When working with an assistant or others that share an office and/or a local area network (LAN), it is helpful to be able to use the same data, without having to have each person maintain his or her own copy of the database, which leads to data duplication and error.
Fortunately, RealAgent Accelerator makes this a snap through the use of the built-in Network Database Wizard.
To begin the process of setting up your database for network use, click the Tools menu and choose Options. Then click the Network tab:
The database has two modes:
Use Local Database (Default) - this is the way RealAgent Accelerator is configured out-of-the-box. This setting means you will use a "local" database, on your computer's hard drive, and nobody but yourself will have access to it.
Use Network Database - select this option to use a Networked Database. You can setup and connect to a database on any shared network drive or folder, and any number of people can connect to this database.
Please note: networked database performance depends on the number of people connecting to it, and the type of data operations that are performed. While you can likely connect many people to the same RealAgent Accelerator data, we recommend that you limit the number of users to no more than 10.
When you select 'Use Network Database', two buttons are enabled:
New Network Database File or Connect to Existing Network Database File
New Network Database File - if you are creating a new networked database file (either your first one, or a new one), click this button to start the Network Database Setup Wizard:
On this screen, choose whether your new networked data should contain a copy of your existing data, or start from scratch with a blank database. If you would like others to be able to connect and see the data you've already inputted into the program, choose the first option.
Click Next to continue.
Now you are prompted to create the networked database file. Click Create and browse to where the data will be stored - then click Save. This should be a common location that everyone who will be using the database has full access to - both read and write access. This can be a common network folder, or shared drive, etc. Contact us for more information, or consult with your system administrator to choose a suitable location for the RealAgent Accelerator database.
Click Next to continue.
Click Finish to complete the Wizard, and click OK to close the Options screen - you will have to re-start RealAgent Accelerator.
Connect to Existing Network Database File - if you have already ran the Network Database Wizard and set up an existing networked database, you can re-connect to it using this button. This is also the button for other people to use to be able to connect to a networked database that you've already set up.
Click this button and browse to the existing database resides. Select it and click Open.
RealAgent Accelerator will be linked to the existing database when you restart the program - click OK to close the Options screen and restart.