How To Setup ODBC CS / Client Server For Sage 100 ERP Advanced (Formerly MAS 200)

July 17, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

If you are using Sage 100 ERP Advanced (formerly Sage ERP MAS 200) you may be able to speed up reporting times for Crystal based reports by installing a client server ( CS ) ODBC driver.

The Client Server (CS) ODBC Driver allows workstations to print Crystal forms and reports using server-side ODBC processing. This option is available in Sage 100 ERP Advanced (formerly Sage MAS 200) 4.10.1 and later.

The CS ODBC Driver has been tested and designed for use with Crystal reports and forms printed through the Sage 100 ERP Advanced (Formerly Sage MAS 200) Business Desktop (Launcher). It has not been tested for use with other ODBC applications (for example, SQL Server queries and Access queries). Sage Software does not support the use of other ODBC applications that may attempt to use the CS ODBC driver.

CS ODBC Driver is only 15 users (4.40 and less) and have heard this with those encroaching 15. At present there is no command to display available license slots.

There are some setup instructions which thankfully Sage have created a greatly simplified “how to” guide for (see link below) as well as a more advanced guide (also linked below).

The limitation to this driver is that it only supports 15 concurrent users and there’s no guarantee or support by Sage for using the

Version 4.5 introduced a new ODBC CS driver which may have increased the concurrent user capacity to 50.

How to setup a client server ODBC data source for Sage 100 ERP Advanced (formerly Sage ERP MAS 200)

Advanced How to setup a client server ODBC data sources

64 Bit ODBC and Sage 100 ERP (Formerly Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200)

February 1, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

An interesting question was just asked on the MAS 90 LinkedIn Group. One of the users posed the question:

When a customer has 64-bit OS systems, they naturally want to install 64-bit versions of MS Office. All seems fine until one decides to connect to their 32-bit ODBC and are greeted by the “Specified DSN contains and architecture mismatch”. This happened to me – from a 64-bit version of Excel running on a 64-bit OS, selected Data, Other Sources and then selected SOTAMAS90*. (Note the asterisk). Once selected the message displays about the mismatch.

Is there any way around this? It seems that you need a method to tell the 64-bit programs that when they want to use a specific 32-bit ODBC they need to go through SYSWOW64 and call the ODBCAD.EXE. However, I’ve not found any options to force it to the 32-bit ODBC.

The short answer is that 64 bit ODBC drivers are not yet available for Sage 100 ERP .

What most users have done is uninstall any 64 bit apps (usually Microsoft Office 64 Bit) and installing their 32 bit versions.

Our 90 Minds Consulting Group has been tracking this issue since August 2011 and have the following feedback:

– Might be able to in MAS 5.0 but probably pushed to 5.1
– PVX Plus may have a 64 bit ODBC to offer (for a fee) at some point (I think they’re testing)

The present resolution has been to uninstall 64 bit Microsoft and install 32 bit.

Would gladly welcome updates from anyone with different workarounds.

UPDATE: The 64 Bit ODBC Drivers are available from PVX Plus per the following post on the MAS90 LinkedIN group:

The driver could be installed on select workstations. If a workstation needed both the 32 Bit and 64 Bit they would have to have different DSNs (logical Data set name) in order to have the system identify which driver to use.
To order the driver you can contact sales@pvxplus.com or call us at 1-888-975-7587 and press 1 for sales.If you want to give it a try it can be downloaded from
http://www.pvxplus.com/pgsrvr.pvp?pg=dl_optional
(select the 64 bit version — second from the top). It should work using a key of DEMO for testing.

How To Find and Fix Bad Dates in MAS90 and MAS200 Data Tables

September 28, 2011 by Wayne Schulz

A user has just asked our 90 Minds group whether there’s an easy way to detect a bad date that is within a set of their MAS90 version 4.4 data.

Update August 27, 2018:

Sage has issued a Check Date utility for Sage 100 and Sage 100 cloud which can be run from recent versions of Sage 100 and automatically seeks out bad dates.

Download the CHECKDATE utility from Sage here. Place the download in your \MAS90\SOA folder and from the FILE menu select RUN and SYZCON.

Then RUN “CHECKDATE”

This utility prompts for your Sage 100 company code. It then scans relevant data files and places a file XXX_CheckDate.txt in MAS90\HOME\Textout\

This can be a very tricky issue to resolve mostly because finding the exact bad record is hampered by the fact that MAS90 or MAS200 will error out each time you run a report – or try to design a report to print the bad record(s).

That is — unless you know the secret setting that will allow the bad date(s) to print via a Crystal report.

If you’re wrestling with a bad date somewhere in your MAS90 or MAS200 files – here’s the solution that I’ve used before to quickly print out the data and find the bad date record:
Go into your SOTAMAS90 ODBC source. Check off “NULL Date”. Create a report in Crystal that draws from the file with the bad date. The bad date will no longer stop the report from processing. Sort by the date field. The bad dates will sort to the top (or end).
Now go into Sage ERP MAS 90 or MAS 200 (usually through Data File Display and Maintenance) and fix the bad record(s).

Note: Always backup prior to making any changes to your data through Data File Display and Maintenance. We are not responsible for damage done to your data.

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