Dayton, Ohio — The Reynolds and Reynolds Company, a provider of software and services to automotive retailers, recently announced reaching a significant milestone of more than 100 third-party companies now approved in the Reynolds Certified Interface (RCI) program. The RCI program provides safe, secure and monitored interfaces for third parties to use in accessing information from Reynolds' dealership management systems (DMS) — ERA(R) or POWER. RCI helps ensure that third parties in the United States and Canada receive only data a dealership intends and that tools are available to monitor and track what data is being accessed by whom. The program also provides third parties with technical support and software upgrades that improve compatibility and make the exchange of data more reliable.

While passwords and logins are important, many dealers have found that these tools are simply not enough. Third parties given access to the DMS can easily venture into unauthorized areas of the system. This compromises the safety of the data and puts the dealer at legal risk. Channeling third-party providers into the RCI program allows monitoring data access by both Reynolds as the DMS provider and dealers as the data owners. Working together in this manner, dealers can better control their interaction with third parties, allowing access to only the data they authorize.