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Multi-user mode seems to be the subject we hear about most often.  Whether it's how to set it up, how to troubleshoot the connection or just simply what it is, multi-user mode related items seem to comprise the question of the month.  So we thought, what the heck...we'll take another crack at explaining Multi-User Mode, how it relates to your setup and why we think that you will love it.

Why Multiple Users?
Aren't the chances of a discrepancy lower when there are fewer people using a program you ask?  Not necessarily.  In fact, with more people being able to access the program and make changes at the time of an action rather than much later from memory (or completing data entry en mass, which can cause mistakes) it is much easier to enter your info in real time.  The theory behind multi-user mode is that you will likely need to be completing sales up front, and having your warehouse staff pulling the orders for shipping at the same time. Or you might have four sales staff selling items over the phone like wildfire so you need them to be able to check the availability of your products.  To that end, users need a way of integrating their workstations so that all your users can access the data simultaneously.

How does it work?
The system works within a user's network to connect the computer that is housing the data (the server) and the computers that are working with that data (the clients).  Sometimes a company will house the data on a server machine that is dedicated to housing their database but more often than not it will be held on one of your active computers (i.e. someone's workstation).  Essentially the program works by creating a password which can be viewed from the server computer and which must be entered at the client computer end in order to gain access to the data.  From that moment forward, the client computers (so long as they are running a licensed copy of the regular or premium edition of inFlow) will be able to manipulate that data and note any changes made as they occur.

In the case where two users are making changes to the same record at the same time, the individual who opened the record first will have dominion and be able to save their changes.  The other user will receive a notification error asking them to re-load the entry (with the info from the other use) and try again.  The frequency of this type of situation is usually very low.

Licensing
This seems to all too often be a point of confusion amongst our clients so let us try to clarify.  Each computer in a multi-user configuration must have its own license.  Since each computer running a licensed copy of inFlow must have its own unique license key it should not be an issue to join these computers together.  That said, the regular edition licenses can only support the connect for 5 computers (again, in this scenario each computer has a regular license).  And licenses in addition to that would need to be Premium in order to connect to the hypothetical multi-user network  we've set up.  As an example let's pretend that we're setting an office up with a multi-user network.  The office has six employees and a manager.  All the employees will need to be making changes to the information so they will each need a license but there are 6, which means that five employees can be set up with regular licenses, but that the sixth (and any additional employees brought in after this point) will need to be set up with premium edition licenses.

Now that we've cleared that up, there are exceptions to the rule and that is when a user only requires read-only access to the database.   In this case one can install the free edition on that computer and link it to the others, however this client would not be able to make any changes to the information.  So let's go back to the example above and say that the office manager has decided that they'd like access to the information their employees are working with.  That said, they won't need to make any changes, just be able to see what's going on.  In that case, you can set up the manager with a Free edition of the software and hook it into the network.

Auto-Backups
Auto-backups are done by the server computer daily and reside on its hard drive.  If you are concerned about making sure there are backups to the server's copies you can also choose to (on a licensed client computer) do a manual backup of the database.  You can save it to your hard drive and keep in the event that something happens to the server computer.  Of course for this to be effective you would need to do it at least weekly and you should speak to your IT Administrator as you will often find they have a contingency plan for these sorts of things.

To that end please feel free to take note of the tidbit of information available in this article should you require it in the future: http://www.inflowinventory.com/KnowledgeBase/questions/120/

And Finally...
We hope that helps to clarify things and if you're reading this article because you're trying to set things up and you're stuck, have a look at the articles below for more information on what to do next:

• How to Setup Multi-User Mode
• Troubleshooting Multi-User Mode
• Setting up Multi-User Mode Manually (If you're having trouble with the wizard)

Still not sure what to do?  Drop us an email and let us know about the problem!