Hello:

I will be speaking with the developers of this product but wanted to ask for other experiences at the same time.

Our client has just installed Customer Number Change from AIM Services. They combined 2 codes into 1 and the process took more than 2 hours.

Admittedly they have a large dataset (15,000 OE invoices/yr with 13 mths of history). However, they say that the same process under ACCPAC Plus always took about 10 minutes. I anticipated more than 10 minutes since Adagio has more tables to check but not such an extreme difference.

Based on other observations I expect that hardware/infrastructure is somewhat of a factor in this case. However I would be interested in hearing the experiences of others.

Thank you.

Hi Bruce,

All updates of this type should be done on a copy of the data on a local machine.

Also, were they processing a single customer, or a list of changes?

Hi Andrew:

It was a single "combine". I'll ask AIM Services if 10 combines is 10 times as long or much the same duration. Depends on how they wrote it I guess.

As a short-term solution, we'll copy to a local drive until their infrastructure is upgraded. However it feels like a work-around and could lead to problems. I'm OK with a scenario where a local copy of data is used for reporting purposes. But running the number changer locally and then copying back to the LAN once or twice per week is inviting problems (overwriting files, copy errors etc.).

I'll post results here.

Hi Bruce,

How come they are changing customer numbers (or combining customers) twice per week? Wouldn't having a central person be responsible for adding customers minimize this duplication?

Hi Andrew:

For better or for worse, the Customer code indicates customer/store name (1st 3 characters) and the location (last 3 characters).

The stores experience a relatively large turnover of owners and thus name changes.

Hi Bruce

I can confirm that your experience is not unusual, and in fact is the norm, at least among my clients who use the product.

Regards

Steve

Bruce,

The process does take a while but it seems to be the same whether you do one change or 100 changes.

Hello:

In the interest of fairness, here is what I found when I tested Customer Number Change at the client site.

-70% of the time is spent on huge OE Log and OE Tax tables!
-Once I clear them, the process will be dramatically faster
-Even with those tables, the process only takes 30 minutes when run at the server
-As Kate said, the duration seems the same, regardless of the number of changes.