Remote sync

Hi, Methuen. Problem with selecting changed records and doing a transfer is twofold :

1) What if both users have made a change to the same Address Book entry, maybe to the same field, maybe to different ones? Or entered Notes to the same Address Book entry?
2) In any case, you have to delete the original Address Book entries or you wind up with duplication

This is the age-old issue of record locking.

The only solutions I can think of are MaxExchange or a Terminal Services environment. Depending on your work needs you could try an experiment with a VPN connection over the internet :

1) Install Max on the remote user's machine and on your local machine
2) Leave the shared data on your local machine (or on the remote machine, your call - but only in one spot)
2) Create a VPN connection on the remote user's machine so they see your local drive with the shared Max data on it as a network drive
3) Have the remote user create a new Address Book and point the data folder to the shared Max data on their VPN network drive

The main issue here is speed of connection - we tried this about 4 years ago between Toronto and Vancouver and it was too slow to be workable. Cheap and simple, though, and bandwidth is better now. The other issue of course is administration - you have two separate installs of Max to maintain. May be ok with only two users.

Hope this helps - R.

Thanks for the response but I don't think it would work for one reason. Both users are on laptops and are traveling most of the time.

I thought that if one use did a transfer so those changes were recorded, then the other user sent back a transfer, that way all changes would not override each other. But maybe not??

I'm just trying to find a way of avoiding ACT or GoldMine, which have sync capabilities w/o needing a server setup.

Good Morning Methuen. Looking at your post I would have to agree with Rooster, Max Exchange presents the most reliable method of synching your machines to each other.

The problem with doing record transfers in the method you describe is that the overwriting. Say you have two laptops called A & B, both have the same records and both make changes to the same company. If you transfer all the modified data from Laptop A to Laptop B what you have on Laptop B is then an exact mirror of Laptop A, all the changes on B have been overwritten and are not retrievable.

This is the reason Maximizer Software developed Max Exchange, it allows data to be safely synchronsied between remote machines.

If you are unsure about implementing a Max Exchange system you should discuss it with your business partner. The actual requirements for a Max Exchange Server are not that high when dealing with a small number of users. Appart from the server all you will need is a VPN to allow the laptops remote access to the network so they can connect to the Max Exchange server and exchange packets.

The other option is of course the Web Portals in the eCRM version of Maximzier, this however still requires a web server for you to host the portals on. The advantages of the portals are pretty obvious, you have a web client version of Maximizer that can be accessed via Internet Explorer from anywhere you can get a net connection. You can also setup the mobile portals to allow access to basic information via a mobile data handset.