Every good car needs to be serviced and looked after regularly to extend its lifespan and keep it running in good condition. Databases are no different. Attaché’s database needs to be regularly looked after and maintained for it to perform at its best and avoid any possible issues.
What I’ll cover in this article are two of the most common issues I find when doing database maintenance for clients. These issues are simple to fix when they’re regularly maintained, but can be quite difficult to fix if left unmaintained for too long.
Monitor File
The attaché monitor file is required for any systems that have Attaché Clearview or Powerlink however some clients do also use it to track changes to files or user options in attaché. When turned on, a file is created and continually updated with every change that is made in attaché depending on the options that are setup.
As you can imagine, a file like this can get out of control easily. An out of control monitor file can cause attaché errors and increases the amount of time attaché archive takes to complete. Thankfully in the Clearview or Powerlink data service an auto purge option is available and is typically set to archive the monitor file at a set size limit. With all of our Clearview or Powerlink sites the auto-purge option is usually set at 50MB
You can see these archives in your data directory as MONITOR001.DAT and MONITOR001.IDX. These can be deleted after a period of time if the data in them isn’t required. The MONITOR.DAT and MONITOR.IDX files are the current, live monitor files.
Quantity Changes File
What is the quantity changes file? The quantity changes file surprisingly is pretty self-explanatory. Every time the quantity changes for a particular product, the quantity changes file records the details of what happened. In the attaché product masterfile enquiry screen you can view part of the quantity changes file by double clicking on any quantities that have a little red mark on the top right of the box.
For product based clients this file gets very big very quickly and needs to be regularly cleaned out. Depending on the attaché system size we encourage a maximum of 6 months worth of data in attaché for this file. Please note that the transaction screen in the product masterfile is different, and not part of the quantity changes file so you won’t be losing that history if you delete it.
Thankfully attaché have included a tool to clean out the quantity changes file based on data. If you go to Tools > Company > Delete Track Changes File > Delete Quantity Changes File you can delete old transactions and keep this file in order. Again when this file gets too big it can can cause attaché errors and increases the amount of time attaché archive takes to complete. The files in the attaché directory are QUANTITY.DAT and QUANTITY.IDX. A file size greater than 200MB would have me worried. The less the better.
Conclusion
The best time to do quick database maintenance is at end of month or end of period. A time when all users are out of attaché and maintenance will be quick and easy. Deleting the archive monitor files as above and quickly running the Delete Quantity Changes File tool will take an extra 5 minutes and save you time and money in the long run.
If you’re unsure how your system is setup, or can see files in your data directory that you think are too big, please don’t hesitate to contact us.