Allow myself to introduce……myself.
My name is Matt Raiser. I am the QXpress user Paul eluded to in his blog post that will be creating the transfer utility from the desktop version to the online version.
A little about my background…
I co-own an asphalt maintenance (sealcoating, striping, patching both residential and commercial) and holiday lighting company in the south suburbs of Chicago. We have been in business since 1997. In the past we also provided lawn maintenance and snow plowing services. I also worked for almost a year as the operations manager of a large commercial landscape, lawn maintenance and snow removal company after we sold them our lawn maintenance division.
Our company has been using QXpress since 2002. I had used QX Mobile in the past but thought it would be neat if I could have online access with my smartphone and be able to tailor the interface for our business. Since we have approximately 3 months “off” in the winter and I consider my self tech-savvy, I began to investigate whether I could access my QXpress data online. I found out about the QX_SDK (for those who don’t know, it allows programmers to access and modify the data in QXpress, it is basically the same way QXpress is able to access and modify data in Quickbooks) So, I bought a book on computer programming and over the course of last winter and summer developed basically an online version of QXpress to use at our company.
I initially only added the features we needed to use ourselves, but soon realized there wouldn’t be many more features to add to have the rest of QXpress online and be able to possibly sell the program to other QXpress users. I contacted Paul to ask him about this possibility. He told me that they had been working on making Method (and therefore QXonline). If Paul would have been close enough, I probably would have killed him for not telling me before I taught myself computer programming. In Paul’s defense, I never asked or told him of my plans because I wasn’t making it to sell when I started the project.
I told Paul I would love to be a tester for QXonline, just like I’ve been a Beta tester for the other versions of QXpress (I guess I’m just a computer nerd at heart). I asked how soon there would be the ability to transfer our data from the desktop version of QXpress to the online version. He told me that they planned on making a transfer utility, but they would not realistically be able to get to it for quite a few months with all they had to do to get Method and QXonline operational. Seeing as how I wanted to use the online version as quickly as possible and I had just learned how to do some programming, I told Paul I would make the utility if there was enough demand for it.
I have been busy working on the utility since the conference in November when the overwhelming response was that users would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to be able to transfer their data to QXonline sooner than later. I’m currently hoping to be able to finish the program within about 2 weeks. Once the program is finished, you will be able to purchase it at www.TechInTheField.com. The site is up and running now, but the information it contains is limited at the moment. Look for more details on how the program works there soon.
In the meantime, if there are any questions you have please let me know.