Act! Link for Accounting Administrator Guide

Transcription

1 Act! Link for Accounting Administrator Guide

2 Contents Act! Link for Accounting Introduction Page 3 Compatibility Page 5 Server Preparation Page 6 Act! Link for Accounting Program Installation Page 22 Registration Page 26 Accounting Menu Settings Page 29 Manually Updating the Data Warehouse and the Linked Tabs Page 41 Reset User Permissions Page 43 Setting up an Automatic Sync Schedule Page 45 Switching Off or Removing the Act! Link for Accounting Page 53 Upgrading from a Version Prior to 2.3 Page 56

3 Act! Link for Accounting Introduction What is Act! Link for Accounting? Act! Link for Accounting is an Act! add-on that allows users to link records in Act! to equivalent records in Sage Accounts. Doesn t Act! Already have inbuilt integration with Sage Accounts? Yes it does, and has done for several years. However, as the link was created and managed by Sage, it is no longer being updated and does not work with the latest versions of Sage Accounts. Because of this, Swiftpage have developed a replacement. That replacement is Act! Link for Accounting. Can you give a brief Overview of what Linking Means? Essentially once the setup is complete the customer will be able to link Company and Contact records in Act! to Customer records in Accounts. Once linked this will allow customers to view Accounts information in a new tab in Act!, as well as sales orders and invoice information. It is important to note here that the link works one-way from Accounts to Act!. You cannot make changes in Act! and have them synchronize across to Accounts. The only exception to this is that it is possible to use an Act! record to create a new Customer in Accounts. This is discussed in the Act! Link for Accounting User Guide. Please also note that the link will connect records in Act! to Customers in Accounts, it will NOT link to Suppliers. The process is somewhat similar to Contact or Calendar synchronization using Outlook in that it is not an instantaneous update. It is possible to set up Act! Link for Accounting so that it automatically updates at scheduled times, or the updates can also be done manually. Linking primarily occurs between existing records in Act! and existing records in Accounts. Whilst it is possible to push a record from Act! into Accounts and link them, it is not possible to import records directly in from Accounts. A workaround to this is discussed in the Act! Link for Accounting User Guide. How does the Linking Work in the Background? When the setup is first completed, new fields are added to the Act! database. These fields contain the data that is pulled across from Accounts and are displayed in new tabs that are automatically added to the layout (similar to the Timeline tab). These fields can also be added onto the main layout as well and are searchable. The customer selects which fields they want to bring across, by default there are 13 fields that are pulled across. The first time that the linking occurs, all the data in Accounts is pulled into a holding location referred to as the Data Warehouse. This information is then sent from the Data Warehouse into Act!. Whilst the initial setup can be quite lengthy (if the customer chose to sync every field for example), once this is done the future syncing is much much quicker using this method. 3

4 Act! is easily able to pull data from the warehouse, and the warehouse can quickly be updated with any changes in Sage Accounts. This process will be discussed further as we go through the training. What do I need to be Aware of before Setting up? Act! Link for Accounting has been designed to work with both Sage Instant Accounts and Sage 50 Accounts (including Plus and Professional as well). In order to use all features, Sage Accounts will need to be installed on every PC that wishes to use the link, and will need to be able to access the Accounts data. With regards to the Act! Link for Accounting program: It will need to be installed on every PC that wishes to use the link. It will need to be registered on the server only, but each database that will be using the link will need to be individually registered (see Registration section). The program setup within Act! will only need to be performed on the server. The SDO service (discussed in more depth later) will need to be registered on every PC that wishes to use the Act! Link for Accounting. The Sage SData service (discussed in more depth later) will only need to be setup on the server. The Act! Link for Accounting service will only need to be installed on the server. There will be a number of configuration options that need to be enabled in Accounts on the server to complete the setup. These will be explained in the Server Setup section below. Once the setup is complete and the import begins for the first time, new fields will be added to the database. If the customer were to choose to add every field, close to 250 new fields will be created in the database, and all of the Accounts data will be imported into the data warehouse. In this situation we would recommend that this is left by the customer overnight, especially if they have a large data set in Accounts (this will be explained again in the appropriate section below). NOTE: This guide will take you through the preparation, installation and setup of Act! Link for Accounting. To find out more about the functionality, please see the Act! Link for Accounting User Guide. 4

5 Compatibility Windows Versions Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Server 2008, Server 2012, Server 2016 Act! Versions Act! v17 Pro and Premium Act! v18 Pro and Premium Act! v19 Pro and Premium Act! Premium for Web the full functionality is only available when using the installed version of Act! for Web, not when accessing through the web client. The web client does have some limited functionality, please see the 2nd Note in the Tab Functionality section later in the training for details. Sage Accounts Versions Sage Instant Accounts v21, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v21 Sage Instant Accounts v22, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v22 Sage Instant Accounts v23, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v23 SQL Versions SQL Server 2008 R2 (Express and Standard) SQL Server 2012 (Express and Standard) SQL Server 2014 (Express and Standard) Microsoft Dot Net Version 4.5 and above 5

6 Server Preparation NOTE: Unlike Act!, it may be the case that you are holding your Sage Accounts data on the server WITHOUT having the Accounts program installed. You will need to make sure to install Sage Accounts on the server in order to perform the steps mentioned below. The following steps should be taken before any installation of the Act! Link for Accounting occurs. Create a User in Sage Accounts The Act! Link for Accounting program needs to connect to Sage Accounts with the login credentials of a dummy user. This is because Sage Accounts does not allow 2 people to log into the program at the same time as the same user. Therefore, we will need to create a user in Sage Accounts that will not be used to log into it directly, it will only be used with the Act! Link for Accounting. Creating a new user in Sage Accounts does not affect their licence in any way as it would in Act! (i.e. it does not take up a licence, users are free in Sage Accounts). NOTE: The Act! technical support team do not provide support for Sage Accounts so if there are any problems with creating a new user, please refer back to Sage. Within Sage Accounts, each data set is referred to as a Company, similar to having separate databases in Act!. You will need to make sure that you log into the correct Company. When you open up the program, if you have more than one Company (or you have a password set on your Company), then you will see a screen like the one below: To create a new user in Accounts, open up the correct Company data and log in as manager. NOTE: Sage Accounts has a default administrator user called manager typically without a password though you may have assigned one previously. This user has full permissions to all 6

7 functions of the program and must be used to perform the setup steps mentioned in this section. Go to Settings > Access Rights The following screen will display: 7

8 Click on the New button: Make sure to add a user name and password that is easy to remember. Standard practice is to insert ACTLINK for both. Make sure that Full Access is also selected. This will happen by default, so there is no need to change any of the individual Access options. Click OK to finish and the user should now appear in the list: Share the Accounts Data Directory When using Sage Accounts you can see information about the data by going to Help > About 8

9 Firstly, take note of the Data Directory. In Sage Accounts, different data sets are referred to as different Companies, so each Company will have its own Data Directory. To make sure that the setup will complete successfully and that all the clients can use the link this data directory should be shared. The easiest way to do this is to click on the link that appears in the screenshot above. This will take you into the ACCDATA folder (for those who are not familiar with Sage Accounts, the data is always held in a folder called ACCDATA). Next click on the folder 2 levels above the ACCDATA folder in the address bar (so in the screenshot above, click on 2016). With that folder open, right click on the folder that contains ACCDATA and choose Properties (so in this example right click on Company.000 as seen in the screenshot below): 9

10 Go to the Sharing tab and make sure that Everyone is set to Full Control. This permission will then cascade to ACCDATA as well. Find the UNC Path of the Data Directory Once the folder has been shared, another step that needs to be performed is to get the UNC path of the data directory (i.e. using our example above the path needs to be in the format of \\COMPUTERNAME\Company.000\ACCDATA rather than a local path such as C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2016\Company.000\ACCDATA) NOTE: In a single user environment where all the information from both programs is held on one PC and no other PCs will require the link to be setup, then you can use the normal local file path and ignore any references to the UNC path going forward in this document. The UNC path is required so that other PCs on the network can setup and use the Act! Link for Accounting. If the local file path is used, then each client PC will be looking for data on their own hard drives instead of looking at the data on the server, meaning the link will not work. One of the easiest ways to get the UNC path is to open up Computer, click on Network and then double click on the name of the server computer: 10

11 Because you have already shared the folder that holds the Accounts data directory, you will see it in the list of shared folders for the server: Double click on this folder, then double click on the ACCDATA folder to open that. Click into the address bar for the ACCDATA window to highlight the path as in the screenshot below: 11

12 Now you can copy and paste the UNC path into a.txt document as it will be used in the next step of the setup. Change the Data Directory to show the UNC Path Now that we have the UNC path, we need to make sure that the Data Directory in Sage Accounts is changed to use the UNC path instead. If this step is not performed and the Data directory is a local path or uses a mapped drive, the service mentioned in the next section (the SData service) will not run correctly. The first step in changing the data directory is to go back to Help > About: This time, click on the link for the Settings Directory, and there should be a folder for the current version of Accounts (in this case 2016): 12

13 Open up the folder and find a file called COMPANY: This file controls the locations of all the separate Companies in Accounts. Think of it like an Act! PAD file that lists all databases instead of just one. IMPORTANT: Please make sure to BACKUP the COMPANY file. You can do this very simply by copying and pasting it to the desktop. That way if any mistakes are made when editing the file it can easily be replaced. Once you have backed up the COMPANY file, make sure Sage Accounts is closed then open up the original COMPANY file in Notepad: 13

14 As you can see in the screenshot above, the COMPANY file is using a local path to point to the Accounts data. Notice too that the \ACCDATA part of the path is not included in the COMPANY file. The path points to the folder that contains the ACCDATA folder instead. Using our previous example, we found the UNC path was: \\NCL \Company.000\ACCDATA So we will leave out the \ACCDATA part and overwrite the previous local path: Save the file, then open up Sage Accounts. You should be able to see that the path has changed: 14

15 Log in as manager and check to see if the Data Directory has changed in Help > About: Make sure to keep a note of the UNC path as it will be used again later in the setup. Make Sure that Sage SData is Running Sage Accounts runs a service in the background that allows other programs to connect to the Company data. This service is called SData and it needs to be activated to allow Act! Link for Accounting to connect. To check that SData is running, log into the correct Sage Accounts Company data as the manager user (as discussed previously). Click on Tools > Internet Options 15

16 Click on SData Settings on the left hand side: As you can see in the screenshot above, SData is switched on for Sage 50 Accounts, and the SData service is currently running, but we also need to check the Advanced settings to make sure the service is not being blocked at all. Click the Advanced button: 16

17 This screen allows you to Restart the service if it is not currently running, you can change the port number if necessary, but most importantly you can allow SData to pass through the Windows Firewall. If available, you should always click this button as part of the setup, then click OK. Now that we are back in the SData Settings and have went through the Advanced options, we also need to check that SData is working for the correct Company. Click on Details next to the Sage 50 Accounts tick box: The correct Company name must appear in the list for SData to be working correctly. If the COMPANY file has not been changed to the UNC path, then the Company may not appear in this list (see instructions in previous section). 17

18 If the Company still does not appear, try unticking the box on the previous screen, then reticking it and check again. You can also restarting the service in the Advanced settings as we have previously discussed. Another troubleshooting step would be to close down the program entirely, then open up services.msc: Locate the Sage SData Service, stop it, then once it has stopped start it again. If you still cannot get the correct Company name to appear in the SData list then please refer to Sage technical support. Switching on Sage Data Objects (SDO) The last thing that needs to be setup on the server is making sure that the SDO is switched on. Again this is a requirement for the Act! Link for Accounting to work successfully. This is a setting in Sage Accounts that enables 3 rd part programs to access the Accounts data. This requires entering a serial number and activation key on the server AND on every PC that wishes to use Act! Link for Accounting. In order to begin the registration, log into the correct Sage Accounts Company using the manager logon (as discussed previously). Next go to Tools > Activation > Enable 3 rd Party Integration: 18

19 This will present the following message which is a useful reminder that the SDO registration must be run on every PC using Act! Link for Accounting: Once you click OK you will then see this screen: 19

20 The Serial Number and Activation for versions 21, 22 and 23 of Sage Accounts can be found on Sage s online knowledgebase: If you are using a different version or you have any other problems registering, then you will need to get in touch with Sage Technical Support in order to enter your Sage Data Objects (SDO) serial number and activation key. If the registration has been successful, you will see the following message: Final Check The last step in the server setup is to make sure that both the SData and SDO features are now enabled. To do this, log into the correct Company data in Accounts as manager, then go to Help > About: 20

21 Both SData and SDO must say Yes. Assuming this is the case, the server preparation is now complete. 21

22 Act! Link for Accounting Program Installation The installation for the Act! Link for Accounting program is very straight forward. NOTE: Remember that the link must be installed on the server and ALL PCs that want to use the link. The setup file name is typically Swiftpage_SO_Setup_XX. Also remember that Microsoft.net 4.5 must also be installed on all machines. Make sure that Act! is closed down, and double-click the setup file: Click Next to continue: 22

23 If you click Browse, it is possible to change the program installation directory: The Disk Cost shows the available disk space and how much is required in the installation, which is an extremely low amount. Click Next to continue with the installation: 23

24 Click Next to begin the actual installation: The installation should only take a few minutes before the installation is complete: 24

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26 Registration Once the Act! Link for Accounting has been installed, it also needs to be registered. The registration needs to take place only on the server, but it will be required for each Act! database that will be using the link. The steps below then will need to be repeated for every Act! database that you want to link to Sage Accounts, but you can use the same licence key for each database. When you open any database you will automatically be prompted to register: NOTE: You will be prompted to register every time you open the database. If you have other databases that won t be using Act! Link for Accounting, the program will prompt you to register every time it is opened as long as the link has been installed, but can simply be cancelled. Enter the Company Name and Licence Key provided at the point of sale and click Activate: 26

27 Once activated, the Licence Key will get added into the middle Licence Keys window. In this way, additional licences could be added in the future if necessary. As seen in the screenshot above, the Licence Key that has been added is for 5 users. The next step is to tick which Act! users in the current database are going to use the Act! Link for Accounting. Tick the appropriate options and click OK. You will then see one final message thanking you for registering: 27

28 Now that the registration has been completed on the server, it will not need to be registered again on any of the client PCs. Also, now that the Act! Link for Accounting program has been registered in this specific database, a new menu will appear called Accounting: NOTE: This menu will NOT appear if you cancel the registration for the database. Remember that the prompt to register will happen every time you open a database that has not been registered. The menu will only appear after the registration is complete. If more licences are required in the future, these can be registered by going to Accounting > Licence 28

29 Accounting Menu Settings Once the Act! Link for Accounting program has been installed and registered on the server, the Accounting menu can be used on the server to complete the setup of the Act! Link for Accounting. NOTE: The setup here only needs to be performed on the server. To begin go to Accounting > Settings: You will see the following screen: The first step is to tick the box for Enable Sage Link. This will then allow you to complete the Data Directory, as well as provide login credentials for Act! and Sage. This is where several previous steps that we took earlier become more relevant. 29

30 Data Directory Must be the full UNC path to the data that we took earlier (i.e. it must end with ACCDATA). Act! PAD File Path Must browse to the PAD file for the database we want to link. You can find this by going to Help > About Act! > Database Information Act! Login Must be an active Act! administrator. Sage Login Must be the new Sage Accounts User that we created earlier. Complete the fields appropriately: Make sure to click the Test buttons to verify your user names and passwords are correct. If they are you will see a message like this: Otherwise, you will receive an error: 30

31 If you leave incorrect information in the Sage Login section and click OK, when you next try to log into the database you may receive the following prompt: If you see this, click Cancel then go back to Accounting > Settings and input the correct credentials instead. Once you have confirmed that all details have been input correctly, the next step is to begin the actual linking process. NOTE: This step involves the creation of up to 250 new fields in the Act! database, as well as importing all the Accounts data into the Data Warehouse. Because of this, it can take a long time to perform. Also, this step requires an Act! administrator, and for all other users to be logged out of Act!. Field Settings Before the linking process begins you must choose which fields you want to pull across from Sage Accounts. To start the process, click the Field Settings button: 31

32 Act! Link for Accounting allows you to link on both a Company and a Contact level. You can choose to link to both, or only one if you prefer. A key feature of Act! Link for Accounting is that it will add up to three new tabs into the linked records in Act! (both Company and Contact). The three tabs are the Accounts tab, the Sales Orders tab and the Invoices tab. You can control which tabs you want to use and what information you will see within each tab in this window. To begin your selection, tick the appropriate Accounts box: As you can see from the screenshot above, once this has been ticked, further options are opened up. The tick boxes allow you to choose which of the three tabs you want to add onto your records. NOTE: The Accounts tab must be selected in order to use the other two tabs. The selection of the tick boxes also opens up the options under Field Import Selection. This is where you can specifically choose the additional fields that you want to import. You can come back and amend this later at any time once the setup has been completed. If you do not choose any additional fields, these are the default fields that will be pulled across: Accounts Account Ref Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Address 4 Address 5 Contact Name E Mail Fax Name Telephone Telephone 2 Vat Reg Number 32

33 Sales Orders Account Ref Cust Order Number Despatch Date Global Dept Number Invoice Gross Invoice Net Invoice Number Order Date Order Number Order TypeCode Taken By Invoices Account Ref Carr Net Carr Tax Cust Order Number Invoice Date Invoice Number Invoice TypeCode Items Net Items Tax Order Number Posted Code Taken By Once you are happy with the fields, click OK. When the process starts, you will see the following message: This will then be followed by messages similar to the following: 33

34 This part of the process can take a long time depending on the amount of fields it needs to create. If you have chosen to only use the default fields, then it will usually take only a couple of minutes. It has been observed that during this process it is best to leave the program and try not to click on it. Clicking on the import messages may cause the update to read Not Responding. If this should happen, the program IS still running correctly and once again should be left alone. Continued clicking may lead to the following error: This error is not too much to worry about though as the update is quite robust and is designed to be able to cope with interruptions. If it is interrupted for any reason, if you simply go back to Accounting > Settings and choose the option for Update Sage Data then the process will continue where it left off without a problem. Assuming there were no interruptions, you will see the below message: Once you click OK you will notice that the Accounting Settings window has now changed: 34

35 As you can see on the screenshot above, the section under Automatically Link Contacts has now become available. If you tick the Accounts box under the Company Import header in the Field Settings window, then the Automatically Link Companies section will also become available. Automatic Linking is discussed in full detail later in the training manual. For now, having chosen the appropriate field settings required, you should click the Update Sage Data button to add the Sage information into the Data Warehouse. When you click this button you will see the following message: As mentioned, it is always a good idea to back up the your data before proceeding. Once completed, you will receive a confirmation message. Click OK to proceed. At this point you could begin to automatically link your Companies and/or Contact records, but instead we would recommend completing this initial setup by clicking the OK button on the Accounting Settings window: 35

36 You will then be prompted to save any changes that you have made. Click Yes to this message: Finally, Act! will require a restart for the changes to take effect. Click OK to the message that appears: Act! will now automatically close completing the setup process. 36

37 New fields will have been created in the database. These will have been created in either the Companies section, or the Contacts section, or both (depending on the options selected when choosing your Field Settings mentioned above, this is also where you choose which fields will be created). All of the new fields are easily identifiable by the SL_ prefix. There will also now be up to 3 new tabs appearing in the Contacts and/or Companies sections of Act!: NOTE: The Sage Sales Orders tab will NOT appear if the integration is being used with Sage Instant Accounts. Once again, the tabs that appear are controlled by the tick box options within the Field Settings window mentioned previously. As well as the tabs being present, the Data Warehouse which sits in the background now holds all of the information pulled from the Accounts program ready to be linked to the Act! records. We will look at linking that data in the next sections. Adding/Removing Fields 37

38 Once the setup is complete and the chosen fields have been added to the database, these can be amended at any time. To add or remove linked fields, go to the Accounting menu and choose Settings. Click Field Settings: Now click the appropriate button under the Filed Import Selection header which will allow you to add or remove fields in that section. 38

39 Tick or untick the fields as needed, then click OK, and OK again. Once the changes are made (this may take a few minutes depending on how many changes were made, or even up to an hour if you change all of the fields) you will receive a completed message: Click OK then click OK on the Accounting Link Settings window. You will be prompted to save your changes (make sure you do so) and then Act! will need to be closed for the changes to take effect. Once you have restarted Act! the requested changes to the fields will be in place. Create Log File The final function we are going to discuss in this section is the ability to create a log file. This would typically be done as part of troubleshooting if the customer was getting unexpected results. The purpose of the log file is to catalogue all of the data that is imported into the data warehouse. This is particularly helpful if the customer believes that specific records have not come across, the log file can then be checked for verification. A log file is created when the option is ticked, and you choose to Update Sage Data: The log file is created in the AppData folder of the user logged in. Typically in Windows 7 the path would be: C:\Users\<USER NAME>\AppData\Roaming\Swiftpage International Ltd\Act! Link for Accounting (Sage Accounts-UK) For an example of the type of information held in the log file, please see the screenshot below: 39

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41 Manually Updating the Data Warehouse and the Linked Tabs As previously discussed, as well as the additional fields that have been created all of the Accounts data has now been pulled into the Data Warehouse. This is not something that is visible or that can be searched, the Data Warehouse sits in the background and simply stores all of the data from the Accounts program, which is then shown in Act!. In order to keep the Data Warehouse up to date, it must be regularly synced. This will also keep the information in the 3 new tabs that have been added to the Company and Contact records up to date as well (see the Act! Link for Accounting User guide for information on the functionality). It is possible to set up a schedule where this will happen automatically which we will look at in a later section. For now, we will look at how this can be performed manually whenever you need to. To begin, go to Accounting > Settings, then click Update Sage Data: You will receive a prompt advising to take a backup before proceeding. When you are happy to proceed, click Yes: The Data Warehouse will now be updated with all of the changes or new records that have been created in Accounts since the last time it was synced. Remember that the warehouse simply pulls all of the information in from Accounts, and then the relevant information is shown within Act! Please be aware that this process can take some time as per the below message: 41

42 Once the updating process is complete, Act! will need to be restarted: Clicking OK will automatically close the Act! program down. When it is next opened, the Data Warehouse will now be fully up to date as will all the information within the tabs on the Company and Contact records. 42

43 Reset User Permissions When Act! Link for Accounting is initially set up, the Act! Login credentials used will be given Full Access to the new fields that are created. All other users in the database will be set to Read Only. If the Full Access user leaves the business it may be necessary for a customer to reset the permissions on the Act! Link for Accounting fields. To begin the process, go to the Accounting menu and choose Settings. The first task is to select the new user that you wish to give Full Access to, and enter their credentials in the Act! Login section: Make sure to Test the credentials. Once this has been done, click the Reset Permissions button: You will be asked to confirm that you wish to proceed: Once completed, click OK to the confirmation message, then OK again to exit the Accounting Link Settings window. When prompted to save your changes, make sure to click Yes. 43

44 Now if you go to Tools > Define Fields and check the Field Security of any of the SL_ fields, you will see that the user permissions have been changed, the new user you have entered now has Full Access, and the previous user is now set to Read Only: 44

45 Setting up an Automatic Sync Schedule Whilst it is possible to manage the Data Warehouse manually as discussed above, we would recommend that you set this up to happen automatically. NOTE: This should ONLY be set up on the server, not on client PCs. The setup file is typically named Swiftpage_SO_Service_Setup_XX Setting up an automatic sync schedule is a two-step process: 1. Select how often you want the Act! Link for Accounting to sync. 2. Install and configure the service that allows the sync to run. This may seem slightly counter intuitive, installing the service AFTER setting up the sync schedule, but this is the recommended setup. NOTE: Configuring the service once it is installed will require the details of a local Windows administrator. It may be a good idea to create a new Windows admin user for this purpose. Setting the Schedule The first step is setting up the sync schedule, you can begin this process by going to Accounting > Settings then click on the Service tab: Click Add to set up a sync schedule: 45

46 Fill in the fields as per the below: Name: Name the process you are setting up (so something like Update for Database1 etc.) Action Type: Choose the function being performed from the dropdown. As it stands, only SageImport (which is the automatic sync) is available, though more automated functionality may be added in the future. Schedule: Choose when the first sync will take place, and set how often you want it to happen. Similarly to the Outlook Contact/Calendar sync, you may not want this to happen every few minutes, but every hour or so might be more sensible. Keep for: This refers to how long you want to keep the sync log history (which can be accessed in the History tab that you can see in the top left corner of the above screenshot). Notification: This works in the same way as the Act! scheduler, if you want to receive notifications of whether the sync has worked successfully then you can complete this section. 46

47 Once you click OK then you will see the sync schedule that you have set up has now been added under the Service tab: Install and Configure the Service The Act! Link for Accounting service needs to be installed and configured next. To begin the installation, double-click on the installation file: 47

48 The installation process is identical to the installation for the Act! Link for Accounting program itself, so the screenshots below should look familiar: 48

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50 Once completed, the service is now installed so will appear in your list of installed pograms. It also has its own desktop shortcut as well: Now that the installation is complete, the service has to be setup. To begin the setup, simply double-click the desktop shortcut: 50

51 The setup requires details for a Local Windows Administrator, as well as the SQL server details. As mentioned previously, it may be a good idea to create a new local Windows admin in order to use the credentials to start the service. It also requires details for the SQL Server. These can easily be found by going to Accounting > About within Act! which will show the below screen: Open the Act! Link for Accounting service and add in the correct details: After clicking Start, the service status will change to Running: 51

52 If you now check services.msc, you will notice that there is a new service at the top of the list named Act! Link for Accounting (Sage Accounts-UK): Now that service will only appear in the list as long as it is running. So if you were to doubleclick on the desktop icon again and choose to Stop the service, you will find that the service itself is removed from services.msc. With the service running correctly, the setup is now complete and the schedule that was set earlier will now run successfully. 52

53 Switching Off or Removing the Act! Link for Accounting In this final section we will look at how you can stop using the Act! Link for Accounting should you wish. There is the option to simply switch it off (meaning it can easily be switched back on at a later date), or it can be removed entirely. We will look at both methods below. Switching the Link Off To disable the Act! Link for Accounting is a simple case of unticking a check box. This can be found by going to Accounting > Settings: Unticking the option will grey out everything else in the Settings. Once you click OK, the link will have been disabled. This will result in the 3 tabs present in Companies and Contacts being removed. Act! should be closed and re-opened for the tabs to disappear. Once this has happened, if you wish to use the link again you simply need to go back into the Settings and tick the option again. NOTE: the SL_ fields will still be present in the database using this method. This means that if they have been added to your database layout (as seen in the Act! Link for Accounting User Guide) then they and any information within them will still be showing. Also, if the scheduled service has not been removed, then these fields will continue to be updated. Removing Act! link for Accounting Entirely If you wish to remove the link completely, there are a few steps that should be taken. NOTE: As always please take a backup of your data before performing these steps. Firstly, all of the new fields that have been created in the database should be removed. This is not something that needs to happen manually in the Define Fields section. Instead go to Accounting > Settings and look at the options under Import Sage Data: 53

54 Once the button is clicked, a confirmation prompt will appear that also reminds you to take a backup of your database: NOTE: As there are several hundred fields to remove this process will take a long time and will delete ALL the data within those fields. Also, the Data Warehouse will be removed. Once the process is complete, the last thing to do is to uninstall the program: Remember that the server will also have the Service to uninstall as well (as seen in the screenshot above), whereas all the client PCs will only have the Act! Link for Accounting program installed. NOTE: The service itself needs to be stopped before uninstalling it. So open up the service by double-clicking the desktop icon, and then click Stop: 54

55 Once the uninstalls have been completed on every PC, the Act! Link for Accounting is now completely removed. 55

56 Upgrading from a Version Prior to 2.3 This section is designed to provide the information you will require when assisting a customer in upgrading the Act! Link for Accounting from a previous version, specifically upgrading from any version prior to 2.3. This section will not be necessary if the customer is not upgrading from a previous version. If they are upgrading however, please read this whole section completely before performing the upgrade. Firstly, in order to check which version of Act! Link for Accounting the customer is currently using, go to the Accounting menu and choose the option for About: If you have determined that the customer is using 2.2 or below, then you will need to keep the following points in mind when upgrading. Installation Process You do NOT need to uninstall Act! Link for Accounting before upgrading. Much like Act!, when you install the latest version of the software, the previous version will be uninstalled for you. Therefore there is no difference to the installation process, it is identical to the process covered earlier in this training manual. Tabs Once you have upgraded and opened your Act! database, you may notice that the three tabs that normally appear on the Contact/Company records are now missing. Whilst the records are still linked between Act! and Accounts, there are a few steps to the setup that need to be completed in order to return the missing tabs. Go to the Accounting menu and choose Settings. You will notice that most of the information required is completed, however the Field Settings need to be configured: 56

57 In previous editions of Act! Link for Accounting, there were close to 250 fields from Sage Accounts that were automatically added into Act!. With the latest version, this is no longer the case, the customer can specifically choose the fields that they want to add. This has the benefit of making the initial setup much much faster, and also means it is easy for the customer to see exactly the information that they require. In the Tab Functionality section of the manual, we discussed the ability the customer has to create their own Custom tab to show the Accounting link fields on their layout, giving the ability to view this information when using Act! Premium for web. If a customer is upgrading to the new version of Act! Link for Accounting, it is imperative that you check if they have added their fields to the layout in this way BEFORE performing the upgrade. The reason for this is in order to preserve the previously linked fields. When you enter the Field Settings section, you must make sure to select all of the fields that the customer has added to their layout. If you fail to do this, then those fields will no longer be linked and will therefore no longer display any information. If this should happen, then you can always go back into the Field Settings and tick the missing fields, but in this scenario you will then have to go into the Layout Designer and re-add the missing fields. 57