Tower Software Rightfully Takes Me To Task

It has been pointed out to me that I have been quite negative in my blog about TRIM, our records management system. The Manufacturer, Tower Software, is concerned that we are having difficulty implementing TRIM, and they have offered to help us resolve our problems, without our asking.

Before I continue, I just want to express something important. This weblog contains my own opinions, not those of my employer. The company does not necessarily share any of the opinions expressed on this site. I also write sarcastically sometimes which can be misinterpreted as extremely negative. I don’t wish to disparage Tower Software or TRIM in such a negative fashion, and my comments about TRIM should be interpreted as ribbing, not condemnation.

I feel the need to clarify a couple of things, because I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. First off, we are using TRIM for records management on our paper records, but we don’t use the document management functionality. For records management, we use TRIM to keep track of all our paper files. From a user perspective, TRIM is very effective at this function, and all our research into available products clearly indicated that TRIM was the best product for us to select. It serves a business need for our company, which is why we bought it. It works, it is stable, and the users like it. The goal of our IT group in this company is that we are here to help the business make more money by making our users jobs easier and more effective. We are not here to make our own jobs easier. If making the business more effective and profitable incurs some IT headaches, that’s a positive thing for the company.

I only deal with the back-end of TRIM. I am not a TRIM user. Our TRIM users don’t complain about TRIM much, if at all.

Our implementation of TRIM has been very positive for the company as a whole, and the pain and cost of our issues with TRIM have been small compared to the overall benefit from using it. Tower software’s support staff are also very knowledgeable and responsive, so in the instances where we’ve asked them about a problem they had encountered before, they were very helpful in getting it resolved.