Numerous agents have posted that they are having problems with photos appearing on their listings. On their IDX system, which hasn’t been updated for 12 days now (last was on 10/12/07) the photos fail to display once the listing is selected. A photo does display in the thumbnail so it’s obvious that photos exist. Customer Service made a comment that they were splitting the system up in some manner to improve downloads but gave no details on when and if that will solve the problem. Maybe if all the clients effected were to ask for an October credit, they might get the darn thing fixed right. Or is it a problem with paying their bills?????
I urge anyone contemplating using Advanced Access website hosting to stay away and go elsewhere since they seem incapable of resolving their ongoing problems with their current employees.
The pictures on the IDX became a huge problem last Spring…somehow it doesn’t suprise me that it’s still an issue. Does AA know which end is up?
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PropertyTown is run by the same guy, Greg Bowser, who turned the screws to me when he was at AA because of my massive amount of reciprocal links. He was unsuccessful in his endeavors there and when his 1-year contract was up, simply left, leaving even a bigger mess. Why would I want to put a single dime back in his pocket?
Don’t get me started on Greg Bowser. But as for the IDX problem… hahaha what a story. Without giving a way to many details… Sean G. was the head of the MLS Dept at AA. Things went wrong, he left and took the whole dept down with him. No body knew how to run it, so they grabbed some girl in the New Accounts department to figure it all out. It’s all still a big mess. Don’t expect any new idx feeds to be added anytime soon.
IDX/MLS Department is taking over a month to activate all IDX requests. Dont even ask how up to date that information is though.
The IDX product for Advanced Access has long been a huge problem, and will definitely not be in any form of working order any time soon.
I say this as the former manager of the department that “John Adams” mentioned above.
I just became aware of this site today, and am glad there is a resource for current and former clients/employees to document their frustrations with this company’s failings.
I sincerely regret leaving a department that I worked very hard on in such chaos, but I simply had enough with the company. The IDX product was constantly not working due to archaic programming methods and simple lack of attention to it. When serious work began on 4.0, all upkeep for the IDX program stopped completely – and this lack of maintenance on the IDX product continues to this day due to the continued efforts to fix all the 4.0 issues that are still around. I found myself in a position where I had to defend a product that simply didn’t work to both clients and the MLS partners we have contracts with.
Disillusioned, frustrated, and overwhelmed with day to day work that had piled up and was beyond my ability to whittle down (partly due to AA’s decision to lay off my assistant in late June, the ONLY help I had in that department, making it so I was now in charge of day to day work and manager work) I decided to take a job with another company, and couldn’t be happier about the decision.
Anyway, the reason I’m posting this little story is that I don’t want people to have to deal with AA’s crap anymore. 4.0, IDX, everything is in bad shape right now, and will most likely not be fixed anytime soon. The representatives you speak to on the AA forums and in the call center are blowing smoke up your ass whenever they say things like “it’ll be fixed/added/upgraded soon”. I say this as a former smoke blower that just couldn’t take it anymore.
For those of you who are still current clients and have the AA build IDX program: CHECK IT and make sure it is working. The only reason I beleive AA has gotten away with this program’s problems for so long is because the web site owners don’t search their own site too often. Check results against your MLS’s search results, and check it against other IDX providers’ results.
PS. Just for more info on the IDX problem: while I was still employed with the company, I was looking to buy a home in my area since I was recently married. I attempted to do these searches on what I was most familiar with: the AA IDX product. I was UNABLE to use the product that I was in charge of for reliable results and had to use competitor sites. That really says something, I think.
Sean – Thanks for stopping by and giving us an insiders update on AA’s IDX problems. They have told me that the Chicago area MLSNI is so large that it takes almost a day to download the raw data which is why it is always out of date. If you think of anything else you would like to share about the problems at AA, please post it. If you know of others who have left, mention this site to them so they can chime in as well. The phones just ring and ring at Customer Service and when they do put you on hold, you end up being cutoff. Agents have posted that 4.0 is a nightmare and a few of them are finally getting on the forum which was difficult in the past (would you believe they had to ASK to get on it rather than being automatic!).
MLSNI is very large, and does take a long time to update if they are downloading the FULL set of data and photos (photos especially). If everything were working correctly, they would only be downloading what is new/updated every day, which takes minimal time. The replication process (the process that parses the data from the download area and puts it into the search database) being used is archaic, full of bugs and issues, and was built really assuming they would only being using it for 1-5 different MLS feeds. As of the time I left, they were downloading ~135 different feeds.
The problem is NOT the download – it’s what happens after the download where everything gets screwed up. They unfotunately have no way of knowing WHAT is missing, so the only fix is to either re-download individual listings by request, or download ALL of it again and hope things go better this time.
What I’m getting at is: the lack of updates on the IDX feeds is not because it takes a long time to do the normal every day download; it’s because the process breaks, then a client such as yourself may not notice for several days before reporting it, then it may take several days for the report to reach the IDX programmer, then it’ll take a day to apply a fix that may just yield the same problems and start the cycle over again. By this time, data has been out of date for a week, maybe more.
Some trivia here for you: during my time there, MLSNI was often used as my example to the powers that be of how broken the system is. For example, over several weeks I documented what percentage of the listings in MLSNI had photos available. That number avereaged between 50% and 60%…you can’t tell me that half of all active listings in that area do not have photos. I won’t say these reports fell on deaf ears necessarily – I do beleive (maybe naively so) that the IDX problem is well known and recognized as a serious issue by those who would be in charge of fixing it, however the bigger priority seems to be getting 4.0 to work properly (1.25 years later as of now) and building the 3.0 to 4.0 conversion process. Who knows when that’ll be done, and who knows when the inevitable bugs and issues from it will be worked out.
Bottom line is that NO ONE is touching IDX unless it is an emergency situation where all IDX is down. Then it gets a band-aid.
I will let a few people know about this site to see if they can add anything else. But I can sum it up: 4.0 bad, IDX bad.
And I am fully aware that 4.0 clients didn’t have an automated way to get on the forums. However, I don’t think this was an intentional or malicious act at all. It was just one of the many many many things that simply did not work yet with the extremely premature release of 4.0.
From what I remember while still employed, a lot of the frequent forum posters were contantly asking when the 3.0 to 4.0 conversion was going to happen. Here’s my advice to you: let them take as long as needed. You do NOT want 4.0 as it is right now, I promise.
Like many others, I worked very hard and have spent (and continue to spend) thousands of dollars marketing my website. AA’s IDX was not available to me at the time so I went with eIDX and have never had a problem. Since we are at the begining of a new season, I am seriously considering leaving my site alone for now and creating a new site somewhere else. Any suggestions? With all this said, if and when I were to move my current site to another web host, how will that effect my current positioning on Google and Yahoo?
Katrina – Since you are paying separate for your IDX, you could easily make a smooth transition over to P2A using your same domain name. If you go with P2’s Professional version, you will immediately have ample pages so that Google will not notice a big drop in content. You could transfer the content that you already have on your AA site, delete your AA site, and activate your P2 site. Then, there would be no duped pages since there is only one domain. You could set up a free account with P2, leaving the default URL that is assigned to you (use your current domain as your ‘name’ when you register and it will show up as http://myfresnobroker.point2agents.com or something like that. Then start moving your content and your images over to the new site, then say GOOD-BYE to AA, and finally change the DNS numbers for your domain to P2’s and call P2 support and have them change your default URL. It would be painless and the best part is P2 DOES answer the phone!!
You know, I can’t really comment about most any of the AA complaints, however I have to say something here. A lot of “ex” employees bash AA, but Sean takes the cake.
He was in charge of the MLS dept. There are short comings he had to deal with… However, when he left, he left the MLS dept in such a mess that it was crazy. There were feeds that had been shut down because he hadn’t bothered to make sure they were paid (that were nearly a year old). He hadn’t done much work in several months, leaving customers and MLS’s in the dark. Someone made a comment about “some girl” that took over after he left, well, that “girl” was able to figure most of it out, and get things straightened up in a matter of a month or so… (There are programming issues, but that’s a different story)
Sean wants to lay the blame on the IDX problems on bad programming, staffing issues, etc, but I know for a fact that there were feeds that were simply shut off because of his disregard for his own work. He can say he was disillusioned, or whatever he wants to claim, but as far as this one issue goes, I can say that he’s at least as much to blame as all of the other excuses he gave you.
I’m not going to comment on anything, or bash anyone. That wasn’t what this is about. But I really couldn’t sit here and let another person who had to pick up the mess, as well as someone try to act all innocent get away with it. Like Gene says in his AA posts, I expect this to be deleted, but I still think it needed to be said….
Toodles!
You’re being fair and you are correct that my desire to put 100% into my work had dwindled signifigantly in the last few months I worked there. And you’re right that is my fault, and that I shouldn’t have let all the crap I had to deal with effect my work drive. I didn’t create the mess in that department, but my lack of interest certainly didn’t help the administrative back log. I sincerely regret allowing the administrative side of it to get backed up as much as it did. While I feel that AA’s decisions and failings made me this way, I know that it was up to decide how that effected my own drive.
I knew that all the negative feelings I had for AA were effecting my desire to show up bright eye and bushy-tailed for a full day’s worth of hard work, and that was a contributing factor to me leaving the company – it was a good decision for us both.
However, no feed was shut off due to disregard of my own work that I was aware of. And no feed was shut off for a year because I didn’t make sure it got paid that I’m aware of (a task that wasn’t my responsibility in the first place). And I just wanted to make a clear distinction here: for those that are upset with administrative issues getting backed up – I’ll take my share of the responsibility for that, for those that are upset with the program not working – that you’ll have to work out with those in charge of what gets fixed when.
Sean… your not the only one who felt that way. Design is a joke, NAS is no more, MLS is run by Elizabeth?, Lisa the receptionist got the boot. None of the old Teir2s are there. The only one remaining is Jeremy, who moved to Marketing. lots of good stuff.
… and I didn’t even mention sales.
P.S. Larry Lokker left too.
Lol, who other than Kevin (the “old” Tier2’s) are gone that were worth anything? Kyle? He was more interested in his looks and slick bluetooth headset… Brett? Please… Ok, Sabs was short but sweet. Hasn’t been anyone else there in almost 2 years.
Kevin and Jeremy were the only good T2’s from the past… With Jeremy in marketing now, there’s all new T2’s but all capable.
NAS, well, can’t say it’s much of a loss… Lisa, sad to see her go.
Does it really matter that the ex presidents are seemingly unwilling to give out their true identities…? However they can matter of factly speak about the going on’s and policies and procedures currently in place at AA? Hmmm… Working in the office next door to Sean G for about a year, I can adamantly state that Sean was working all day every day with his hands tied trying to make a difference at AA. I was in a “Director’s Meeting” when he was even brought in to explain how and why we needed to make changes to the way Advanced Access handles the IDX data (Mark Gilmore arranged this presentation). How many of the recommendations he made were followed…? I’ll let Sean handle that one.
Does it really matter that the reality is that since John Morris and Justin LaJoie left, AA decided to attempt to keep the course instead of keep up with the competition. Does it really matter that the “Intellic@rds” that are touted as an email marketing solution are dated back to 2001-02? When is the scheduled “deployment” (its a popular word that was introduced by IT at AA to make it seem like progress was being made) for the next version of the Intellic@rds? Old news… No suggestions nor proposals were ever seriously considered by Captain Edward John Smith and his Yes men and woman. The only proposals and suggestions I ever saw being implemented were when it dealt with cutting earned commissions and bonuses of its employees.
Let’s not point the fingers at the individuals who attempted to keep AA cutting edge and providing good service to its clients. I for one, and can attest on the behalf of Sean, that pride was taken in providing our clients the best possible services that we were capable of providing based on how tied up our hands were.
Lets rather talk about the fact that if you are a current AA member and are running the newest version of Internet Explorer, you cannot edit the content of your website… There is a work around, obviously I am aware of that, but what are we really talking about? Is it our clients responsibilty to jump through hoops to use something they are paying $40 or $50 a month in “hosting” for? Or should AA man up and resolve the problems like any responsible company would. Apparently AA feels it is being held hostage by Microsoft for releasing IE7… Hmmmm…
Third-level domain names anyone? Oh yeah, we offered those. What happened to them? I guess they are not as important as “deploying” banner advertising to its clients asking them for more money by selling them Leadmore. Programming is more than on top of it when it comes to that. but where is the upgrade to 4.0 for all 30,000+ clients (which we all know was a bogus number ask Gary Brackle) . Realistically 4.0 is garbage, people are much better offf with 3.0, but at least with 4.0 you can still sort of use your page editor. To sum this up, though it may seem like there are ex-employees who are unfairly letting off steam realize that Advanced Access was a GREAT company to work for. And it USED to provide great products and services to it’s clients. But those days have long since passed and when you feel like things could have been done to avoid it’s downfall, you almost feel responsible. I know that I do.
-Juan C
Is that the same Sean that’s with Diverse Solutions? Is anyone familar with, or had any dealings with this company?
Wow Juan, you sound like you know the issues with IE7… I mean, I’d like you to support a 3rd party product, who admittedly got sued because they stole code, were forced by the courts to remove certain code from a browser, and make it work… As an FYI, Micro$oft settled the suit, and will be putting out a new version of IE in April (according to their website) which will fix the problem… Might as well let the people who broke it fix it eh? We could have let M$ take all the heat and just referred people to them to fix it… Did we? No, we had resourceful people (in the support department) find ways to work around the problem. It is a bandaid? Sure it is… but unless you decide to go work for M$ and fix the problem, I’d suggest maybe trying to be part of the solution than the problem.
Honestly, I like Sean… I was really disappointed to find out what I did when he left, and I found out all of the stuff that wasn’t done. I’m not blaming IDX problems on him, but in the last several months, he definitely helped in the latest downfall of the MLS issues…
But between you and me Juan, I can’t stand the salesmen who basically lie to customers (telling them all the wonderful things it will do) full well knowing that it doesn’t have that capability… Man, talk about smooth talking used car salesmen… And then leave support to tell people that it doesn’t quite work like “sales” told them… That in my opinion is crap…