XML and Data Clean up

Two big things happened this week in CARS (October 27-31).

1. We got XML information into the manual. Appendix 13 should help you understand how to use XML to help make sense of what will exactly be needed for your invoices. We just got approval today to put those XMLs online. You will be able to download a sample XML to provide some type of template for you to work off. Look for that on the website either on Friday or early next week.
2. Data clean up is occurring. Many of you have noticed that the PM on many of your contracts has not been with the agency for quite a few years. We started an effort this week, with the help of the contract specialists to assist in getting all of that data cleaned up. 

I did an initial look at our CARS training sign up for LaCrosse and Madison for the middle of November. For LaCrosse, I have 32 WisDOT employees signed up for training. In Madison, I have 15 employees signed up for CARS Training. 

I ran some numbers this past week regarding our previous CARS Training. 

Through almost half of the training schedule (Aug 21 - Feb 18), we've trained a total of 290 people in CARS invoicing and evaluations.

There are 43 vendors trained, and 41 firms having vendor admins in the application. That list is here. 

end of training sessions, looking forward

When we do training, we generally do 3 days out of 5. It's a lot of time out of the office, but it is always fun to teach others about using the CARS application (and to see new faces). Our last of the 3 training days occurred on Tuesday the 21st. On Tuesday we trained 24 consultants total, so we're starting to get a lot of people trained.

A link to the latest firms that have received some training (or have a vendor admin) is here.

A few highlights from the week is the fact that we're generally seeing at least one to two invoices come in per day. I know that the deadline to use CARS is March 1st, but it is good to see some firms starting to use the invoicing part of the application.

Another exciting thing is the fact that it looks like I've been approved to finally create some videos for the CARS application. I will try to keep these short and to the point. I will make a note on the blog when they have gone live.

Also hoping to have some example XML's on the website, since many of you have been emailing us about getting some idea of what will be needed to do XML uploads - I hope this is done ASAP. Basically, the XML is the same at the top, with the basic contract information. Below that header information will be the invoice type, which will vary depending if it is actual cost, lump sum, cost per unit, or specific rate.

The next few weeks will allow us to work with the firms (and WisDOT employees) that have been trained, as well as to gear up for our next training dates which is November 12, 13, and 18.

CARS Highlights for week of October 13-17

The big news for the week is that we have started receiving our very first electronic invoices in the CARS application.  Not only did we receive an electronic invoice, we received three of them, and already approved two for payment.

This is exciting to see our work finally accomplish the things we hoped it would.

For the week, we've trained about 50 WisDOT employees in Eau Claire and Superior.

Thanks to everyone for your excellent feedback on the application during the training session

We're still trying to fix the issue that many firms are having when they select a lot of contracts.

A list of firms that have been trained in the CARS application and/or have a Vendor Admin is listed here.

The upcoming week on Tuesday, October 21, we will be training a total of 24 consultants in the CARS application.

Assigning contracts in CARS as a Vendor Admin

We found out one thing this week about CARS, it is not handling the checkbox "Select All Contracts" very well, especially if your firm has a lot of contracts. If your firm has more than 50 contracts, and you "Select All Contracts" this will give CARS an overload on the security side of things, really hampering the ability of the application to simply navigate.

We know this is an issue, and are working diligently to fix this problem. It is definitely understood that there are people within the firm that will need to see all contracts, completed and active.

For now, the fix should be to either create groups with less than 50 contracts, or to simply not click the "Select All Contracts" checkbox when adding contracts to employee at your firm.

If you cannot get into CARS because you may have overloaded the system, you can contact us, and we can manually remove those contracts from your firm. When we do this, you should be able to go back into CARS and manually add contracts, just not all of them.

For the upcoming week, we have WisDOT training in Eau Claire and Superior (October 15 and 16 respectively), followed by consultant training on October 21 in Madison. There is plenty of space available. You can register for training by going to this site.

A list of all firms with CARS training can be found here.

Week Recap - and looking forward

Just finished training of consultants on Tuesday, September 30. For now, our list of trained consultants, and firms with Vendor Administrators is here.

I feel that most consultants definitely get CARS, and are excited to use it. We do know that something people are anxious for is XML upload for invoicing.  We are working hard on to provide the schema for the XML. Look for that to come out soon.

Our next training dates are October 15 (Eau Claire) and October 16 (Superior). This is for WisDOT employees only. The current sign up has about 20 people training in Eau Claire and 10 training in Superior.

Right now, we're busily working on getting some fixes into CARS, as well as signing up firms to Vendor Admin roles.

--as a note, we restarted the CARS application late on Friday afternoon to help solve some of the slow response times many of you have been experiencing.

As always, feel free to contact us with any questions.