Synchronising Sage between Pc and Laptop

[WCR]

Hi,

I've got two installations of Sage (Accounts & Payroll), one on a computer for office work and a second on a laptop for remote work. I currently keep the two synchronised by using the built-in Backup/Restore feature but I am looking at ways of automating this process. Essentially, I want to automate the synchronisation process to keep the data on the computers synchronised periodically but I don't intend to use this as a replacement for regular backups and restores using the built-in Sage Backup functionality.

My plan is to use a VBscript that will check Sage Payroll/Accounts isn't running on both computers and I will then copy across the Company.00x folders from the PC to the Laptop. I plan to include a fail-safe in the script that will take a copy of the laptop data that will be overwritten so if a problem arises the overwrite can be rolled back.

What I need to know, from somebody who knows Sage better than I do, is am I asking for trouble doing this, and if so, what is the recommended method for synchronising two computers running Sage Accounts and Payroll?

Thanks

[leyburnsolutions]

I assume you have a multi user or laptop licence for both programs?

I've not come across anyone doing what you propose albeit it should work - how are you going to work out if Sage is running? How about using an external USB stick/drive to store the data (rather than it being on the hard drive of both machines) then just transfer that from the office to home and vice verso.

John

[WCR]

In Vbscript you can check which processes are running on local and remote machines so that will be the first function in the script to go and check Sage isn't running on either machine to ensure none of the files are locked before they are copied across. I have multiple licences but Sage is only ever used by the one person on one machine at a time - this is just a quick way of synchronising the data on the PC with the laptop before going out to client sites. I still plan on doing regular backups through File>Backup to an external hard drive and to off site storage as a fail safe.

[brucedenney]

As I last read it, as long as you comply with the terms of your licence, there is no limit to the number of places you can install the application.

There are risks associated with what you want to do, but as long as you are carefull and keep regular backups it should be workable.

If a copy process failed then you could end up with a partial data set or one with a bits at one date and bits at another so you need to have an element of caution.

Datasets can be big!
So rather than copy, I would use RSYNC which is a unix program but has been ported to windows and is excellent. It copies the changed parts of large files rather than the whole thing so can be a lot quicker.

You don't need to do this in Vbscript you could do it all in a pair of batch files, here is my way, you could do this with Vbscript if you wanted.

I would use PSlist to check if Sage was running on the PC (PSList is part of the SysInternals PSTools)
I would use PSlist to check if Sage was running on the Laptop
I would then use RSYNC to copy files to the laptop
I would check the errorlevel returned by RSYNC to make sure the copy was good
I would change the company file on the PC to point it to the demodata so no one "accidentally" uses sage whilst it is on the laptop
I would change the company file on the LAPTOP to point it to the actual data.

And then I would have a reverse batch job to move from the Laptop back to the PC

Key points are
making sure no one is running sage when copying.
making sure anyone running sage when they are not "in charge" knows they are "not in charge" .
make sure the copy worked.