Upgrade guide

Good day to you,

We have the following releases installed with about lanpacks for good for 5 users.

Adagio Invoices – 8.0A (061101)
Adagio Receivables – 8.0B (061213)
Adagio Ledger – 8.0D (061013)
Adagio Payables – 8.0A (060626)

We have finally upgraded our network and exchange servers and now I can finally turn my attention to Adagio - something which is long overdue!

Is there an upgrade guide somewhere?

In these days of taught belts I am trying to keep support hours down.

Thanks in advance!

The Release Notes for each of the modules (and their upgrades) generally describe what has changed and things to look out for.

However, there are enormous changes between AR 8.0B and 9.0A, and Ledger 8.0D and 9.0C, so I wouldn't recommend trying to do these upgrades on your own.

For a taste of the changes, you could copy your data to a local drive, install the upgrades locally and convert the data, then make sure that everything is still working the way you expect (especially forms such as statements and invoices).

You have a bit of reading ahead of you.

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I have read my way through the fundamentals and have proceeded to do a local installation - the goal being to work my way through the problems and changes etc that we would be looking at.

I uninstalled all the previous stuff on my local computer gave my computer a boot and then installed Ledger 9.0...

I pointed the installation to my local drive and fired it up only to find it was talking about 0 lanpacks ...

So, I went through the registration process but alas I still cannot ruin this test bed..

I have the weekend to work my way through the actual data and as such any help in getting me going would be very much appreciated.

Thank and,

Cheers, JK

Hi, John,

If you are installing on a local workstation to test a new product only with a copy of your data, you shouldn't require lanpaks as you will be running locally and will be the only user running a module.

Are you saying you cannot get into Ledger 9 at all? Do you receive any error message(s)? If so, please provide the complete error message. As well, exactly when does the error occur (eg. before or after you get to a logon screen or when you click Open)?

Thank you for posting up!

The exact error message is: All Adagio Lanpak Licenses (0) are already in use. This application cannot be started.

Cheers, JK

Hi John,

Adagio does not require a Lanpak for the first time you start any Adagio program. Attempting to get a second user into the same program, or attempting to start a second instance of the same program on the workstation, will require a lanpak license.

If you don't have any Lanpaks installed, then you should be able to start Adagio Ledger or any other program once. If you cannot, then the system thinks that you already have the program open and are trying to open it a second time.

If you do have Lanpaks installed, they may be too old. Adagio Ledger 90A requires a certain minimum version of a Lanpak and yours may be older. Run the ChkSys.exe utility from the \softrak\system directory and when the initial check has been performed, click the Lanpak Status button to see which Lanpak versions (if any) you have installed. The error message you posted indicated that either none are installed or they are too old to be recognized.

Ensure your shortcut is pointing to the correct program directory. If it was installed locally, it probably will be in the C:\softrak\ledger folder and the program name is ledger.exe. This is different than older versions of Ledger where the directory and program name was alwin.

John:

I've seen this once before under simular circumstances. We never did figure out what was going on. In that case they were just trying to us a copy of the existing program and data to do some testing so I suggested that they just use the regular ADagio install on the database copy.

In your case you want a local install of the upgrades so this is not going to solve your problem. My best guess is that this issue has something to do with the fact that Adagio sees both the regular install of Adagio on the server and the local install, causing confusion over where it should be looking for the lanpak's.

Best suggestion I can make is to find a standalone workstation that's never seen Adagio before. Install the current versions there and do your testing,etc.

Hi Tech support,
Hi Doug,

Doug, what you say rings a bell in my ear.

I will proceed on that path and post up.

Cheers, JK

Hi Doug,

I just rolled out Ledger to a pristine computer and got the exact same result.

Oddly enough, the installer found the network instllation M:\softrak!

So, my guess is that this has to be rolled out to a stand alone computer not connected to the lan ...

Cheers, JK

By default, Adagio will select a network drive if one is found.

If you choose to do a 'Custom' install instead of a 'Standard' install, then you can pick the location of the programs. You don't have to disconnect a workstation from the LAN.

Hi,

I did the custom install so that I would not overwrite the M:\Softrak folder..

Any other ideas?

Cheers, JK

Delete ADSPROF.xxx from your data folder in the "play area" NOT on your network.

Start your play version of Adagio and point to your "play area" and when asked answer C:\Softrak\System for the Currency and Task locations

Thanks, that is probably the piece I needed...

ok, great, I'e got it all up and running on a detached notebook.

When I go to install the lanpacks on the network does anyone have any suggestions? - we have the older stuff.. - much older...

Cheers, JK

Oops!

I forgot to say thank you for the help...

Cheers, JK

You really do need to get your dealer involved. You are headed towards a world of hurt! I don't believe that the detail knowledge required for a successful update of Adagio can be provided piece meal through this forum.

Odd. I tried Michael's suggestion at the other site we had this issue without any joy.

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your concern - it is appreciated.

I just finished migrating 3 domain controllers and upgrading the schema on our domain - all mission critical systems with no outages.

We also just finished an Exchange 2003 to 2007 migration so we are accustomed to large technical tasks and trust me, Microsoft has it's own quirks!

I appreciate the value of having a dealer and will probably get him involved once we are ready to push the button but first I need to know and understand the issues myself that way we can also get out of situations whenever they arise.

Also by doing this we will have the a clean house for when the cleaner (the dealer) arrives!

Again, thank you and,

Cheers, JK

Hi gents,

Regarding our upgrade I am considering wiping the current installation and starting from a clean plate rather than upgrading (not the data of course, we will keep that!).

My thinking is that this is a good opportunity to get a clean start and considering how far back we are, why not.

The lanpaks are still somewhat of a mystery to me as we currently on the old ones LANPAK Version: 6.8A (030307) and I am not sure how these will work with the new ones ergo my desire for a clean slate.

My thoughts are to uninstall everything from everywhere and wipe the SOFTRAK folder (actually I'll save it off to the the side) and then start fresh including the new lanpaks.

Any feedback would be welcome!

Cheers, JK

Given that I've upgraded many sites like yours, that have been on Adagio from the begining, without wiping out the existing install in the process I have my doubts about the value of doing so.

Of course there is always the exceptions to the rules, having said that, over the years there have been a couple of sites where we have had wipe out one module and do a freash full install as this module was having issues.

As for the Lanpak issue I suspect that Softrak has changed the way Adagio looks for program installs. Even though you have installed locally the program sees the install on the server and this results in an expectation that there should be a Lanpak. The $64,000 question ends up being, "what will happen to the live site (that needs the older Lanpak) if I install the newer one locally for my test install?". Sorry, I don't have the answer to that question, likely neither does Softrak.


Hense my suggestion to do this on a virgin workstation that is not (has not been) connected to the server.

A new lanpak can be used by an old program, but an old lanpak cannot be used be a new program.

Installing Adagio locally on a station not connected to a network should work fine. It's how I run my laptop when I'm not in the office.

Hi Doug and thank you for your reply.

We have a disconnected workstation with local copies of all the databases which have all been converted succesfuuly and users for each company have tested all processes and things are good to go.

The only show stopper is that the software does not import the file format kicked out by the old Property Manager for DOS. Go figure!!! - there goes the 80s!

We are able to import batches manually through the import process but these are not pre-read and offered as pending batches.

I've looked at the files (and contents) and ponder what few bytes of data is read and how it is to be presented in order to appear in said list.

I tried looking at one of the files exported from AP, AR but didn't see the commonality...

Regardless, thank you for your ongoing support and,

Cheers, JK

What are you expecting to import from Property Manager? GL batches? Invoices (AR or AP)?

Hi Andrew,

The old Property Manager for DOS exports AR (billings, adjustments cash receipts) which we used to import into Adagio Ledger.

I looked at the file created by the old propery manager and is not a txt file but rather some sort of binary file....

Did you guys remove that import option from the menu but leave it somewhere in the background???

Thank you amd,

Cheers, JK

John:

Nothing has changed. By 'import';

If you are referring to the import function under the file menu, it's still there.

If you mean the 'retrieval function' maybe there is nothing in your test data to retrieve. The retrieve function only displays data that is available to retrieve.

John:

If option a (an actual import) then your database conversion lost your import template. You'll need to reference the unconverted data, find the template, and then replicate it in the converted data.

John:

Are you saying that:
1) You used to Retrieve the Property Mgr files
2) Now you can only Import them
3) The files are now in text format?

Note that Retrieve and Import are different processes.

When an application (AP, AR, BR, Property Manager) creates a file that can be Retrieved into the GL, it creates the file in a format that cannot be read by an external application (though GridView can read it). That's the file you loooked at. It is not a text file.

It sounds as if Property Manager is no longer creating files for Retrieval, only for Import. I haven't looked at the application for years but check to see if something has changed there. It's not Adagio in this case!

Good afternoon gents,

Thank you everyone for posting up.

When opening Ledger we used to see the Property Manager files ready to be retrieved.

The file is (I think) called GLPMBTCH.xxx and I copied it to the new folder where the new data and new software is being tested but the new software does not find the file...

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Cheers, JK

Hi, John,

You've upgraded your Adagio Ledger from 8.0D to 9.0C. I'm not familiar with the Property Manager program but it may not be creating a batch file that is compatible with GL9.

There may also need to be a batch resource file, possibly named pmbrscal.xxx (where 'xxx' is their 3-character data extension) for the retrieve to complete.

Hi tech support,

Looking at the other files that do get the famous "Retrieve" option I noted APGLBATCH.xxx.

The file had 0 bytes so, I renamed PMGLBTCH.xxx to APGLBTCH.xxx and lo and behold - the file appeared as an AP version 6.5 file...

What is the mechanism that is used to tell Ledger what files to look for?

Cheers, JK

It's a batch resource file that gets created by the sub-ledger application (ie Property Manager). The name of the file will be ??BRSCGL.xxx where ?? is the 2 character designation of the application - or PM for Property Manager. So you need to have a PMBRSCGL.xxx file in your data directory (where GL is) in order for Ledger to be able to locate the PMGLBTCH.xxx file.

Property Manager should create this file in the data directory. Do you keep the Ledger data in the same place as the PM data, or in different places? If not, you might have to load PM with the GL data in the directory in order for that file to be created, and then copy it to the location where your GL data is.

Note that Adagio Ledger 9.0A-C versions 'prefer' to look for files that use 'AL' in the retrieval file names instead of 'GL' because the structure is different and has more stuff. Property Manager will never do this. Adagio Ledger 9.0x should continue to look for and retrieve 'GL' batches as well as 'AL' batches.

You should be able to copy PMBRSCGL.LD4 from your PMASP folder ( if that is the DOS folder for Property Manager ) to your data folder and rename so that the extension is the same as your data.

This presumes that your PM data files are with the rest of yor Adagio data.

Good day everyone,

I would like to thank everyone for the help I received.

This is not a task I would recommend the average every day user attempt as complexity does play a part.

I have finished the migration and the day is mostly over and we have had no difficulties.

There was a total of about 10 workstations and 6 companies and the process worked very well.

I must say that the workstation install is very slick!

Thank you and,

Cheers, JK