The purpose of Karmak Compass is to keep all our customers informed of current activities within the Karmak family. This newsletter is designed for both technical and non-technical readers. 

Karmak Home Page

  Training: Karmak Legend^® - INFO 5^® - Director Series

New offerings through Karmak Training Center
In addition to Legend and INFO 5 training classes, the Karmak Training Center is now offering webinars. A webinar is an interactive class conducted over the Internet. The current webinar offering describes how to effectively use the Legend DocWizard documentation CD. Presently, these webinars are being offered at no charge, so reserve your space today. Review the updated Training Center calendars for Legend and INFO 5  to see all of the currently scheduled classes. 

Director Series training
Online webinars in our new Director Series software is now available for ProfitMaker^® customers via WebEx technology. Visit the Director Series website for the current schedule, or contact Director Series Services at 800-252-7625 for more information. Classes for new Director Series customers are scheduled this September at the Karmak Training Center in Carlinville, Illinois.  Visit the Director Series training site for more information. 

Karmak Home Page

Karmak Home Page

What's new at Karmak?

• Attention ProfitMaker customers
• Sales Management update
• Karmak announces availability of Decisiv interface
• Save big on Karmak's current consulting special
• INFO 5 Post 7.1A Update Cumulative PTF CD available
• INFO 5 Mack Level IV pricing enhancement

If you are currently a ProfitMaker customer, consider the new Director Series alternative. Director Series is replacing the current ProfitMaker product by offering you even more functionality and revenue-generating enhancements.

Director Series has two main applications: PartsDirector™ and ServiceDirector™. With a click of the mouse, PartsDirector increases inventory efficiency and improves your parts sales opportunities. It is available as a standalone parts inventory application. ServiceDirector, which includes PartsDirector, raises your service operation profitability by tracking all preventive maintenance needs, analyzing repair orders, and tracking service time and parts.

For questions on how to upgrade from ProfitMaker to Director Series directly, call Director Series Services at 866-856-4846 or call our receptionists at 800-252-7625 and they will direct your call. You can also visit www.karmak.com/directorseries for more details about the software, to request a demo, or to request a quote.

Karmak Home Page

Sales Management update

Sales Management customers are moving to version 1.1.5, released in March 2004. Sales Management 1.1.5 combines the user-friendly interface of Microsoft Windows with the power of your Legend or INFO 5 business system. Be sure to take advantage of the updated report options designed just for you.

To request an upgrade and schedule a time to load this release, contact ProfitMaster Services at . Visit Karmak’s website at www.karmak.com/ProfitMaster.html for details on all of the innovative ProfitMaster products.

Karmak Home Page

In keeping with our commitment to work cooperatively with truck manufacturers and applicable third-party software providers, Karmak has developed an extract and download utility for DecisivPricing and Diamond Estimating System users. This utility allows you to pull customer and vehicle information from your Legend or INFO 5 system and transport that information to Decisiv to be loaded into Decisiv/DES. This allows you to give quick, accurate and detailed service quotes to any prospective customer. Continued>

Karmak Home Page

Let Karmak consulting help you get the highest possible return on your business system investment. The Karmak consultant’s in-depth business system knowledge, combined with their experience with current industry business practices, allows them to provide you with new and creative methods for improving your efficiency and profitability.

For a limited time, you can take advantage of our consulting savings specials:

Schedule your consulting today with your Karmak Regional Manager, or call 800-622-6311. To take advantage of this special pricing, consulting arrangements must be requested by June 30, 2004.

Karmak Home Page

INFO 5 Post 7.1A Update Cumulative PTF CD available

All INFO 5 clients who are currently running Release 7.1A will receive the Post 7.1A Update Cumulative PTF CD. Program modifications designed to benefit your business and make the system even more efficient have been completed. It’s important to load this interim release and take advantage of updated functionality. Below are some highlights of the 7.1A PTF update. Refer to the Installing the Post 7.1A Update Cumulative PTF manual that is available for download at Karmak's Customer Confidential website for details on the fixes and enhancements that are available to you. Instructions on accessing this manual will accompany your upgrade CD. Continued>

Karmak Home Page

In a letter to Mack Distributor Principals and Parts Managers dated March 19, 2004, Mack announced they would be implementing changes to the Level IV price level for dealer reimbursements and pricing for major fleets. This change was manifested in the Mack price tapes distributed to INFO 5 customers beginning April 1, 2004.

At that time, Karmak was unable to accommodate the need for a sixth price field in the Item Master that was needed by many Mack Dealers as a result of this change. However, an enhancement is now available that allows access to up to 10 price fields stored in the Price Master. Continued>

Karmak Home Page

People in the news

• Duff Bell rejoins Karmak as Western Regional Manager
• Randy Wilson named Manager of Sales Support
• Catherine Harms named new Applications Consultant

Karmak Home Page

Hot tips

Don’t we all like to save money? Don’t we generally try to get the best deals we can? If you include yourself in this majority of cost-conscious consumers, then make sure you take advantage of Karmak’s money-saving support payment option. By paying your support amount in one advance annual payment, you would save your company 5% off the gross annual maintenance amount.

For questions regarding this support payment option or to enroll, Legend users may contact Joyce Donaldson at or 800-252-7625, ext. 2209; INFO 5 clients may contact Heather Gardner at or 800-865-8991, ext. 237.

Karmak Home Page

Calling Karmak’s System Support Department prior to performing software upgrades can save you time and money. 

If you are planning on upgrading your OpenVMS and/or Legend software on your own, don’t forget to make System Support aware of when you plan on performing the upgrade. We can designate a time to review the instructions with you, free of charge, to insure you understand the commands and know what to expect. 

In addition, when we know far enough in advance that multiple companies are being upgraded, we will assign a personal on-call System Support Representative to your company to quickly address any issues you may encounter.

Take advantage of the expertise and availability of Karmak’s System Support Representatives and make your upgrade go as smoothly as possible. Don’t forget to call us at 888-671-6010!

Karmak Home Page

Are you getting good Legend backups? 

If you’ve ever lost a disk drive, you know how important it is to have a good backup of your system. Making sure you are getting a good backup each night is as easy as changing your backup tape daily and quickly reviewing the BACKUP.LOG report the next morning to make sure the NO TAPE message did not print.

If your backup was successful and finished correctly, simply change out the tape for the next night’s backup. You should have a minimum of eight tapes that you are rotating (one for each day of the week and one for month end). It is also highly recommended that you make sure to revolve the backup tapes off site or allocate to a fireproof safe to ensure their safety in the event of a catastrophe. Continued>

Karmak Home Page

Meet the INFO 5 team

INFO 5 Systems Support

To help our customers learn more about who they talk to when they call INFO 5 Support, Karmak Compass is featuring profiles of departments here at Karmak that work with the INFO 5 customers. The previous issue profiled the Applications Support department. For this issue, we are featuring the Systems Support department. Continued>

Karmak Home Page

  About Karmak Compass

This newsletter is designed to bring Karmak customers useful information using the convenience and speed of the Web.

Use our Feedback Form to send us suggestions, comments, or news items for publication.

To subscribe, update your e-mail address, or unsubscribe, use our Subscription page. Subscriptions are free to all Karmak customers.

Karmak Home Page

© 2004 Karmak, Inc.
One Karmak Plaza
P.O. Box 680
Carlinville, IL  62626
www.karmak.com