For clarification, I will use SA for CA's older Sales Analysis and SR to describe Softrak's (i.e. the prefix of the data files).

1. Yes - to both questions.
Using SR's 'Scan' option, you can and should retrieve all the existing (older) SA data into SR. (Your older SA data should still be in your existing (live) database to be effective. All their files will start with 'SA', so please check this first.) From that point on, you will retrieve from OE only, using the 'Retrieve' option in SR to keep SR up to date. You should do this whenever you perform the Day End in OE, after having printed and cleared the Audit Lists.

2. Yes. Once you have retrieved data into SR, you can then produce reports or do online inquiries, as well as otherwise manipulate (edit) this data with our Sales Analysis. You should no longer need to use the older SA at all, and actually should be able to either rename or remove these older "SA" files from your data directory. Since you have a backup of them, this should not pose a problem.

To use the 'Scan' option to get the CA SA data into SR, from the main SR menu, choose:
3. Maintain Sales Analysis Data
1. Retrieve Sales Data
4. Scan Sales Data from Other Systems
2. Scan ACCPAC's Sales Analysis
You will then be able to enter a range of Customers and Dates that you wish to retrieve.

V6.5A of Softrak Sales Analysis now checks for duplicates when you use the Scan option to retrieve data. Especially if more historical data was kept in SA rather than OE, you would be best advised to retrieve your data from which ever one has the most history.

To 'Retrieve' the OE data after you have performed the OE Day End processing, from the main menu in SR, choose:
3. Maintain Sales Analysis Data
1. Retrieve Sales Data
1. Retrieve Sales Data from Order Entry
You will now be presented with a screen that says "You are about to retrieve Sales Data from Order Entry. You MUST perform a backup of your data prior to proceeding. Please confirm that a backup has been performed." Backup Performed or Exit.

Assuming you have already done a backup, after pressing Enter on the 'Backup Performed' option, you will be asked if you want to transfer data to Sales Analysis. At this time, of course, you should choose 'Transfer data' to retrieve the OE data into SR to complete the process. Once again, you will repeat this procedure each time you have completed your OE Day End.

(From your message, it sounds like you had fully updated the old CA SA FIRST (by completing the older version OE Day End, then retrieving the data into CA's SA at that time, to complete the whole procedure on 11/15/01) - THEN you upgraded your ACCPAC versions as well as installed the Softrak SA. If this is what you did, good! This is the correct procedure. This will ensure that all your older version product was up to date prior to installing newer versions.

I hope you enjoy Softrak Sales Analysis. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Regards
Softrak Support

In answer to your questions:

Q1) Softrak's Sales Analysis uses the "purging" of the invoice and credit note audit lists to make sure that sales information is not retrieved more than once. Nothing is written to SR until the information is purged from the report.

Q2)You're doing it right, but you might re-consider the decision to only print and purge this list once a month. Why not do it daily? You will minimize the possibility of double entries in Sales Analysis (a situation which is very difficult to fix), and the procedure is much faster than scanning the entire Order Entry database each time.

Q3) When you go into Sales Analysis, it will complain if its "data capture" module is not found in the Order Entry subdirectory. As a general rule, you should re-install any 3rd party modules after installing any ACCPAC Plus core modules.

Merry Christmas

Andrew Bates

[This message has been edited by Andrew Bates (edited 12-24-2001).]