About the Award

This award category is intended to recognize excellent source data and proper use of the ACES^® and PIES^TM data standards. This award is separate from the “Receiver’s Choice Award.”  Each submission will be one ACES^® xml file (and its matching PIES^TM xml file). The ACES^® xml file must ONLY contain Manufacturer/Equipment Model (EquipmentBaseID) applications. This award judges ACES^® and PIES^TM files on a variety of areas that ACPN deems as essential when creating best in class ACES^® and PIES^TM data. Please see the judging guidelines for this award for more details.

Eligibility 

Submissions must meet these requirements 100% to be considered for judging:

• Company Type: Manufacturer/Remanufacturer
• Company Membership: Auto Care Association member in good standing
• Subscription Status: Must have active VCdb and PAdb subscriptions.
  • To check your subscription status, please contact membership@autocare.org. To purchase a subscription, please visit our subscriptions page.
• Each submission will be one ACES^® XML file that must ONLY contain Manufacturer/Equipment Model (EquipmentBaseID) applications and its matching PIES^TM XML file
• Both ACES^® and PIES^TMXML files must be a file produced for a trading partner
• Both ACES^® and PIES^TM XML files must pass XSD validations
• The ACES^® XML file must be version 4.2
• The PIES^TM XML file must be versions 7.1 or 7.2
• Both ACES^® and PIES^TM XML files must utilize October 2024 or newer published database versions (VCdb, Qdb, PCdb, PAdb)
• The ACES^® XML file must use Qdb qualifiers partially or fully. (If the ACES^® file does not use Qdb and does not Fitment Notes for any application, the file passes)
• The PIES^TM XML file must use PAdb attributes partially or fully
• No Labels for reference database ID's present in ACES® and/or PIES™ XML

Award Format

Judging

Judging of this award is done in-house by the Auto Care Association, utilizing the AutoCareVIP.com catalog assessment tool to process the ACES^® and PIES^TM XML files. All files will be assessed within a week of the submission. All ACES^® files will be validated against the most recent release of VCdb, Qdb and PCdb. All PIES files will be validated against the live Autocarevip.com database. The ACPN Leadership Council then takes the raw scoring information provided by the catalog assessment tool and applies weighted percentages to the general area scores to determine the winners of the award. The submission with the highest score is considered the winner. (In the case of a tie, the contenders will be re-examined to arrive at a subjective assessment of appropriate levels of over-mapping, effective use of the Qdb, appropriate use of the Note and MfrLabel tags, use of most recent versions of ACES^® and PIES^TM, effective use of the PAdb, and more)

Submission Requirements

1. Each parent company may submit one entry per ACES^® application-count bracket.
2. At least one representative from the submitting company must be present during the ACPN conference program at the Auto Care Connect Conference to accept the award in the event that the company is selected as an award recipient. If there is no representative present, the company will be restricted from submitting for any awards the following year.
3. Entries must be received in full by the deadline (Entry Form, Participant Release Form, ACES^® and PIES^TM Files)