Vessel Management Software

Hi,

Idea Software is my personal favourite owing to it's ease of setup and use plus the personal support of the creators.

What's about Seascape? Is this not a software for management or only monitoring?

If you have a classed vessel you might want to check with that particluar society. American Bureau of Shipping offers software. Don't know if you need to be under their guidance to use it or not.

ABS Nautical Systems, LLC. - http://www.abs-ns.com/

I am using IDEA for the last 3 years and I have also decided consulting extensively. I am happy with the choice I've made and I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Can somebody tell me, what makes a good software?

There are wishes from the professionals, which no software can on the market?

What's about the trader reachability? Must there be a seller or an technican in the near of ship yard?

Is an 24h support important?

Hi,

A lot of the software used for inventory/maintenance and management is actually the same relational database- MS ACCESS with a different front end or GUI tacked onto it. For may users plain old Access is not easy to write to directly and furthermore is not really setup to do what the marine industry wants to do so this wee front end program ties up the loose ends and gives us ( hopefully) an easy to understand and use interface to the back office.

As for the supplier being near the yard- It depends on which one you go with, the big players generally have representatives all over the place and a lot of troubleshooting can be done online.

When I was first looking to buy an off the shelf one having spent a few years with a self written in FMPRO I became acutely aware that a lot of what the client was paying for was the development and application of this little front end program that controlled the DB. A number of the suppliers I spoke to and visited were smallish operations and none had made any provision as to what would happen to the source code for this GUI should the author pass away or the company go out of business bar one- That was one of the reasons I chose IDEA at the outset because they were very professional and upfront with all questions I asked. Other things that encouraged me to take this system was the experiences of two others who had (a) joined a boat that had it (b) chosen it for much the same reasons I did.

5 Yrs on I have not been disappointed or let down by this company.

Thanks for this Information, K1W1

Further on the subject, anything else you guys like?

It would be for a single vessel, ~40m, should have as many aspects covered, crew, payroll, expenses, parts inventory, certificates, purchase orders, etc...

I'm looking into managemyvessel.com, idea, looked brifly at neptunevms but cant even contact them (i'm also not really crazy about the system)...

most of these look like glorified or 'semi-configured' databases, which is fine, but i kind of think in many respects i could do better if I spent some hours on access... (I dont really want to do this, I wanted something class/mca approved, something kind of standard would be nice to have if such a thing even exists...)

Also, being able to collaborate somehow with the crew on the information would be nice...

if anyone has any ideas it would be very welcome!

Hi,

Most of what has been available to date is a nice shiny GUI and an Access DB.

Now the move is towards web based systems the only one I have dealt with is Techman, they use Sharepoint- the earlier version was a lot more user friendly and intuitive.

There is one that was written in FM Pro Yachlink it was called.

Why do you need class/mca approval for a system?

I dont *need* it for any particular reason, I just imagined that looking at a third party solution I'd find something relatively easily with the number of yachts out there and the number of procedures...

Guess not... I guess I was looking to "not re-invent the wheel", but what i've seen has been so disappointing it might be the easiest route in the end of the day... but i'll keep my hopes up on this thread

Do you all prefer the stand alone softwares (installed on your laptop / PC) or the cloud based ones ?

Personally I think the desktop offerings I saw were more full featured and provided more quick navigation, which allows for increased productivity...

As long as it is installed on a server on the yacht, there would be no problem with it being a webclient, as long as the interface is "desktop like" (this is possible using ajax and some of the more advanced UI frameworks for webdevelopment)... but it needs to be available and snappy even when in remote locations, so a "local" (i.e. yacht-based) installation is a plus...

Just in case anyone is wondering we decided to go with Triton Administrator. so far it looks like the best option. It is slightly confusing at first, but I think it is mostly a question of getting used to, and as with any software of this sort, it depends heavily on how you structure your data, etc.

Appreciate that the question is now moot - btw I thought Triton was pretty good for engineers although not as pretty as IDEA - but the latest generation of IDEA is browser based. That is to say that although the database is local on one machine it is accessed through a web browser - that means that the Windows/Mac question is irrelevant now. For those (like me) who wanted to install IDEA on their server or hold the file on a NAS - be careful its not that easy.

Only post this as the subject comes up quite regularly and things have changed since last year which caught me out thinking that after 5 IDEA installs I didn't need help. Live and learn.

I agree about the interface... definitely triton requires some refining imho.... Nonetheless I thought IDEA was overpriced for what it was including, and with all modules it became really expensive and I still thought it was a bit lacking....

I was looking at the web-based version already...

Triton has a lot of functionality, which is good, but yes, it is a bit overwhelming, especially at first... I wish it was more intuitive especially for non-engineering tasks... I can see hotel staff having a bit of an issue using it if they arent really computer savvy... Its just not real intuitive the way they layout it with the editing for up top, and the item list below... it would be easier if the list would be on the side or above even (like outlook)...

but the new version is supposed to be a bit easier? I just dont know when it will be out yet...

Exactly, Triton was good but needed effort and definitely IDEA is over priced. Techman ... I don't they allow the sort of language I would need on here.

Good luck with getting interior to use it, hard enough with the polish junkies.

Triton Administrator

Promotional drivel removed by the Triton, along with his membership.

Good to hear that the new version is out!

Is it out for the hosted clients also? So far we havent used it yet (and in part due to our own fault we havent gotten organized to go over the issues that prevent us from using like we e-mailed you about a few times... its been hectic amidst the yard period and we havent had the time to re-learn a whole new approach...even though we are from software background and both myself and my faather have a lot of experience in software (I develop for many yrs and work with this), but maybe the new version is less troublesome to work around?

Is it available in the hosted environments? if not, any idea when it will? It is still not available in our environment through the rdp access...

Anyways, Ihave some hope it will help in day-to-day vessel management, but ufnortunately we just werent able to get any use of it for the yard period

it is very complete, although i found it missed key aspects which rendered it quasi-useless in several situations... (as mentioned by email previously and described...I am, however, very anxious for the new version)

Great steve!

I will be in town end of march maybe we can iron out usage issues then!

On his defense, the final position is that i am the one owing hernando a conference call/meeting.... If he could chase me up around march 20 we can arrange to meet. Ill be there for 4 days only from 24 to 28th

Thks so much!

Ps: to anyone looking, triton has good support and is always available and interested to help out - even thiugh i personally havent gotten it working yet... Do take it for a spin!