When was CATS first introduced to the marketplace?
CATS was originally introduced in 1994 as the Sales Compensation and Reporting System (S-Cars).

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Is CATS easy to use without knowledge of data structures?
WebFOCUS was in fact originally designed to be used by non-technical end users.

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What is the process and how much programming is involved in defining new incentive plans in CATS?CATS uses a sophisticated array of programming objects to define incentive compensation plans, rules, positions, measures and formulas. Working closely with the leading incentive compensation consultants since 1994 has enabled us to expand and continually refine these objects using the best practices employed by the leading experts.  Approximately 90% of all incentive plans can be fully implemented using only objects in CATS. Most are created using the proprietary 'Designer Module' window, which streamlines the design process.

For unique rules, CATS employs an internal 'Business Rules Window' which permits objects to be modified, joined or otherwise linked to accommodate an internal solution within the application itself.  CATS® is guaranteed to be able to implement any incentive compensation plan without the need for altering the application's source code or otherwise creating a custom application.

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How is CATS licensed?
All installed Editions of CATS are licensed on a perpetual, single server, unlimited plan, administrator and participant basis.

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Describe available discount terms and conditions.
Prices quoted reflect Enterprise Incentive Software’s ‘best in class’ pricing and is consistent with all quotes tendered in the past 12 months. We do not engage in artificial list pricing that is then negotiated to a realistic and/or competitive basis. Since 1994 CATS has always been and is today the ‘price to value’ benchmark in the EIM space.

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What is the frequency and means for system upgrade and release?
System upgrades are released approximately every 24 months. Unlike some competing products, CATS is engineered to avoid any customized source code. This permits seamless upgrading and more efficient support.

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Please explain the CATS retirement policy.
With the exception of events outside of our control (e.g. Y2K compliance) we do not deliberately plan obsolescence into our products.  Assuming a stable set of requirements there is no reason for any of our software to become dysfunctional. As an example, we have a ten-year Fortune 500 customer using a fourth generation version of CATS with complete success despite advances made in the seventh generation release of CATS 2008.

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What is the minimum and maximum number of plan participants supported by CATS?
One is the minimum, and our testing has not exceeded 100,000 participants at this point in time.

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What is the maximum number of data fields available in CATS?
There are an unlimited number of data fields available in CATS.

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Describe what date ruling capabilities exist to ensure historical data is not impacted by changes to the plan.
The flexibility engineered into the CATS application segregates historical data into archival tables that are not impacted by current rules; yet are available as reference points to any future rule that may require comparison of previous performance information relative to current performance calculations.

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Can CATS search the database by individual or team identification?
CATS automatically organizes all HR and compensation data into a participant view and graphically displays the organizational hierarchy with ‘drag & drop’ functionality. The participant data (e.g. start dates, promotions, transfers, etc.) may be synchronized between CATS and a source HR application and refreshed on any schedule using the CATS Process Manager.

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Can CATS search the database by multiple criteria?
All tables in CATS contain a built in query tool that permits immediate filtering of data based on any/all fields in that table. A single mouse click will export any filtered data directly to Excel.

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Does CATS validate data and track exceptions and errors of host-supplied data at a detail level, and with appropriate override controls?
All data imported or accessed by CATS is defined within the CATS application using integrated ETL functionality that does not require a third-party software tool. These data definitions are referenced by CATS each time it uses the data and validates the data against the data definition. They are also 100% transparent to the Administrator and are not buried in a separate data warehouse where only a DBA could interpret or reference them. Should any data record not comply with its data definition, CATS flags that record visually on screen as an error, records it to an error log and reports it to the incentive compensation administrator. This validation process is continuous as opposed to a one-time event. This reminds the incentive compensation administrator of the error condition throughout the calculation process and avoids any oversight in burying a defective record beneath layers of compensation calculations. Since CATS flags any record with an error condition, these records may also be identified using the ad-hoc reporting tool and isolated with several mouse clicks in any CATS maintained or accessed data table.

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Does CATS provide system tools and utilities to allow error recovery, e.g. re-building of data files and control records, checking of data integrity?
CATS relies on tools built into SQL server provided by Microsoft to perform these functions.

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Can CATS make retroactive quota changes and use the updated quota to recalculate past-period incentive earnings? 
CATS can make retroactive changes to any calculated value including quotas on a year-to-date basis. CATS can recover draw amounts paid in previous periods and can also recalculate future payments made based on adjustments to past performance. However, CATS does not maintain a separate data mart where backward adjustments are made that would be inconsistent with payments made in the same period that the adjustment is being made. We firmly believe any EIM application needs to maintain 100% synchronization with its source data. Thus, if the customer wishes, CATS administrators may make changes in CATS that will be reflected in source data tables but we avoid the inconsistency of making changes to an independent data mart that is then going to be out of synch with its source data.  The reason for this lies in the fact that management often gets sales and production data from source data systems independent of any EIM application while also getting reports of sales and incentive payment amounts from an EIM application. If the EIM application is permitted to make backward adjustments that become inconsistent with the source data, then management is faced with the almost certain possibility of receiving conflicting reports which will require painful and time-consuming investigation.

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Does CATS allow for quota changes within the central repository that cascade to appropriate participants?
CATS 2008 is a relational database application that maintains commonly shared data in tables that can be accessed and used throughout the design, calculation, and modeling activities. As such, changing something like a quota (or any value used in a compensation plan or position), once changed will be reflected wherever it is accessed or used enterprise-wide.

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Does CATS allow secure, remote assignment and/or modification of quotas by sales operations, sales management, or other similar organization?
The CATS 2008 CATS web-based portal will allow employees and managers remote, browser-based access to information pertaining to compensation plans within their area of responsibility.

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Can CATS assign quotas to a complex sales territory composed of multiple dimensions, (e.g. named account, geographical region, and product line) and then have the participants derive the quotas from this central repository?
CATS allows any combination of measurements to be combined into any algorithm to express any compensation rule without the need to preprocess data, customize the source code, or force calculations to fall out of the application into a manual mode.

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Can CATS manage and apply multiple quotas per participant?
There are an unlimited number of measures that can be assigned to a compensation plan, position or individual permitting an unlimited number of quotas per participant.

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Can CATS support different quotas for different types of revenue (i.e. product vs. services) or goal types (e.g. number of units sold)?
CATS permits any multiple of revenue and goal types to be combined and expressed in a compensation plan. Further, CATS provides the ability to customize each individual’s compensation rules outside of an assigned position defined by the Designer.

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Can CATS support both established and user-defined time-based quotas?
CATS can maintain incentive compensation rules based on any time period and is not restricted to pre-set time intervals.

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Can CATS create, modify, or delete quotas/targets by Participant for a period or set of periods?
There is complete flexibility in defining, maintaining, modifying and deleting quotas and targets.  CATS permits the ability for quotas to be split and also extrapolated. 

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Can CATS define and manage the measurement of commissions by Month, Quarter, and Annual?
CATS has an open ended ability to define any payment period or cycle independent of fixed month, quarter or annual modes.

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Can CATS define compensation components based upon the computed value of other compensation components? For example, leverage the result of one formula calculation as the component of other formula calculations. 
There are specific objects in the CATS Designer’s component library that address linkages between formulas. 

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Can CATS assign special promotions/sales campaigns/SPIFF’s to individual participants or groups of participants for user-defined time periods throughout the year and measure the group’s performance?
CATS can create any measure and assign it to any individual or any group of individuals at any specific time. There is a specific design object in the CATS Designer that allows a “drag & drop” ability to create a SPIFF without the need for any programming or special code

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Does CATS allow business users to define the formulas that dynamically calculate a participant’s commission rate without writing code?
The CATS Designer comes complete with a component library of incentive compensation design objects that permits “drag & drop” ability to create any position and express any sub-rules within that position without the need to pre-process data, customize the source code, or force calculations out of the application at the margin for manual processing.

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Does CATS allow statistical interpolation of data points? For example, enter a lowest and highest performance level into a matrix, and a lowest and highest payout rate, and have the actual performance input into the matrix “interpolate” the output rate based upon the statistical function of interpolation.
CATS can interpolate between data points on the X and/or Y-axis of a matrix and extrapolate on either or both axis using any increment defined by the CATS designer. 

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Can CATS process non-transactional and/or subjective incentives (e.g., MBO, Presidents' Club) and other manually derived compensation elements?
CATS 2008 can include the web enabled CATS Portal.”  The CATS Portal dashboard provides employees and managers the ability to view reports, supply qualitative information, and calculate the value of non-booked deals as they would affect that individual’s current compensation status.  The workflow features in this portal are table-driven such that information that is captured can be directly used by CATS in the processing cycle.  This eliminates the need for emails to be transmitted back and forth where the data then has to be entered into the application and the emails stored as a record of the discussion, approval for making a change and/or indicating a level of qualitative performance.

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