Development Process
XIGroup's development process is an important part of why our dealers have on-line success. Our goal is to truly understand the needs of our customer's dealership and target market. We will work with you to build a site that reflects the image of the dealership and make sure that you have a excellent understanding about how to best ultize our software moving forward.
Please note that this process is just a start. XIGroup will be available to you and your team as long as you are a customer.
Kick-Off-Call
The XIGroup "Kick-Off-Call" Specialist will help you gather the necessary information to get your new website(s) under way. During the kick off call, we will determine domain names (URL's), DMS type (ADP, Reynolds, etc...), Email Accounts and the sites look, feel, and functionality. We will walk you through a process of analyzing pre-built design styles and the different types of personalization that can be done to each to give you a site that has the color scheme, sections, and imagery you want.
Design Stage
You may view all the design styles at http://xigroup.com/website-designs-all. Each design style has several themes, so be sure to click on each to view the different themes. Choose the style and theme that you like best. Some of the questions to ask yourself when looking at the styles are:
- Do I want top or side navigation?
- Do I want inventory search on my home page?
- Do I want stock images or will I be forwarding photos for the home page?
- Do I want to push customers towards coupons, forms, vehicles?
- What type of color scheme do I like?
- Do I want XIGroup to design a new logo for my site?
The styles are very flexible. We can build your site using the colors of one style, the navigation of another and the look and feel of a third.
Also, please keep in mind that the design styles are essentially an image, so they are not going to act as a live site would. The sections of the design styles that contain photos, may have 4-6 rotating photos of either stock images that you request or photos that you email to us.
Please Note: We prefer to receive logos in EPS format and photos in JPG format.
Inventory Configuration
Once the kick off call is complete, our designers will begin building your site to match your preferences from the design styles. While your site is being built, we will contact you to begin acquiring your inventory and domain names.
New & Used Inventory Polling
XIGroup can handle inventory from these sources:
Dial-Up - Dial in to Reynolds, ADP dealer and other management systems (DMS) and download vehicle inventory based on dealer-specific criteria.
FTP (from DMS) - ADP and Reynolds file updates are scheduled at 5:30 am and 5:30 pm seven days a week. We use the most recent file for updating the website. UCS files are collected once per day (5 days per week).
FTP (from third-party or dealer) - Any third-party company or dealer can send or provide standard delimited or database file format via FTP.
XIGroup is also authorized to accept files from at least 40 systems. An additional fee may be charged to the dealer by their DMS provider.
Once the data is collected by one of the above methods, XIGroup enhances the data with information provided by JATO Dynamics® and eVox and sends it to the final destination. A step-by-step description of the process is set forth below:
Data Delivery process collects all necessary inventory fields using one of the four methods above.
The process attempts to match the vehicle with JATO data using a detailed four-step process. If the process returns one trim-level specific match, it uses data from the JATO tables to populate its database. If no match occurs the process uses the data from the DMS for all fields.
The process can compile the data into XML or flat file (per client's requirements). XIGroup can send the file via FTP, load the file onto an FTP site for download, or post the XML file to a web site for automated parsing.
Used Inventory- XIGroup works with numerous third party used vehicle and data providers. Typically, we receive a file from the provider and then post the data and photos onto the website through XIGroup's Inventory Tool, our searchable inventory database.
Domain Name Transfer
We will work with you and your existing provider to transfer any domain names into our registrar. The ownership of the domain does not change at any point. Transferring the domain name simply allows us to manage the domain name for you, eliminating the potential for a domain to expire or to have downtime in the case of network changes.
Staging
Once the site has been built and your inventory has been downloaded, you will be able to see your site in a staging environment. This will give you the chance to see exactly what your site will look like before it becomes available to the public. At this time, you will let us know of any changes/edits you would like us to complete. We will also begin the admin tools training during this time.
Go Live
Once all changes/edits are completed and approved, we will take your site live to the public so it is available to your potential customers.
