· Synchronize
First Look Pro’s Synchronization tools make it easy for you to keep your First Look Pro preplans up-to-date on every computer on your network. Synchronization is always set up and performed at the Client computers. When you initiate a synchronize, either manually or through the scheduler, any changes that have been made in First Look Pro on the Master computer are brought down to that Client and any changes that have been made on that Client are pushed up to the Master. This process can then be repeated on each First Look Pro Client on your network. The Schedule feature lets you schedule all the clients to synchronize as much as once each day, automatically.
The first step in synchronization is to properly establish the relationship between the Master First Look Pro installation and the Clients. This is normally done during the initial set up of First Look Pro on each computer. You can also change the Master/Client status and replicate a master database on the Setup option of the Synchronization tool. Once you have the correct Master/Client relationships established, you can synchronize any changes made to the database on any computer.
Hints! For synchronization to be effective, timing is critical! If, since the last synchronization, the same record has been edited on two different computers, the changes that were made most recently will overwrite the older edits. The rule is always that the “last edits win.” For this reason, it’s highly recommended that you synchronize frequently to prevent any conflicts. You may want to check the clocks on all your Clients and the Master to make sure they are set to the same time. Having clocks be significantly different across the network can lead to information that is more recent actually being overwritten by older data.
It’s also recommended that you avoid editing the same record on two different computers. If you prefer to edit records on the Clients, you may want to have each Client be responsible for a particular group of occupants to prevent editing of any record on two computers.
When to Synchronize
It’s a good idea to synchronize whenever significant changes are made to the database that you would not want to lose. This is especially the case if edits are being made in First Look Pro on multiple computers. That increases the chance that the same record could be changed on two different computers, meaning some of those changes could be overwritten and lost!
Think of synchronization like saving a document or other file that you have just edited. Whenever you make some changes that you don’t want to lose, synchronize them. Synchronization is fast, even with a large database, so there is no reason to wait. The other alternative is to use the Schedule option to have synchronization performed automatically at a certain time. However, this does not prevent losing changes if the same record is edited on more than one computer.
Selecting Synchronize from the Database Tools menu makes three options available: Manual, Schedule, and Setup.
Manual
The Manual option allows you to synchronize this Client’s First Look Pro database with its current Master. The synchronization is two way. This means changes made to records on the Client computer since the last synchronization will be pushed up to the Master and changes made on the Master database since the last synchronization will be pulled down to the Client.
The name of the currently selected synchronization Master is shown near the top-left of the window. If this is not the master with which you wish to synchronize, use the Setup option to select a different master.
To manually synchronize your changes, first select “Get Changed Records”. The list will be updated to show all the records that have changed since the last synchronization. By default, all the records are selected to be synchronized. If there are particular records that you do not wish to synchronize at this time, you can click in the Select box on the left side of the list to unselect those records. You may wish to choose not to synchronize particular records if you know that synchronizing could cause more up-to-date information to be overwritten.
Warning! If there is a conflict, and a particular record has been changed on both computers, the most recently changed record is what will be kept when you synchronize. For example, suppose a particular record was changed yesterday on the Client computer to add Hazmat data (but not synchronized) and today on the Master computer to add a new contact. As soon as you synchronize, the changed record will be pulled down from the Master and it will OVERWRITE the hazmat changes that were initially made on the Client!
When you are satisfied with the record selection, click “Synchronize Selected”. A note in the lower left tells you the number of records that successfully synchronized. Each time you synchronize, a text log is created that gives more details of the records affected. Click “Show Sync Log” to open this log in your text editor of choice.
Schedule
The Schedule option allows you to schedule automatic synchronization between the current computer and it’s Master. If you have more than one First Look Pro Client installation, you must go to each of those Clients and set up their synchronization schedule individually.
To schedule automatic synchronization of a Client, select Schedule from the Synchronization Management screen. The current Sync Master and the last Sync Date is shown. Click to select the day or days when you want to synchronize this Client with the Master. Select the time when you want to synchronize. Both computers must be turned on at the specified time for the synchronization to be successful. Check “Enable Scheduled Synchronization” and close the Synchronization Management window.
Once the Synchronization Management window is closed, a task is created in the Windows Scheduled Tasks program. You can access this program from the Windows Control Panel. At the specified time, any changed records will automatically be synchronized with the Master. This synchronization will continue at that time until you choose to stop it by clicking “Enable Scheduled Synchronization” again to turn it off.
Note, that when you schedule synchronization to take place automatically, there is no opportunity to review records and choose particular records to not be synchronized. All changed records are always synchronized and the most recently updated record is the one that is kept.
Due to the time and computer resources it can take, we recommend that you do not schedule all of the Clients to synchronize at exactly the same time. For example, you may want to schedule all of the Clients to synchronize on the same day, but at 10 minute intervals.
Setup
Be very careful about using any of the options on the Synchronization Setup screen! These options can make drastic changes to your First Look Pro data and to the way the computers on your network synchronize data.
When you install First Look Pro and run it for the first time, a setup wizard will walk you through how to configure that computer for synchronization. These Setup Options allow you to later change how the synchronization is set up.
Make Master
Select this option if you want THIS computer to become the First Look Pro Master for your network. You then must go to all the First Look Pro Client computers and use the “Select Master” option to point them to this new Master. Be sure to go to the old Master and use Select Master to change it to a Client, setting it up to synchronize with the new Master!
It is possible to set up more than one Master First Look Pro database on your network, but it is not recommended. Since synchronization can only be initiated by the Clients, there is currently no way to synchronize the records between multiple Masters so changes made on those computers may be lost. Future versions of First Look Pro may allow you to establish multiple Masters and set particular Clients to synchronize with each Master, but that capability is not available at this time.
Replicate
This option causes the First Look Pro database currently on the computer to be completely replaced with the database on the Master computer. You may want to perform a replicate when setting up a completely new installation of First Look Pro, or if the data on a Client has somehow been entered incorrectly. If changes were made previously on this Client computer that you wish to keep, be sure to do a complete synchronization first. Any changes that were made in First Look Pro on this computer, that have not been synchronized, will be lost!
Select Master
Use this option to select the Master that you wish to use for synchronizing the First Look Pro database on this computer. You may need to do this if you decide to move your First Look Pro Master database to a different computer.
Creating A New First Look Pro Master
There are several steps to perform if you want to successfully create a new First Look Pro Synchronization Master. For example, let’s say you have a purchased a new computer to be your network server and you want to move the First Look Pro Master database to this server. Follow these steps:
1) Install First Look Pro 4 on your new server and launch First Look Pro. The first time you run the program, you can choose to make that installation a database Master. (If, for some reason, you did not set up this new installation to be a Master, you can also do that with the Make Master option on the Synchronization Setup screen.)
2) Next, change the “old” master to be a client by setting it to use the “new” master for synchronizing. This insures there is no confusion later by there being two masters on the network.
A) Go to the computer you previously used as your Master and launch First Look Pro.
B) From Edit Mode, select Database Tools and select Synchronize.
Click the Setup button.
C) Click Select Master.
This searches your network for all database masters and should find your new server.
D) Click on the name of the new server, check “Yes”, then click Commit.
3) Then, go to each of your First Look Pro Client computers and launch First Look Pro. Use the same “Select Master” procedure (described in step 2) on each client to set them up to use the new master for synchronizing.
