These instructions will help you connect your software at two or more business locations that will occasionally share database information. There are Multi-Location (Wide Area Network or WAN) settings in the software that will allow you to switch the database displayed at your current location.
Before your locations can connect together, there are steps detailed in two articles that you will need to follow before this one. The articles are NETWORK SETUP and HAMACHI VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK SETUP. You will also need to know the database password for the location(s) you will be connecting (if the databases are password protected). Once you complete those two guides and have your passwords, come back to this article. Ideally, you should have a person at each location in contact with one another during this process.
Connecting Your Locations
Once you complete the two articles above, you will have networks established at each location and all the computers that will be using Hamachi to share database information in your Hamachi network. This section will help you connect your locations together. Each of these steps will need to be completed on each computer that will be used to view information at another location. Your Hamachi software will look similar to this:
In your DaySmart software, grab the Tools pull-down menu and choose Wide Area Network Settings.
Click Add on the right.
Enter the name of the location you will be connecting to in the Location Name box. Most people use the street name of the other location, but it can be anything that will uniquely identify the other store.
For the SQL Server Settings section, refer to Hamachi for the correct Server Name for the other location. The format for the name will be Hamachi IP\SQL Instance. In the example image shown above, the user's current computer is named Location 1 - Server (to the right of the blue and yellow Power button) and the computer the user will be connecting to is Location 2 - Server (highlighted in grey). The Hamachi IP address is the series of numbers immediately following the computer name (25.98.62.195). The SQL Instance will likely be CMJ, but it can be something else1. In the example below, it is DSI. If you have the wrong instance, you will not be able to connect.
Leave the User ID as sa. It's highly unlikely that it will be anything else.
Type the database password of the location you're connecting to if it has one. If you do not have a database password, leave it blank.
Click OK.
If you have additional servers/locations to connect, repeat Steps 2-7 for each one.
These settings will remain saved until you edit or delete them from the Wide Area Network Settings.
Test the connection to your location(s) by selecting it from the Remote location pull-down menu and clicking the Test Connection button. You should get a result similar to this:
If you do not get a successful connection, your Windows Firewall may need some exceptions created. Follow the directions HERE for help.
If you want to connect to the other location now, make sure the location is selected in the Remote location pull-down and click OK in the lower right.
When connected to a Remote Location, a reminder will be shown in the title bar of your software:
To switch back to your current location, grab the Tools pull-down menu and select Wide Area Network Settings.
Select the This location radio bubble and click OK in the lower right. Your local database information will be displayed and the Remote Location reminder in the title bar will be gone.
To make sure you have the correct SQL Instance name, go to File > Database Settings > Connection Settings in the software of the location to which you're connecting. The SQL Instance will be displayed as [COMPUTERNAME]\SQL Instance.