Unfortunately, the ACCPAC Plus data dictionaries are copied into the ASP\DATADICT folder during the installation process - there is no 'shortcut'. I don't know if you can copy them from the install diskettes or not.

It could be that the IC data dictionaries themselves are not the ones that are corrupt, but others that QL attempts to initialize before getting to the IC data dicts.

To see if this is true, you could try this 'shortcut' to see if you are more successful:
1. Create a new folder
2. Copy all the data dicts from the ASP\DATADICT folder into the new folder
3. Remove all but the IC data dicts from the original ASP\DATADICT folder
4. Open QL and try to initialize your data now

If this works, then the problem was with another module's data dictionaries, not IC's.

To find out which ones are problematic, you can gradually add (copy) the original data dicts from the new folder into the ASP\DATADICT folder, initialize in QL and repeat until you find the culprit, then just remove the faulty ones and re-install that module only.

NOTE: QL is not compatible with GL 7.0. This version of GL does not come with data dictionaries and you will not be able to use QL for your GL if you are using GL V7.0.

Hope this helps!

Take care,

Here are some hints to enable you to troubleshoot this.

- The AIMBIND error occurs typically because of an existing Dynaview dictionary in the \ASP\DATADICT directory being either corrupted or old. For example, I have heard of OE dictionaries being invalid.

- When you run the Initialize function in Quik Link, these dictionaries in \ASP\DATADICT are read and converted to new files, which are copied to the data directory. You will see these files containing '@' characters in the file name (for example, ICITEM@@.dat). There will also be some other files created, with file names of 8 '@' characters.

- It is those created files above that are listed when you attempt to create a new link in Quik Link. Should those files have not been created successfully, that would explain why you don't see anything displayed.

Therefore, you have to be able to run Initialize against your data directory (with no errors) and get those files with '@' in their names to be created to run Quik Link.

Some things to try:
- When you Initialize the data, you can change the settings. Click that button, and in the Application drop-down field, choose 'ic' instead of '??'. This will only bind the IC dictionaries instead of all of them.
- You may have to first remove/delete all of the files in your data directory that have the format of *@.* so that the Initialize function can be preformed 'fresh'.
- You may have to remove some of the files in the \ASP\DATADICT directory to enable the process to work correct. For example, since a couple of OE dictionaries are known to have problems, you may have to remove all the files in this directory that start with 'oe'.

I was able to get my IC dictionaries to initialize as expected with Quik Link and IC6.5A on Office 2000. It will work; we probably just haven't found the specific piece of the puzzle yet.

Take care,

I'm glad we at least got past the AIMBIND errors.

Note that for Quik Link to initialize correctly for IC dictionaries, the unbound dicts must exist in \ASP\DATADICT. Do you see files such as ICITEM@@.@@@ or other files that start with IC and have an @@@ file extension? If not, then that would explain why AP/AR dictionaries are available, but IC is not.

If you do have those files (which are installed by Accpac Plus IC), then you might try one or both of the following:

1) Delete the file @@@@@@@@.ic in your data directory and try the reinitialize again from Quik Link. This file is created by Quik Link and used only by QL, so this will not harm anything else.

2) Delete the IC*.@@@ files from \ASP\DATADICT, reinstall Accpac Plus IC (to put them back) and try the Quik Link initialize again. Just in case something happened to the unbound dictionary files.

Take care,

The IC****@@.dat files are created upon successful initialization of the data by QL. That is why you did not see them after you reinstalled IC - you had not re-initialized the data yet.

For the monthly sales, normally this information is better taken from OE (or Sales Analysis), as IC has limited options available for reporting on sales. However, if you are using QL to pull information on Sales from IC, the ICITEM dictionary is the one that contains information for the different periods.

If the numbers differ from your stats in Sales Analysis, then it will take some investigation as to why they differ.

On the line items in question, what exact fields are the ones showing the negative values in the Excel workbook? Are these in fact the same fields that are displaying different results in SA?

Are you using Computer Associate's SA or Softrak's - what version and release date?

What type of report are you using in Sales Analysis to compare with your QL results in Excel? Did you create the SR report from scratch, or are you using one of the ones that came with the program? Does the SA Online Inquiry give you the same results?

What fields from which data dictionary are you using in QL?

Without specific information, it will be hard to determine exactly why you are seeing a difference. It could be missing transactions in one or the other dataset, or perhaps edited Sales figures in IC or possibly the Sales 'periods' in IC do not match those defined in your SA report.

These are the types of things to look for. It will be hard to determine what the actual cause is from this forum, but we can try. You may actually need to consult a Dealer on this.

Regards

Good luck with your efforts in regards to QuikLink and reinstallation.

In response to your other information about SA:
I see, you are using CA's version of Sales Analysis - it does not have an 'Online Inquiry'. (We were not sure if you were using CA's or Softrak's SA.) In this case, instead of using the 'report #4', you could always try creating your own report in SA to see if this helps with the numbers. I am not familiar with CA's product, so can't really provide much support in this area.

I still believe that the discrepancies between the two types of figures is due to the IC data and OE/AR figures not coinciding. To do a fair comparison, perhaps using QL to extract data from OE and/or AR to compare with your SA information would be more useful. In that way at least, you are working with the same data, and you can go from there.

Take care,

The most common reason for a discrepency between numbers on a Sales Analysis report and the monthly sales in Inventory Control, is that the sales analysis report will allocate sales to the period in which they were made (it will be date sensitive), but Inventory Control does not work this way. Thus, if you sell an item on an invoice dated last month, sales analysis will show the sale as occurring last month, but Inventory Control will record the sale in the current month. You will find it difficult (if not impossible) to reconcile these numbers. Rick Lee's Inventory Tools solves this problem.