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Using MS SQL for SalesLogix? A Collection of Helpful Links to Feature Pack Articles

March 29th, 2011 by Paul

SalesLogix MS SQL Articles I had this bright idea…. I could bring it all together in one blog.  See my attempt below at gathering links to several helpful articles for MS SQL deployment  to assist our  SalesLogix customers.  When deploying multiple servers,  with an on premise deployment of SalesLogix,  there is the need to ensure that the MS SQL Native Client is installed on the servers that are not the database server itself.  Here are the links to download the appropriate and corresponding SQL Native client and the related tools of the feature pack.

  1. First you need to identify the version of MS SQL Server that you are currently using.  Here is a helpful article by Microsoft to help.

How to identify your SQL Server version and edition

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321185

2.  Find the webpage with the corresponding Microsoft SQL Server Feature Pack link

MS SQL Server 2005 Links

MS SQL Server 2005 SP3 Feature Pack Link – 9.00.4035

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=536fd7d5-013f-49bc-9fc7-77dede4bb075&displaylang=en

MS SQL Server 2005 SP2 Feature Pack Link – 9.00.3042

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=50B97994-8453-4998-8226-FA42EC403D17&displaylang=en

MS SQL Server 2005 SP1 Feature Pack Link – 9.00.1399

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=d09c1d60-a13c-4479-9b91-9e8b9d835cdc&displaylang=en

MS SQL Server 2008 Links

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack – 10.00.1600.60

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=228DE03F-3B5A-428A-923F-58A033D316E1&displaylang=en

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Feature Pack – 10.50.1600.1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ceb4346f-657f-4d28-83f5-aae0c5c83d52

3.  Once the right page is found, you will need to scroll down the page to find the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client files.

Download the appropriate installation files for the bit edition of the client workstations (32 bit vs. 64 bit etc.)  The download file will be named (sqlncli.msi) for 32 bit or (sqlncli_x64.msi) for 64 bit edition.

4. Lastly, copy the file(s) to a shared installation point on the network.  A good tip is to place them in a well named folder and copy the link of the download URL as well.

I tend to create folder like ‘MS SQL SQL native client – 64 bit for MS SQL 2008 SP1′ so that when I come back to the folder later I will know what the folder means.

5. If you find that your version of MS SQL Server is not patched up, then you can take the time to plan to patch to the latest server pack that is on the compatibility list.  When you do that, make sure that you review your backup plans and patch the client computer and other server computers that have client connectivity back to the server.

How to obtain the latest service pack for SQL Server 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968382

This little article will help you find the links that you need to keep your installations updated and SalesLogix running smoothly.

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)

If you would like to learn more tips or have a CRM topic you would like us to write about please contact Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. in one of our Cincinnati/Dayton (OH), Charleston (WV), or Charlotte (NC) surrounding area office locations:

Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Ripley, WV Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
710 Random Rd.
Ripley, WV 25271
Phone: (304) 521-2387
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Charlotte, NC Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
3635 Eastover Ridge Drive
Charlotte, NC 28211
Phone: (704) 910-3872
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

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SalesLogix Spring Cleaning – End User Tasks

February 28th, 2011 by Janetta

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Spring is a great time to involve all your users in help cleaning up Sage SalesLogix.  Let’s consider some basic cleaning tasks by major entity:

Accounts – Some key fields at the Account entity are Type, Subtype, Industry, and Status.  Clean up your pick lists for each, lock down the pick lists for each,  and create some administrative groups to push out to your users where these fields are blank.  Be very specific about what fields are to be completed, the name of the Account Group, and give them a target date for completion.  Along with the key fields above, you should also encourage general address, phone number, and web address information be completed and updated.  Create some positive press on the project by sending out emails with updates on who has completed the tasks and/or what % of the tasks has been completed.  Ex.  75% of our Accounts are complete!

Contacts – The key fields for Contacts are Status and email.  Again, create the groups with missing information and set a timeline for completion. 

Opportunities – The key fields for updating Opportunities are Status, Close Date, Probability, and Opportunity Value (which is done by making sure the products and pricing are current).  If you are serious about using SalesLogix for forecasting these fields must be kept up to date and your users should be conditioned to update these fields on a regular basis.

Activities – Encourage users to update their scheduled Activities that are way out of date range.  You could create groups for Activities 90 days old, 6 months old, and 12 months old then suggest they reconnect with these Prospects, etc. 

When making a fire people like to join you, when cleaning the ashes you are often alone”  African Proverb

Interested in more on this topic?  - join us for the next Heartland SalesLogix Users Group

If you would like to learn more tips or have a CRM topic you would like us to write about please contact Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. in one of our Cincinnati/Dayton (OH), Charleston (WV), or Charlotte (NC) surrounding area office locations:

Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Ripley, WV Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
710 Random Rd.
Ripley, WV 25271
Phone: (304) 521-2387
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Charlotte, NC Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
3635 Eastover Ridge Drive
Charlotte, NC 28211
Phone: (704) 910-3872
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

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Dear Paul, should we give SalesLogix users the ability to delete?

January 17th, 2011 by Paul

An Administrator writes:

Dear Paul,

Are there any issues with giving a SalesLogix user the ability to delete ‘Contacts’  in the LAN client?

Answer:

There are two philosophies on how to do this.  The first is to create a policy and to keep the permissions as an Administration function or secondly to just provide the user with the capability.  There are pros and cons to both.

What I mean by policy is to add an item to the contact/account status pick list with a value of ‘Delete’.  Next, have the user provide a note explaining the reason on why it needs to be deleted or archived to team that only the admin user can access.  Then the Administrator can review a group based on the status field of delete on a periodic basis and take appropriate action.  Creates work on your part, but pretty easy.

If you provide the user the ability to delete contact, account, etc. (Administrator | user profile | Security tab and feature security tab to adjust the delete item menu access) then you will not have to monitor the group or take action.  But if the user deletes an account or contact by accident that is very important then you will need to restore a copy of the database with a new name.  Then use a tool called ‘Group Copy’ to bring the data back into the production database.  This takes time also and is a reactive way to manage your system.

I tend to prefer the first option of creating an admin policy.  It creates more maintenance work for me but is proactive data management.  It prevents headaches from data loss and working in emergency mode (reactive).

If you would like to learn more tips or have a CRM topic you would like us to write about please contact Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. in one of our Cincinnati/Dayton (OH), Charleston (WV), or Charlotte (NC) surrounding area office locations:

Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Ripley, WV Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
710 Random Rd.
Ripley, WV 25271
Phone: (304) 521-2387
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Charlotte, NC Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
3635 Eastover Ridge Drive
Charlotte, NC 28211
Phone: (704) 910-3872
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

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SalesLogix Group Copy is your friend

September 22nd, 2010 by Jim

As a SalesLogix Administrator, have you ever had a user come up to you and say…. “I accidentally deleted one of my Accounts.”?  I am sure this has happened to most of you at one point in your SalesLogix career.    When this happens, you have a couple of options.  You can go back and restore a copy of your database from the most recent backup, but how do you just get the deleted account and not have to restore the full database?  SalesLogix offers you a little known, but very powerful tool  to allow you to recover just the missing Account and any record related to the Account like Contacts, Opportunities, History items, Activities, etc….  It is called GroupCopy.  As the name implies, it copies a group of records from one database to another.  It is also Sync aware, which means that the record will get sent to all of your remote users without you having to do any additional work. So, if you have the deleted Account in another database, all is not lost.

There is a bit of work that needs to happen before you begin your restoration project.  You will need to restore the backup of your database to a new/separate database than your PRODUCTION database, very similar to creating a TEST database environment, the only real difference is this copy is only temporary until you get the deleted record restored.  Once the database is restored, you will need to create an entry in Connection Manager for the database and a DataLink connection for the database in SalesLogix Client application.  You will also need to create a group in the SalesLogix Client that contains the record you want to restore.  This group can be restricted to only include a single record or expanded to include a selection of records that you choose. For naming the group, make it something that you will easily remember like ‘Account Fix List’, ‘Fix Listing’, or something similar. That is all the prework that you need to do.

Located in the SalesLogix installation folder under Program Files is an executable called ‘GroupCopy.exe’.  When you run this executable, you are initially prompted to enter connectivity information to the Target database.

This is the database where you want your restored record to end up.  The next dialog box you are presented with allows you to select the Source database to connect to.

This is the database where the deleted record resides.  The next dialog box that displays, on the first tab, allows you to select the User that you created the group under and the group name itself, along with how often to commit records to the database and whether or not to show the details as the process is running.

The second tab allows you to set any conflict resolution that may need to occur.

The default settings for the information contained on this tab are usually sufficient.

Once you have your settings on both tabs correct, you are ready to Test the copy.  Clicking the ‘Test’ button runs the copy, running the necessary steps to copy the deleted record from the Source database to the Target database, and then rolling back the transactions.  After you have tested the copy, click the ‘Go’ button to run the actual copy job.  The end result will be your record that was deleted being restored to your PRODUCTION database.

As with everything, there are always a few caveats.  The first is you will lose any changes/updates that were performed by anyone to this record you are restoring after the last database backup was taken.  The next is that some of the record creation dates come over as the date the Group Copy was ran and not the actual creation date of the record (this is typically a minor issue and only happens in very isolated situations on stand-alone tables).

In conclusion, Group Copy is a very powerful tool that has a specific application in the SalesLogix world.  It has proven to be a lifesaver at our clients when the words …. “I accidently deleted one of my Accounts.” is spoken by a user.

If you would like to learn more tips or have a CRM topic you would like us to write about please contact Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. in one of our Cincinnati/Dayton (OH), Charleston (WV), or Charlotte (NC) surrounding area office locations:

Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Ripley, WV Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
710 Random Rd.
Ripley, WV 25271
Phone: (304) 521-2387
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

Charlotte, NC Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
3635 Eastover Ridge Drive
Charlotte, NC 28211
Phone: (704) 910-3872
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

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A small decision can save you a million headaches in life and SalesLogix!

July 13th, 2010 by Janetta

You know how in life you run into those small things where you wished you had slowed down to make a better decision… Like where to place the butter tub in the refrigerator, so it doesn’t fall out and bust all over the kitchen floor.  I can only hope this is resonating with some of you and you aren’t all the type who very strategically place your grocery items in their assigned quadrants in the fridge.  I work with some of you quadrant folks, but many of you will understand my perspective.

I know from experience there are plenty of you who have painstakingly planned, with your user departments, the best “pick lists” possible for all areas of SalesLogix.  Now, you wonder “how did that data get in there?” You forgot one very important step; way back in the beginning.  You forgot to lock down the pick list so the users could not add their own values. Maybe you didn’t know it was possible, maybe you thought by giving them so many choices they wouldn’t add their own, or maybe you thought it would be nice to provide your users that flexibility.  Whatever the reason … I bet most of you are second guessing your decision now.  I was working with a client in the Cincinnati, OH area last week, training them on building query groups in SalesLogix, and they were shocked at some of the values in their data.

We are talking about two tiny little checkboxes.  These two checkboxes will save you hours of frustration.  See below!   You need both ‘Text must match a list item” and “Users can not edit items” to fully lock down pick lists. The Picklist Manager can be found in the Administrative Client under Manage>Pick Lists:

Note:  The default setting for pick lists does allow users to Add items of their own (unchecked).

OK, so now you know to go back and lock down the pick lists,  but what about all that data you don’t want in your pick lists?  I have a good answer for you and another area of SalesLogix to explore in this article.  There is a SalesLogix maintenance tool called “Replace Data” that can help get your data back under control.  This menu is available through the Sales Client, as an administrative user, from the Tools>Manage>Replace Data menu option.

Use the Replace Data Wizard to replace one or more values with another value in the ACCOUNT, CONTACT, or OPPORTUNITY tables. You can only replace data in accounts, contacts, and opportunities to which you have access rights. The Replace Data Wizard works with the current account, contact, or opportunity group.

The first screen of the replace data wizard prompts you to choose which type of records to update (Account, Contact or Opportunity).

The next decision is the type of data replacement to perform on the current group

The last screen prompts for a target field and value. If you have chosen a replacement type that requires more input values (search and replace, for example) this is where you will be prompted for those as well.

*Simplesoft Solutions recommends that all of the actions described in this post be performed by and limited to Administrative SLX Users.

If your SalesLogix data cleansing  job is bigger than you can handle, contact us a sales@simplesoft.net to discuss the data cleansing services we provide at Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.

Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net

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4 Key Essentials to Train and Reinforce in Sage SalesLogix

March 31st, 2010 by Janetta

As a Sage Certified Trainer, I have worked with many companies to train end users.  I have learned some important patterns to be taught and reinforced for continued success of CRM within an organization.   When I do pre-planned follow-up refresher training with companies, I can tell how well the following items have been incorporated as best practices for Sage SalesLogix while working with the users.

1.  How to enter new (unique) Accounts/Contacts following your company’s business rules. Notice I said unique not duplicates!

2.  How to record Sales activities, either scheduled or unscheduled, as History in Sage SalesLogix. By the way, I didn’t say enter “notes” in Sage SalesLogix.  A small but high impact decision I see users make is using the “add note” feature instead of recording the activity properly as a phone call or meeting. These notes do not show up as completed sales activities when running activity reports out of SalesLogix.  It is the small things that matter over time!

3.  How to record e-mails to History in Sage SalesLogix. This is extremely powerful integration yet an under utilized feature of Sage SalesLogix for newbies. I think a misconception may exist with untrained  users that they somehow lose an e-mail item from their Outlook sent items. This is simply not true. I also see an over dependence on Outlook; somehow people believe it is a CRM. Users must learn to trust Sage SalesLogix to record these e-mails and then how to quickly filter and search for something in the Notes/History area.

4.  How to keep data clean and update records to match your business processes. What happens when an Account goes out of business or a Contact leaves an Account? Do your users know what you expect them to do with the record to reflect those changes? Communicate often with your users and develop groups for them to meet goals and expectations,  like those Contacts with no e-mails, etc.

Call us to discuss Sage SalesLogix training and ways to reinforce best practices in the use of Sage SalesLogix.  Just like in sports, it is important to understand the fundamentals and drill them often to form automatic habits.

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