ACT! Premium 2009 (11.0) installed on Clients - merge databases on a central server

[cneub]

Hello,

I am a IT-technician form Austria. Our sales guys in Canada and the US have installed ACT! Premium EX Edition 2009 (11.0) on their notebooks and they are still working with it.

Now these data bases would need to be merged into one on a central server with each user established and with appropriate access rights.

How can I handle this? What do I have to install on our server and what settings do I have to make on the clients.

I hope anyone can help me in this case. Maybe it's an easy thing but I cannot find any solution.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

[cneub]

Hello,

nobody with any information for me?

Thanks in advance.

[ghollister]

Hello,

So as I understand you have several independent installations of ACT! with unique databases that you would like to merge into one shared database. First thing is to run the ACT! installation on your server. Just go through the standard install procedure.

In order to get one master database, you will need to create a new database, add all the users and then import each of their databases into that new database. If you already have a main database, then you can import into that one instead. Please see the following Knowledgebase articles for information on importing from one ACT! database to another:

KB 17539

KB 22042

KB 22050

[rbrust]

Chris -

I've done this before, here's what I've done, hope it helps:

• Get the server installed with ACT.  If the databases are customized, use one as the "base" database - i.e. what all the others will import into. (of course, all the others have to be similar).
• On the individual user's databases, I made sure all their records had that user as the Record Manager
• Imported all into the central database.
• Used the Record Manager field to assign permissions, access, groups, and so on.
• Now, the last thing depends on if it will be shared over a network, or syncronized with remote users.
•      If remote users, then again use the Record Manager to define the sync sets and remote databases
•      If just networked, the server permissions will apply, since the are logging on directly.

Hope this helps...

[cneub]

Hi Richard,

thanks for your detailled Information, but how can I import the user databases into the central database? The users are in Canada and the US, and the server is in Austria.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

[ghollister]

Backups of those databases will need to be sent to the server in Austria, either via disk, network, or file transfer. It's possible to import/export over a network, but I would take into consideration the distance and the amount of data to transfer.

[cneub]

Thanks for your answer Greig,

that helps me a lot.

One additional question: If the users send their databases to Austria and work on their local databases in the meanwhile will the databases syncronize after I have installed the backup on the server?

Chris

[ghollister]

That depends on whether the databases they have are currently able to synchronize with the main database. From your original post, I'm assuming that they cannot, or there would be no need for an import. So in answer to your question, they should not use their databases after creating and sending the backups. After that, they can either access the main database directly through a network or they will need to be issues new remote databases for synchronization.

If they have to use the databases after they send the backups, and they will be getting remote databases, then they can import the new data from their old databases into their remote databases and then sync it to the main database. This only applies if they will be using remote databases.

[cneub]

Hello again,

I still have the backups from the ACT!-Users at my place. The Users should get remote databases after the merge. 

How should I start? Are there any settings I have to make on the server?

How can I import alle the single databases in one central databases? The Users should synchronize over the network (VPN)

[ghollister]

Hello,

Were these databases independently created or are they remote databases that were syncing with the main database?