Here at UT El Paso we also have been using Tiscor (since 95 I think).  It
was first set up by an individual who left no real instructions upon his
separation from the University.  After this individual left and records were
updated for monthly inspections with the barcode wands for individual
building locations, the uploaded data overwrote the previous records.  The
problem with this was that units not updated by the new data were somehow
overwritten (erased) during the upload.  This was not noticed by our
technicians due to heavy personnel turnover,  Therefore we lost a lot of
data and ultimately had to rebuild the database from backups and new data
collection.

We now do not use the database or wands for monthly inspections, only for
annual inspections and periodic maintenance such as hydros.  Since we've
stopped using the wands for every pass by the units, I'm pretty pleased with
the accuracy of the database and its value to our operation (@ 1,900
extinguishers, plus fire hoses, pumps and soon alarm systems).  In fact its
not difficult to just use the keyboard with this easy Windows database.  I'm
sure if I were a little less a technical midget I could use the wands more
efficiently, but by cutting the wand-database interface to 1/12th what we
first did, I know I minimizing the opportunity to screw up my data.

Good program but proceed with caution on how heavily you want to rely on it.

Robert Moss
UTEP