Initial considerations - PLEASE READ!

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It is of course always wise to make a complete back-up of your system especially to a location which can be very easily/quickly restored (for example to another hard drive on your network to another directory on the drive where the system is installed or to a ZIP, Jazz drive or to a CD).

If you have no prior customizations of any kind, then after making a back-up copy of your system, you should be ready to proceed to install the updates. If you have made a back-up copy of your system to your hard drive and intend to install the updates to both the back-up copy (not recommended) as well as the "live" copy, you will need to make sure that your back-up copy's "default dictionary path" under "Set Configuration" is set to blank and that the file locations under "Maintain Location File" are changed to not point to the live installation.

While Advanced Accounting does run under XP, it is NOT recommended that you install from an XP PC. If you must install from XP, you will need to contact us for special instructions.

While the actual time to physically install most of the updates will typically only take a few minutes each, most of the updates involve a restructuring of some of your existing files. How long this last portion takes is completely dependent upon how large your data files are. If you have customer history files that are large, this could take several hours for any given installation. For most users, the time for the update to complete will be relatively small, however, please take this into account when installing the updates. The best time to install is normally towards the end of a business day or on a weekend. Once a given data update process begins, it should not be interrupted.

DOS mode users: if you use BSERVER/BREQUEST (with Advanced Accounting 5.1, would require a Novell server), please do not install these updates and contact 801-277-9240 for further consultation. A different version of the database "merge" utility is required. Most users run BTRIEVE.EXE and so this isn't an issue.

If your system has previously been customized in any way, you will need to consult/coordinate with the person who customized your system to determine how to best implement this update. What needs to be done will depend on the nature of the prior customizations and here are some comments that may be of assistance:

(1) If no prior changes have been made to data structures, then it may be that you will be able to proceed to install all of the updates and immediately thereafter copy back in some of the prior updates. However it may be necessary for any prior customization to first at a minimum be re-compiled or tweaked in some way because of changes related to, for example, the way that average costs or the fact that purchase orders now have locations by line items. So after the custom programs were looked at (regardless of whether were customizations to existing programs or completely new ones), it could be that after installing those updates you would then immediately install the revised/updated customized based on an update received from your TAS programmer.

(2) If you made any prior changes to the front end menu files (BKMENU.ARY or BKMENUW.ARY), those changes will have to be re-integrated with the latest files (that is a simple thing to do).

(3) If data structure changes were made it is CRITICAL that these be carefully reviewed to determine whether any of the prior changes were made to file layouts that any of the updates also changed. If so, you would need to install these updates in a different manner because your programmer would need to provide replacement merge (*.XFR) files. Further the installations would need to be run slightly less automatic as follows:

·	you would install each update to an empty/temporary directory that does not contain your live system - in this way the "merging" and other programs will not initially run but you will have all of the updates

·	into each of these directories you would receive the changes from your programmer including replacement XFR files

·	you or your programmer would then copy the files in the temporary directory to your live system one at a time in the steps below

·

after copying in the files with the composite XFR's which included all of the changes in the standard XFR's plus your changes, you would then, in the DOS mode only of Advanced Accounting, go to U-Utilities then A-Run TAS program and run the following programs in order (it is VERY important that you do this and not just run a generic merge:

1.

BK9799 (if the 1997-99 updates have not been previously installed) after copying in the 97-99 temporary directory files and XFR's

2.

BK2000 (the 2000 update install program) after copying in the 2000 temporary directory files and XFR's

3.

BK2001 (the 2001 update install program) after copying in the 2001 temporary directory files and XFR's

Again you would only need to go thru this process if there have been customizations to your data file structures that involve the same file layouts as in the standard updates.



Developer notes: The easiest way to synchronize XFR files depends on how many fields you have added to the file layout where there is a "conflict." It is generally probably however easiest for you to simple add the new fields/key changes to your customer's development directory. So for each year, copy in the XFR's for the update, make the changes to your development directory and in TAS 5.1 run TASMERGE and "Copy" just the layouts where you have customizations and copy those into an install directory for that year and then do the same for each of the next two years.

If you'd rather just do this in one big batch and not run the provided "automatic" utilities, you could instead create one consolidated XFR file but you'd have to first synchronize your development dictionary to exactly match the updates. The best/easiest approach again depends on how extensive the customizations are. If the changes aren't that extensive, you could simply start with the latest set of F*.B's and then re-add your fields and then create a cumulative set of XFR's. Once you have your cumulative set of XFR's you could run the entire process in one step by placing all update files in a temporary directory and with your updated programs and XFR's in place install them by running each of the programs that the BK9799, BK2000 and BK2001 run as follows (i.e. you would do this INSTEAD of running BK9799, BK2000, etc.) (also see below re: the BKUPD51C program):

BKLNENUM (deals with line numbering in BKARINVL/BKARHIVL)
BKPOFIX (set-ups PO locations by line item)
BKCVAVGC (populates new average cost by location field)
UPDPTAX (installs the latest tax file - this is the only optional program)

The first two programs are called by the BK2000 program; the second by the BK2001 program. The BKLNENUM program calls a special version of TAS merge (newmrg00) and that is where the restructure takes place if you were to do a combined installation. As noted, you cannot simply run a TASMERGE/NEWMERGE with XFR's in place.

The normal/automatic install programs will normally delete the above programs upon successfully running each program but if you install the standard updates to a directory that does not contain TPC50.EXE, then they will not initially be done.

To make the process even easier, see the program BKUPD51C. This is a new program that is also used by 4.0 to 5.1 and 5.0 to 5.1 users. We have added a "customization" option to this program. You simply make a cumulative set of XFR's, rename them to *.XFC and run the BKUPD51C program as the customer site with the *.XFC files and when prompted, select the "Customization" option.


See data structure changes for further information.















































Customizations: