last year, we've added almost 20 percent more manufacturers. Any thoughts and help from FEDA members in bringing more manufacturers on board would be greatly appreciated. A number of customers have told us that they're saving sev- eral hours a day with OrderStatus. It's a free built-in feature of AQ and the only all-inclusive order-tracking system in the FE&S industry, allowing users to view ship and delivery dates and track numbers and other order info all in one place. There's less back and forth and fewer calls to vendors and reps to chase down specifi cs. And when there is a problem, there's no need to look up customer service or other contact email. OrderStatus users can immediately connect with manufactur- ers using the "Email Mfr" function. What can we expect next for the AQ Catalog? As we recently demonstrated at NAFEM, we are upgrading the look, feel and user experience of the catalog. Catalog users will fi nd it similar to (but much more comprehensive than) e-commerce sites they may already be familiar with. We've also implemented two-day "Content Review Workshops," in which a manufacturer is invited to our offi ces to learn how to opti- mize their publishing. Dealers benefi t from more detailed and searchable content and media, and the AQ Catalog continues to grow. We've added 34 manufacturers since July 2016 and now publish more than 945,000 products and accessories– almost 200,000 more items from last July. AutoQuotes Senior Writer Rick Graf Responds to Your Top Questions AutoQuotes has been busy lately—releasing new features, adding to its executive team and gearing up for what's next in the FE&S industry. Below, Senior Writer Rick Graf tackles a few of the most common questions funneled through the tech department and talks about some of the changes taking place at AQ. continued on page 16