Tips and Tricks – Page 9 – Schulz Consulting

Error 20 SY_MEMOHANDLER_BUS.PVC Line 469: When trying to delete AR Customer Memos in MAS90

January 21, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

If you’ve experienced an error 20 SY_MemoHandler_BUS.pvc while trying to delete a memo from your Sage MAS 90 customer master file (this error will also occur on MAS 200) then here’s something you should check.

Make sure that you don’t have any quotation marks in the memo code. We’ve found that as far back as Sage MAS 90 version 4.1 that having a quotation mark as part of your memo code will produce the above error condition and make it impossible to delete the memo code with the quote.

The only fix that we’ve found is to use Data File Display and Maintenance to manually remove the quotes.

MAS90 and MAS200 Lockups, Freezes and Crashes – Solved (again)

January 8, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Have you been fighting frequent lockups, freezes or other unexplained problems where Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200 has stopped responding to your users?

Members of the 90Minds group have reported that one of the causes of many lockups for their clients appears to be the Symantec Endpoint system security software.

This suite of software includes antivirus, antispyware, firewall, intrusion prevention (protection against unauthorized access, theft, tampering, and attacks on network availability), and device control – to protect against known and unknown threats.

The traditional way to deal with anti-virus software suspected of causing system crashes or lock-ups is to exclude the data files within the MAS 90 folder from scanning.

In this instance several of my trusted consultants have reported that excluding files and directories does not seems to eliminate the crashing/lockups of MAS 90 or MAS 200 (this problem seems to occur with either product).

The only cure that seems to work is to completely remove Symantec Endpoint. Simply excluding files or turning off the scanning does not appear to be effective at stopping crashes.

IMPORTANT: System locks, crashes and freezing can be caused by MANY different problems including faulty hardware and data corruption. In most instances if all other things have remained unchanged you should look to the latest additions or changes to your system as the most likely culprit.

Removing Symantec Endpoint is never guaranteed to solve the problem. Rather, locking or random freezing of a MAS90 system is generally solved by a series of trial and error steps – of which one would be to replace the anti-virus software.

After making slight system changes you should allow for a period of time to observe whether the problem is cured (or reduced). If you have one user who seems to start the chain of events that lead to a system lockup – have that user move to another computer for the day and see if the problem goes away.

Curing MAS90 lockups is often a process of making small changes to your system and observing whether they work. My experience has been that the best place to start is with anti-virus software. Based on the feedback of my 20+ consultant network – it is looking increasingly like there may be some concerns that cause Symantec Endpoint to not play well with Sage MAS 90 or 200.

If you have found a way to make Symantec Endpoint work – please share in the comments below so the rest of our daily readers can learn from your suggestion.

Sage e-Filing help system wrong number

December 19, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Use caution if you’re trying to contact the Aatrix folks with a number that you’ve located in the help file. It appears at least one of the number is out of service (wrong number). I did not exhaustively search all of the help files to see if there were issues in other areas.

The wrong number appeared once I had entered the W-2 edit screen and called up help for W-2 filing.

For the record, the correct Sage Aatrix support number (thanks Roberta) is 701-746-6814.

Here’s a quick video capture if you’re curious where I found this:

Sage Aatrix Help File from Wayne Schulz on Vimeo.

Link: Sage e-Filing Aatrix Portal

Link: Closing the Year In MAS 90 – 2008 Edition (video)

Link: Closing the Year in MAS 90 – 2008 Edition – notes

Link: Official Sage 2008 Year End Closing FAQ

Crystal Reports scheduler for Sage MAS 90 and 200

December 2, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Perryman Software introduces availability of their Crystal Reports scheduler for Sage MAS 90 and 200. This solution

The Ps Report Scheduler allows you to define and schedule stored procedures and reports, executables, and batch process tasks to be run monthly, weekly, daily, or on-demand. One Crystal Report can be used multiple times with different parameters because unique, preset parameters can be passed for each instance of a scheduled report. Parameters are entered during scheduling, and SQL statements can be defined as needed. Once scheduled, the item automatically runs at the designated
time and can be output to an electronic file, printer, or automatically emailed to multiple addresses simultaneously. You only need one version of the report regardless of the output variations required, allowing you to build a comprehensive Crystal Reports library in a single location and edit one, not multiple, versions. Included with the Ps Report Scheduler is the Ps Library, which controls user access
and network connections based on group and individual privileges. Authorized users can define and schedule reports and executables or run them on demand without a local copy of the application or Crystal Reports on their client system.

While the initial product information does not specify how this solution is run, it appears that you need to dedicate a workstation to run the scheduler (as opposed to running this as a service as some Crystal Report schedulers do).

The price of $ 1,200 is steep for casual users but will be attractive to those 10+ user sites with lots of Crystal Reports that they’ve been generating manually during off peak hours.

PS Report Scheduler: $995 + $199 support

Link: Download PS Report Scheduler PDF

Sage MAS Community Forums (Tip): Browse all new messages with one click

November 17, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Have you visited the Sage Software MAS Community forums? This free message board allows for open exchange of questions, suggestions, ideas and tips between fellow users of the MAS products (MAS90/200/500) and other user. Sage Software also has an active presence on the board with long time product manager Erika Jelosovek personally responding to messages.

After visiting the message area I had asked Sage if there was any way to view all of the newest messages on one page. Without this type of access searching for new messages was a tedious combination of clicking back and forth through the various board topics.

Happily I learned that you can view all new messags just by following one link which provides a summarized list of the messages with new activity. By using this you can easily view the newest messages (and those receiving new replies).

To view the latest active messages on the Sage MAS Community Board, follow this link:

http://community.sagemas.com/sagemas/newthreads

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