Administration, Core Financials, and Project Accounting

[MarieH]

I was told that you can change the color of the desktop for all users within MAS but can't seem to find it.  We operate a Test database as well as Production and need to copy over the Test DB every so often so we are working with fairly current data.  What I would like to do is change the color of the Desktop in Test so staff know right away that they are not in Live (or vice versa).  Is there a way to do this or perhaps change the Start Page and have it saved for all users?

[Ralph]

I have wondered the EXACT same thing before.   I don't know of a way to do this.   Instead, our test system is actually two completely seperate boxes, one is our TEST SQL Server, the other our TEST Terminal Server.  I just set the default Windows desktop background color of each user profile on the TEST Terminal Server box to green.  This of course doesn't really have anything to do with MAS itself, but this is what I did so that users know right away when they log-in, if their desktop is blue they are on the real system, green, and it should ring a bell for them that they are in the TEST system.

[LouDavis]

Another option is implementing your test system on a virtual system using Virtual PC Server or VMWare.  As you need to access these programs to get to the virtual machine, you can be assured that you are using the test system.  

[Ralph]

Lou,  to do this I would assume you'd need to install VPC Server or VMWare on each users' local PC?   If so, I think that might be a little more work and a little harder to manage than simply building a test Terminal Server.    And in a case like ours in which users are across a WAN link from the SQL server, their connection to the DB would be too slow.  Because some of our users are remote, the only feasible option for us (for test or production) is to have them use RDP to connect to a TS located in our building where the SQL Server is housed.

[LouDavis]

I'm not sure about VMWare, but for Virtual PC they have a client program Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) that is about 447 KB that you install to each person's client.  It opens a form that allows you to pick the virtual machine to use that is installed on the Virtual PC Server.  We use it in house for development and QA and I like it very much. 

I think you are confusing Virtual PC with Virtual PC Server.  Virtual PC is a program that you install to each persons computer.  The server edition is installed on one box where you create your virtual machines.  The virtual machines you set up can be Windows 2003 machines which have SQL Server and the MAS 500 client installed on them.  This way everything is in one place and you may see a gain in performance.   My virtual systems have everything I need on them (SQL, IIS, development tools, MAS 500 client, etc.) and I use it every day throught a remote connection from the West coast to the Mid-West.   Performance is pretty good most of the time depending on network and internet traffic. 

Also having a Virtual Server machine may prove useful when evaluating new versions of MAS 500 or other software as you can simply create a virtual machine to test these before rolling them out to the production environment.  If your interested in virtualization you may want to check out Microsoft's site for VPC Server 2008 - http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/why/skills/default.mspx?WT.mc_id=B41ACF20-84CF-41D4-A15C-5E2...

Message Edited by LouDavis on 08-28-2009 09:17 AM

[DGill]

 ***** HACK ALERT ******    

Previous Post for Manipulating Start Page

I too have wanted to take this extra step to ensure users knew which database they were in so glad you surfaced this question.  The above post was on a related subject so it does have some information regarding the different pieces involved and how the start page is created/set but to do what you are looking for, you do not need to take those steps of modifying the page referenced in that post.  Instead, you should be able to do the following which will allow you to have a different start page based on the database for all users with a single update statement.

1) Create an html page and place it on the network in an area that all users can access.  Modify the page in whatever way you want with text/images so that the user is alerted to the fact that the database is for testing only.  Does not have to be anything fancy, I used the following:

<html>
<body>
If you think you are in production, YOU ARE WRONG!!!
</body>
</html>

I ended up placing it in a shared drive universally mapped for all users.  Depending on how your permissions/network is configured, you may have to play with the physical location and the url you use to locate it.

2) On the TEST server, update the value in tsmUserDesktop.DeskTopSettings, specifically the StartPage value, for those users that you want this 'warning' page displayed for.  This is XML like data stored in a text column so it includes other data.  What I did is copy an existing value and make the edit to just the StartPage value and updated all users with the resulting text value.  So in my case, where I located the html file on the universally mapped S drive, my update looked like the following:

  

UPDATE tsmUserDesktop
SET DesktopSettings = '<BusinessDesktopSettings><Tracker Visible="False" /><Docked Value="False" /><Locked Value="True" /><LargeIcons Value="False" /><StartPage Value="file:///S:/SDriveTestHomePage.htm;False" /><UndockedBusinessDesktop><Size Width="984" Height="603" /><Location Top="0" Left="0" /><State Value="Maximized" /><StatusBar Visible="True" /><RecentURLs /><ToolbarItems /></UndockedBusinessDesktop><DockedBusinessDesktop><AlwaysOnTop Value="False" /><ToolbarItems /></DockedBusinessDesktop></BusinessDesktopSettings>'

Now when you login to your PRODUCTION database, you should see the start page you always have seen and when you login in to your TEST database, you should see the html warning page you created in the previous step.  So whenever you you restore a Test database, you will need to remember to run that update statement.

We currently are on 7.20.9 using SQL Server 2005.  It is possible that different versions of MAS500 behave differently. 

Hope that helps.

Message Edited by DGill on 08-28-2009 12:29 PM

[MarieH]

Thanks for all the replies.  We already use 2 separate servers and RDP into the Test Environment.  We have different desktops for each but because you can still pick the server you want from the Login screen, someone could accidentally pick the wrong server.  That was the reason for trying to change the start page withinin MAS or the color.

I'll run the suggestions by my IT guys. 

[LouDavis]

DGill

I like the

 ***** HACK ALERT ****** 

Indicator..  Nice visual warning that a change recommended could impact MAS 500 adversely..

Nice job..

[DGill]

I had an additional need to preserve any existing settings of the user's desktop (to avoid the immediate complaint of 'Test is broken!') so the update statement below will take care of that.  Make your changes to the 2 TODO sections of the script based on your configuration

DECLARE @TestStartPage AS VARCHAR(MAX)

IF @@SERVERNAME = 'Oxygen'  --TODO fill in your production server name 
	BEGIN
		PRINT '*************************************************'
		PRINT 'WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY? DON"T RUN THIS IN PRODUCTION'
		PRINT '*************************************************'
	END
ELSE
	BEGIN
		SELECT @TestStartPage = '<StartPage Value="file:\\[TODO fill in the path to your html page]" />'

		UPDATE tsmUserDesktop
		SET DesktopSettings = STUFF(CAST(DesktopSettings AS VARCHAR(MAX)),CHARINDEX ('<StartPage', DesktopSettings), CHARINDEX ('<UndockedBusinessDesktop>', DesktopSettings) - CHARINDEX ('<StartPage', DesktopSettings), @TestStartPage)

		SELECT CAST(@@ROWCOUNT AS VARCHAR(4)) + ' Users updated'
	END

v. 7.20.9

[oyama]

The script only works for my login.  Even thought the SQL says XX records has been changed, only my records got updated. The rest of the users received a NULL value in the "DesktopSettings" field. I guess it has to do something with my login. What should I do to be able to run the script for all users?

Edit: 

I forgot to mention I am on: Sage MAS 500 January 2009 Update (Version 7.20.9.0)

Message Edited by oyama on 09-24-2009 02:02 PM