📌Note: This article is only for Accounts and does not cover Payroll Data Maintenance.
Data Maintenance or Housekeeping is needed so that your system performs optimally. If you don't do Data Maintenance:
A large amount of data (transactions) will accumulate in your company.
Attaché will run slower as it will take longer to open and close files.
Your every day tasks will take you longer.
Archives will be larger and take up more room (especially relevant for CHS Customers).
You have a lot of flexibility in what data you keep. Note the following:
Deleted data is not lost if you create a Last Year Company. A Last Year Company keeps your historic data and enables you to access it on the odd occasion that you need it. Create your Last Year Company before performing data maintenance.
Your live data should only keep transactions that you are likely to reference frequently. As a result:
When performing Data Maintenance, it is best to lean towards the idea of 'less is more'.
This is because over the coming year your data will grow in size again. Deleting more now will mean less performance effect later.
You can keep different transaction date ranges for different modules. the performance effect depends on:
How many transactions go through a module.
For example, if you make many small sales but buy in bulk from a few suppliers, then two years' worth of data will vary greatly in size between the Customer and Supplier modules.
How many transactions you keep is your choice. Keep in mind:
Some transaction files affect more than just their module, for example Product Transactions and the Quantity File can affect the performance of both Customers and Suppliers.
Some database files affect performance of Attaché overall or specific modules depending on settings.
File Size
You probably already have a good idea in which part of Attaché most of your data is located. However you can check by doing the following:
Ensure all users are out of Attaché except for yourself.
Go to Tools, Company, Data Checks, Database System Status.
Select All F5.
Select Accept F9.
When the process completes you can Page Up and Page Down to find the files with the most records that take up the most space.
It is generally fairly clear which files you should focus on first and which module they belong to.
📌Note: If this process shows a file with any status other than OK please raise a new case online and reference the title of this article.
File Size Reduction
There are two basic steps in actually reducing the size of your data files:
Perform Data Maintenance procedures below, which marks data for deletion.
Run Tools, Company, Data Checks, Compress Database, which actually deletes records marked for deletion and reduces file size. You can run Compress Database on specific files or all files.
Archiving
Archiving (File, Archive Current Company) during Data Maintenance is critical. You should archive:
Before performing ANY of the Data Maintenance procedures below.
Before running Compress Database mentioned above.
Data Maintenance
To perform data maintenance the Tools menu items below can be done independently, but for the modules generally you should proceed in the order of the sections. Some steps need to be done before others so that records can be deleted. Therefore, if nothing deletes, then most likely a previous step is required.
Track Changes
Track Changes allows you to track any change made down to the individual field. If this is set up the files can grow in size rapidly and slow down your Attaché system.
Tracking options
You can set your required tracking options from Tools, Company, Track Changes, Tracking Options.
Monitor File Options
You will only need to monitor changes if you use:Clearview.
Powerlink.
Custom Clearview reports or solutions that require this data.
If you don't use any of the above solutions, then recording this data is most likely unnecessary and you can untick the Monitor all changes? tick box.
If you are unsure whether any of your solutions or reports use this file, please raise a new case online and reference the title of this article. Most likely you will need to talk to your Consultant. To reduce the impact this file can have on performance, refer to the Delete Monitor File section below.
Delete the Monitor File: (Tools, Company, Delete Track Changes Files, Delete Monitor File). This procedure deletes records in the Monitor File. Depending on the Monitor File's size, it may be best to delete in ranges rather than all at once. Otherwise, the procedure can run for a very long time. To delete Monitor File records:
Enter the Delete records to date.
Select Accept F9.
Track User Options
This option tracks all company and menu access by users if both options are selected. Keeping this audit trail can slow down access to all menu items. However, if ever a question is asked about whether a particular user accessed a certain company or menu, this audit trail can provide the answer. Select to track or not, depending on your requirements, by setting the tick boxes to Yes or No respectively. Refer to Delete Track Changes below for managing the size of this file.
Options - Data Transfer Changes?
This module will not be used by most customers and can be set to No.
Track Quantity Changes
Auto purge of the Quantity Changes file is covered under Products.
De-activate Track Changes
First go to Tools, Company, Track Changes, Track Changes Report and run it with no ranges. If there are pages of data on the report then Track Changes has been activated and you should either deactivate it or archive some of the records. To deactivate it:Go to Tools, Company, Track Changes, Track Files and untick any files that you no longer want to track.
Go to Tools, Company, Track Changes, Track Tasks and untick any tasks that you no longer want to track.
To reduce the performance effect on your company:
Go to Tools, Company, Track Changes, Track Changes Archive.
Select to Archive Records.
Enter a Date Range, ensure the First Date is a very old date.
📌Note: Archived records can still be seen using the Track Changes Archive Report. If you no longer want any of these records, the archive can be deleted using Tools, Company, Delete Track Changes Files, Delete Track Changes Archive.
Tools, Company, Delete Track Changes Files, Delete Track Users File:
This procedure deletes records in the Tools, Company, System, User Transaction Log. Depending on the size of this file it may be best to delete records in date ranges.
To delete transactions from this log:Enter the date you want to delete transactions to in the Delete records to field.
Select Accept F9 to start the process.
Delete Customer Records
Refer to this article: Deleting Customer Transactions and Masterfiles.
Delete Supplier Records
Refer to this article: Deleting Supplier Transactions and Masterfiles.
Delete Product Records
Refer to this article: Delete Product Masterfiles.
The product Quantity file
The main reason the Products module can cause performance issues across all Attaché modules is a file called the Quantity File. This file records all product movements and hence can become very large, so it needs to be maintained at least annually. However, if you run Products as Date Based, only delete records in this file up to a date that you no longer need to run a Products, Reports, Periodical, Product Status by Date report for. Typically this will be a date before the current financial year start since you can run this report in your Last Year Company for earlier dates.
Also note that when you drill down on the Product Masterfile Qty In Stock field or On Hand field on the Quantities (F2) tab, you are looking at the Quantity File. If you need a certain date range of transactions in these enquiry screens you should only choose to delete transactions before these dates.
To clear the Quantity File, do the following:
Go to Tools, Company, Delete Track Changes Files, Delete Quantity Changes File.
Enter a date to delete records up to in the Transaction dates before field.
it is best to delete the quantity file in date range batches as it can take a long time.
before selecting a date consider the above two paragraph.
Accept F9 to start the deletion process.
The Quantity File can be set to auto purge. It is strongly recommended to delete transactions from the Quantity File manually first, as described above, before activating this feature. Otherwise on starting Attaché, this feature will start and could stop you using Attaché until it is completed, which could be a long time if transactions have not been deleted for years.
Again, when using this feature consider how much data you need to keep in the Quantity file for your reporting and enquiry screens. Set auto purge as follows:
Go to Tools, Company, Track Changes, Tracking Options.
In the Track Quantity Changes section select Yes to Auto purge Quantity Changes File?
Set the Transaction Dates older than (days) field according to your reporting and enquiry needs, as discussed above.
Accept F9 to save.
The first user to log into Attaché when no users are logged in will start the deletion process.
Delete Asset Management Records
Refer to this article: Delete an asset.