Splitting the Database - Suggestion
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I read with interest the other thread about splitting the DMS database and I'd like to make a suggestion to the Lacerte programming gurus (not sure if my many phone calls and feedbacks are getting through). Our DMS database is currently running at 43 GB in size - we have over 7000 clients in it. Not surprisingly, we've had problem after problem that the tech guys can't solve.I like the idea of splitting up the database but it is currently limited by the way the Lacerte tax programs handle the DMS files. When Lacerte tax (any year) prints to DMS, it looks at the DMS file settings on your workstation and it prints the file to the database last opened in DMS. This means that users are stuck with opening DMS, pointing to the desired database, going back to Lacerte, and printing the tax return. That's a royal pain and the point of DMS was to make it easy to store copies of the returns.Lacerte is only calling on DMS through two locations: the Print - Tax Return option from the menu and the shortcut link to DMS (which lets you print to DMS, create a client in DMS, or open DMS). The sections of code handling those functions cannot be very long and I'm willing to bet that they all call up DMS.INI to get the location of the DMS database. All the programmers would have to do is to replace the dms.ini references with a variable. Allow users to configure that variable to set a path to DMS in the same way they already do for the printers. And poof! We'd have multiple DMS database options. Just add one more variable in the database and one more table of items to store and cross-reference with User and Master Options.This would allow us to create a series of smaller databases based either on (1) letter groupings or (2) tax years. Most of us have preparers who get frustrated having to remember to uncheck the splash page for the new release letters! - the smoother the transition between getting the returns out of Lacerte Tax and into DMS, the happier we'll all be.And just FYI, I am aware that the reprogramming won't be a walk in the park, but it can be done. And it's time to start thinking about the future of DMS for Lacerte Tax users. Just look at our situation. We have four years of tax returns and clients in DMS right now and our database is at 43 GB. And, yes, we have many more clients than your average tax service with turnover up here. But just how long is it going to take before the others on this forum start getting databases to equal ours in size ... two years? three years? The time to deal with this issue is now before the clients with giant databases give up in frustration and turn to other document management systems.So, please, whoever is monitoring this forum, pass this idea on to the programmers. They've been amazingly helpful whenever I have spoken with them and I know they could manage this.Thanks!Tess
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I don't disagree with anything your saying and maybe your already aware of this. There is a section in Option-->Setup-->for "Complete Return-DMS". One of the settings is for the DMS Destination Folder.
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That only addresses where to put it once inside the database. However, the OP is referring to an easier way to make sure the files end up in the correct database, a problem most of us with split databases have to some degree.
My thought had been for a little database manager in the systray to chose which database is currently your "active" selection that print jobs will go into. The problems I foresaw were
(1) it would be nearly impossible for them to program icons for us to know at a glance where we were because some may use letters, years, or any number of other options that would be too long for an icon.
(2) such a feature to direct which database was active would likely incite them to make it so you can only run one copy of DMS at a time "to make it more in keeping with how other Intuit programs 'function'."
