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Data download instead of sync setting for clients

Mike Meiners

November 25, 2015 13:23

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It would be great to have a setting on either the client or server that would force connecting clients to just download the database from the server, instead of syncing.

Either because of the size of our database, or for some other other reason, it takes almost 45 minutes for our clients to sync with the server. But, if we setup a new system, or advance the DB on the server, a fresh download of the DB to a client only takes a couple minutes. Unless I'm missing all the benefits, the convenience of quickly getting back into Studiometry far out weighs the ability to work offline (which we never do).

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5 comments

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  Oranged Support November 25, 2015 15:54

  Hi Mike,

  You can sort of do this in a way by incrementing the data version from the server itself, but you'd have to do this manually and it won't work as an every-time solution. This is done via the Preferences Window > Networking Section > Increment Data version button. The only problem with this and with your suggestion is that any changes on the client machine that were made while disconnected from the server won't be sent over.

  With that in mind, we might still be able to consider adding that as an option, but it would definitely cause data issues if a user edits anything while disconnected from the server (even from a brief disconnect).

  Studiometry 12 (which is looks like you're on now) should be a bit quicker with the Safe Sync option enabled that previous versions. This part of the syncing process has been optimized and is showing much faster results in our testing with relatively larger databases. Also we always recommend managing the size of your database using Project Archiving and To Do cleaning to keep the database size down. Pruning old to dos, and archiving old projects can have a huge effect on syncing speeds.

  Lastly, not sure if you've checked it out yet, but Studiometry Cloud has a completely different syncing backend that works in a much more efficient way, partly due to the fact that the servers are hosted by us and optimized for the task. We've had users with larger databases have the initial connect & sync go from a couple minutes down to ~8 seconds. Obviously you shouldn't have to change to a different service to get better syncing performance, but it's a definite solution if you're interested in it at all. 

  And again if you're not interested in Studiometry Cloud, the project archiving and to do cleaning should be able to help a lot with initial sync speeds.

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  Mike Meiners January 05, 2016 15:57

  I would definitely request this as a feature. The difference of logging in under 2 minutes, vs 45 minutes is the difference between people using the software or not in our office. I'm fighting an adoption war in the office for project management solutions because of this issue. Our Studiometry Server software crashes almost once a week, and we end up with a dozen or more people sitting around, sometimes for hours, until they can get logged in. This almost always happen when we're trying to enter time or information before accounting does billing. Mandating that everyone works online, and not offline, is well worth the trade-off in our work case.

  Can you maybe offer a fresh download as an option every time to try logging into the server? That way you can try syncing if you think you were working offline?

  As far as archiving older jobs, … Unfortunately it's difficult, as access to old projects is an important functionality of the software. If the archiving (and un-archiving) process didn't require rebooting the server, and asking everyone to re-connect, it might be a more plausible solution. Would it be easier to merely make archived jobs separate or read-only instead of trying to completely re-load them back into the database? That would work for us.

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  Oranged Support January 05, 2016 16:05

  Hi Mike, 

  Can you please open a support ticket with us so we can get a little more information from you. Thank you!

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  Mike Meiners January 19, 2016 15:43

  FYI for anyone reading this thread… We switched to Studiometry Cloud and it appears to have resolved our slow syncing issue.

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  Oranged Support January 19, 2016 18:16

  Thanks for the followup, Mike, and glad Studiometry Cloud is working well for your company!