Keeping in Touch
Getting the Most from Your Sage MAS 90 / 200 Investment 
September 2009, Issue 22
Newsletter Contents
Crystal Report Printing - DataLink Viewer
Visual CUT
How Can I Speed Up Sage MAS 90 / 200?
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Greetings!
Summer's over and it's time to get focused on getting the benefits of your technology investment!
 
This month, we have focused our newsletter on a few software tools (add-ons) that we are working with that could have a broader appeal, as well as providing some insights into the often asked question, "How can I speed up MAS 90?"
 
As always, we value your feedback on our monthly newsletters.  Click here to let us know how we're doing.
 
Cystal Report Printing - DataLink Viewer
Perhaps you have created many Crystal Reports and you want your users to be able to run the reports, but do not want to give them their own full working version of Crystal Reports  (FYI, your Sage MAS 90 / 200 software is shipped with a 2 user license of Crystal Reports).
 
Millet Software has created a tool which will allow a user to view, print and export a Crystal Report (with the ability to specify parameters, etc).  Users no longer need to have the full working version of Crystal Reports to print a report.
 
The license cost per user ranges from $25 to $7.50 -- depending on the number of user licenses purchased.
 
Click here to access Millet Software's DataLink Viewer website. 
 
 
Visual CUT

Recently, we found a new software, Visual CUT, which has the ability to generate a Crystal Report and email the results to the specified users.  The report and email are generated 'unattended' so no user involvement is necessary. 

Click here to see the Visual CUT website.  There is a 25 minute video describing how it all works.  It is WAY cool!  It's only US$300 and includes the first year of maintenance.
 
Here are some applications that might be of interest to you:
  • generate an AR Aged Invoice Report each week and email to the Salesperson for followup
  • generate an Inventory Valuation Report at month end and email to the Inventory Manager
  • send a summary of sales orders received each day at 5pm to the General Manager

Crystal Reports can be used to create a report from a spreadsheet, Access database, or your Sage MAS 90 / 200 database.  The Visual CUT software works with many versions of Crystal Reports, so there is less restriction.

Visual CUT allows the report to be sent in PDF or Excel format (other common formats are also available).
 
If you have any questions, please click here to let us know.
 
How Can I Speed Up Sage MAS 90 / 200?
This month's support topic is centered around the often asked question, "How can I speed up Sage MAS 90 / 200?"
 
The most common reason that Sage MAS 90 / 200 may have some speed performance issues is because of your anti-virus software.  Using a 'personal' version of an anti-virus software is not recommended; corporate/network editions of anti-virus programs are known to be more robust for business applications.
 
You should configure your anti-virus software to exclude the following file extensions:  SOA, M4T, M4L, M4P, M4D, PVC, LIB, RPT, XEQ, DD, DDE, and DDF.
 
If your anti-virus software has the ability to enable/disable network file scanning, this feature should be disabled.  Network files are normally scanned as part of the server anti-virus protection, and so if the user also scans the files, this would be redundant (read - unnecessary and slowing the system down!).  For both versions you may want to disable local memory resident scanning and other advanced options which could slow performance.
 
For additional information on anti-virus products, please consult your hardware supplier.
 
If you have an online support account with Sage, you can search for the keywords "slow performance" in the Sage Support knowledgebase for other ideas to help speed up your Sage MAS 90 / 200 system.
 
 
We look forward to your feedback and your ideas for future issues of our newsletter.  If you would like to contribute an article to a future newsletter, we'd love to have your contribution.  Please let us know how we can help you Get the Most from Your Sage MAS 90 / 200 Investment.
 
Sincerely,
 
    Shabnam and Robert