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.

• Consolidated purchase orders for each location with the ability to automatically change the “Deliver To” field in attache
• Modify Sell & Purchasing pricing in attache
• Edit product descriptions or set the product to inactive
• Custom purchase order numbers
• Email notifications of changes to sell prices and new location transfers

Bring up the list of customers by selecting Find (F2) Then select the Output button (F11)

Simply check the boxes that are needed (Customer Code, Customer Name, Customer Street, Customer Suburb, Postcode and Year Sales Value)

Then simply follow the defaults Next & Next again. Then you can choose whether you want the report to go to the screen, which is the default or directly to the printer. We will put ours to the screen. Select Finish to process to the screen. Once on the screen if you have Expresslink you can email or take this list into Excel or Word. Keep in mind that this feature is available in Customers, Suppliers, Products, General Ledger and Payroll modules and is a simple tool to export data.

Payroll – Drill Down from Summary (F7) in Employee Enquiry to view a list of all pays which make these values in the PTD and YTD figuyres. You can then drill down to the pay advice or choose Output (F2) to print the list.

General Ledger – Drill Down in GL Standard or Custom Financial Reports to GL Masterfile accounts. This opens Actuals (F2), Budgets (F3), or Variances (F6), depending on the fields selected in the report layout. Drill-down fields are indicated by a red triangle in the top-right corner. Double-click this field to drill-down.

More features are viewable in a short video on the Attaché website via the links below:

Accounts Features Video

Payroll Features Video