Page 1 of 1

Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 8:11 pm
by kdabb
When I install MLS on an alternate church owned computer then restore from the stake backup I cannot access finance data. It would be extremely helpful to be able to have a workaround to make finance data accessible on an alternate installation of MLS without having to synchronize.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 8:22 pm
by lajackson
kdabb wrote:When I install MLS on an alternate church owned computer then restore from the stake backup I cannot access finance data. It would be extremely helpful to be able to have a workaround to make finance data accessible on an alternate installation of MLS without having to synchronize.
The MLS database runs on only one computer. MLS is not programmed to have an alternate installation. Finance data cannot be accessed on a different computer until that computer becomes the computer that will be used henceforth.

It would lead to quite some confusion if there were more than one computer able to adjust the membership and financial databases. Things would get out of sync quite quickly and the data would no longer be reliable.

I believe the move to online functions currently preformed by MLS will allow the kind of access you desire. In the meantime, finance data is only obtained from the current (and sole) database.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 8:58 pm
by gregwanderson
Just to be clear: I believe that past versions of MLS allowed for "alternate installations" so maybe you thought you could still do it. But for quite some time now (more than a year?) MLS has NOT allowed more than one active installation per unit. So don't try it. It'll just mess things up and/or it won't work at all (as you seem to have discovered). Do NOT expect a workaround unless and until those MLS functions are made available "in the cloud."

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 10:08 pm
by Mikerowaved
mrrad wrote:Just to be clear: I believe that past versions of MLS allowed for "alternate installations" so maybe you thought you could still do it. But for quite some time now (more than a year?) MLS has NOT allowed more than one active installation per unit.
I've been with MLS since it was first rolled out and I can say with confidence that MLS has never allowed for any such alternate active installations.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:45 pm
by russellhltn
Mikerowaved wrote:I've been with MLS since it was first rolled out and I can say with confidence that MLS has never allowed for any such alternate active installations.
It was never designed to, but until recently, they didn't have code that actively blocked it.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 7:36 am
by drepouille
I noticed a few months ago that the restore function now asks if you are restoring the MLS data to a primary or alternate computer. I had no idea what it was talking about, because I had never seen that message before while doing a restore. It must be a relatively new feature.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:27 pm
by lajackson
Mikerowaved wrote:I've been with MLS since it was first rolled out and I can say with confidence that MLS has never allowed for any such alternate active installations.
Keyword, "active". For a long time you could take a backup to another computer and work on finances or membership, with the understanding that you could not transmit and your changes would not be saved. Then CUBS came out.

Even in those early years, there never really was a good reason to do it, other than perceived convenience. And when you discovered things that really needed to be changed, you had to go back to the real installation to do them. It just made for a handy reference and planning tool that quickly became obsolete due to old data.

Re: Finance Synchronization on alternate installation

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 4:12 pm
by gregwanderson
lajackson wrote:Keyword, "active". For a long time you could take a backup to another computer and work on finances or membership, with the understanding that you could not transmit and your changes would not be saved. Then CUBS came out.
Thanks for the clarification. That's what I meant. :) Although I never tried to do more than one installation I remembered people here commenting about having data on more than one computer. So I suspect some people have regularly kept data on more than one computer (in the distant past) and that's why someone started this topic--because they'd heard about doing it and wanted to be able to do it now. Maybe they didn't just invent the idea themselves.