One Solution. training guide. Getting started with Clarity Professional v5

Transcription

1 Marketing Sales One Solution Website training guide Orders Getting started with Clarity Professional v5

2 Contents - Introduction - Minimum system requirements - Downloading and installing v5 - New licensing and admin features - General v5 new features - Summary 02

3 Introduction See the future with Clarity Version 5 is the next generation software platform for Clarity Professional. It contains a huge range of fundamental changes to the core of the software which set the foundations for future scalability. the development door to many new enhancements which were not possible on the previous software platform. Read on and learn how to get started. V5 offers greatly improved admin and deployment functionality for system administrators, as well as opening 03

4 Minimum system requirements Hardware & Software The server machine and all client PCs must meet the latest minimum hardware requirements for v5 to run successfully. These are: Minimum Server Specification The Clarity database is installed alongside the client software for single-user and smaller system. Larger multi-user systems (5+ users) require the Clarity database to be installed on a dedicated server machine. - Intel Pentium (or compatible) Quad Core 3.5ghz processor - Microsoft Windows XP to Server GB of RAM - 20GB of available hard-disk space - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP4 to Note: SQL Server requires database files to be stored on a local drive. Network drives are not supported without use of a Storage Area Network (SAN) Minimum Client Machine Specification - Intel Pentium (or compatible) Dual Core 3ghz processor - Microsoft Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7 or 8/8.1 (Home Premium or above) 32 or 64bit - 4GB of RAM - 2GB of available hard-disk space x800px screen resolution - Access to local or network printer - An internet connection on at least one client machine. *Note: There is currently no Clarity installer for Apple Mac, however we have many customers who run their Clarity system on Macs using a software package called Parallels, which allows for a Windows installation to be made on a partition of the Mac s hard drive. The sale of and technical support for Parallels and Windows is not provided by Clarity Software and must be sought elsewhere Important! The requirements below are critical to enabling v5. If you do not meet all of the prerequisites please contact the customer service team who can help you ensure your company is ready to upgrade. A permanent internet connection to the server machine is required. This is used by the installer, activation and sync processes. Your existing Clarity system must be upgraded to at least v4.3 prior to upgrading to v5. Please do not attempt to upgrade directly to v5 from any previous version to v4.3. Clarity v5 does not support Remote User. If you use Remote User please speak to your account manager prior to upgrading and understand the new options available to you. Please perform a full system backup of Clarity before upgrading. Ensure you do not have any third-party software or reporting which is directly accessing and relying on the structure or internal IDs of the Clarity database. 04

5 Downloading and installing v5 2 Upgrading from v4.3 Follow this process if you have Clarity Professional and need to upgrade to v5. 1. Ensure that your existing Clarity systems are upgraded to at least Clarity v If you are on a previous version please upgrade to a v4.3 version first. 2. Download the v5 installer file from the Clarity Software website, and make a note of the Upgrade Code shown (fig.a) 3. Run the installer on your server (this must be a PC which will be running at all times and has an internet connection, need not be the same PC your SQL server is installed on but this is often the case), choose Full Installer when prompted then I already have an SQL Server 8. Click Enable Logins 9. Click Launch Client and your v5 software starts 10. Now run the installer on every client machine and choose the Client-only installation 11. Once the installation completes it automatically finds and connects to your v5 system 12. Every user will be prompted to log in but if a password has not be specified, leave this field blank and click Login to start the software a 4. When the installation completes click Existing System then browse to your existing SQL server, enter login details and select your existing v4.3 Clarity database 5. Ensure that all users have closed Clarity and are no longer using the software 6. Click Upgrade on your system and enter your Upgrade Code ABCD 05

6 Downloading and installing v5 (cont.) 1 Brand new installs This is the process for a first-time installation of Clarity Professional v5 with no previous versions ever installed. 1. Log in to the Clarity Software website at /myaccount (fig.a) and download the v5 Installer file (fig.b) 2. Run the installer on your server (this must be a PC which will be running at all times and has an internet connection), choose Full Installer when prompted then Install SQL Server 3. When the installation completes, click Create New and follow the New Company Wizard by entering your home company details to create your system and open the software 4. Now run the installer on every client machine and choose the client-only installation 5. Once the installation completes it should automatically find and connect to your v5 system 6. Every user will be prompted to log in, but until a password has been specified, leave this field blank and click Login to start the software a b 06

7 Downloading and installing v5 (cont.) 3 Upgrading v5 to v5.1 and beyond This is the process to follow once you are using v5 and need to upgrade to future versions when they are released. 1. Download the v5 installer file from the Clarity Software website, and make a note of the Upgrade Code shown 2. Open Clarity Server Administrator, disable logins for your system(s) and ensure all active sessions are closed before upgrading. You can message users to request them to log out 5. Click Enable Logins 6. Click Launch Client and your v5 software starts 7. Now run the installer on every client machine 8. Once the installation completes users will be able to run the upgraded version of v5 3. Run the installer on your server 4. Click Upgrade on each of your systems and enter your Upgrade Code 07

8 New licensing and admin features 1 Licensing V5 sees a transition from per-station to peruser licensing, so the licensing console now shows home company names rather than station names. a When upgrading from v4.3.8 or newer to v5, the Licensing Console intelligently allocates any optional modules to a user who was last to use that station, so it shouldn t require a reallocation of all licences. 2 Please note If several users have been sharing the same PC, extra licences may be required. If the same user was making use of multiple machines, licences may be freed up. If licence allocations are incorrect, they can be allocated in the Licencing Console, or unallocated, by requesting a one-off unlock code after upgrade to v5 for the first time only. Administration By selecting the Active Sessions tab you can see all users currently accessing the software (fig.b). Individual users can be removed if necessary, or all users locked out to ensure the system can safely be upgraded. b There are powerful new features in v5 for administrators to manage the system. The Licensing Console, Clarity Administrator and Sage Refresh Utility have all been combined into a single application called the Clarity Server Administrator. There is no password to sign into it by default but one can be specified if increased security is required. A list of the currently-running Clarity systems are shown on the right-hand side of the screen (fig.a). There should only be one, unless you are running multi-company. By clicking Manage on a system within the Manage Systems tab you can log into your specific company. The default password is still Admin but can be changed. Within this section you can access all the Administrator functions you had within Clarity v4 but also the Licensing Console is available on the first tab of this dialog. 08

9 New licensing and admin features (cont.) Database upgrade 3 4 Multi-company After upgrading your software to a new version, the administrator must click Upgrade on each Clarity system and enter an Upgrade Code to upgrade the database. Once upgraded, user logins can be re-enabled and end users can upgrade their client software and start using the new software. For multi-company users, you can control which system are available when a client PC starts their software by running the Clarity Config Utility. This offers a list of all available Clarity systems on the network. Any new systems must be manually added before it will become available to sign in to on that PC. If you wish to add a new system, or move your database to a SQL server, you can use the Remove and Add System buttons which will prompt you to browse to an SQL server and select a database or create a new company. 09

10 General v5 new features Available now Version 5 of Clarity Professional is a new foundation for more efficient working and is available now. Advancements in the software from the first v5 release include: Single Installer - One.exe (executable file) to install and upgrade the Client, Server and SQL Server - Automatically downloads and installs any prerequisites during installation - Simplified upgrade process for client users and administrators Fast and simple setup - New Company wizard for new users - Automatic connection for additional users, no UDL files or browsing to servers Powerful server administrator - New server admin software replaces Licensing Console and Clarity Admin - Centralised system management and database upgrades - Active Session visibility, with user login management and messaging features. - Server-side scheduler replaces Sage Refresh Utility and other scheduled tasks Contacts Module - Module now runs server-side for increased performance reliability. Multiple users communicate in real-time and allow automatic refreshes of data as it is changed by any user. Per-user licensing - Software licences are now allocated user logins rather than physical PCs - Your activated modules follow you around the building wherever you sign in - Concurrent sign-in as the same user no longer possible Improved stability - Significant database improvements, adding identify fields to critical tables to prevent all primary key violations. No more support time required to reset GUIDs, client info or database re-sequences required - Comprehensive system logging of all user access and contact module activity to provide complete traceability and help diagnose any issues more quickly Remote user module removed - Remote User module and offline databases removed for Clarity v5. Any users wishing to quote on the move can now use Clarity Go which offers modules for Contacts, Activities, Price Lists, Sales and Quotations. Pricing and licensing details will be available shortly. Improved Report Builder - New Report Builder v15 model offers visual reporting by allowing line graphs, bar charts and pie charts to be added to any report. Multiple series of data can be added to any chart fed from the data within you report to better communicate information. - Dozens of new feature including zoom within the designer, 2D barcodes, design layers, vertical text alignment and new PDF output 10

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