Frequently Asked Questions
Is Bookkeeping4 Pro edition compatible with multiple users?
Last Updated 7 years ago
The software can process changes from multiple users using the same book on different devices however you do need to be careful about conflicting updates. The chances of getting a conflicting update increase if you have more than one person using a book at the same time. If you do get a conflicting update then you will need to decide which update is the correct one and then apply that to a device that does not have that value, to have that value propagated to all devices.
Synchronisation between devices is very different to a centralised multi-user system and to achieve this decentralised synchronisation is a very complex task. Thankfully the majority of the complexity is handled by the program and hidden from the user. However the user does need to be involved in some decisions as the program cannot work out what is the desired action in some cases.
For example if two people updated the same record on different devices at the same time, one set the value to 20 and one set the value to 30. Both changes will be replicated to the other device. The result will be that the device that changed the value to 20 will be updated to 30 when the next sync occurs, and the device that changed the value to 30 will be updated to 20 when the next sync occurs. Both devices will record a sync conflict since the expected value does not match the actual value. It will then require that the two people talk and decide what the value should be. If they decided the value should be 20 then the person that has 30 on their device should update it to 20. This update will be synchronised across the devices and then all devices will say 20.
Synchronisation between devices is very different to a centralised multi-user system and to achieve this decentralised synchronisation is a very complex task. Thankfully the majority of the complexity is handled by the program and hidden from the user. However the user does need to be involved in some decisions as the program cannot work out what is the desired action in some cases.
For example if two people updated the same record on different devices at the same time, one set the value to 20 and one set the value to 30. Both changes will be replicated to the other device. The result will be that the device that changed the value to 20 will be updated to 30 when the next sync occurs, and the device that changed the value to 30 will be updated to 20 when the next sync occurs. Both devices will record a sync conflict since the expected value does not match the actual value. It will then require that the two people talk and decide what the value should be. If they decided the value should be 20 then the person that has 30 on their device should update it to 20. This update will be synchronised across the devices and then all devices will say 20.
The other thing that is very important in a synchronised environment is deletes. You need to be vary careful when deleting records. If one person deletes a record and another person makes an association between that record and another record before they receive the delete notice in the synchronisation, then the delete notice will not be able to be processed since the record is being used on that device. Furthermore the association between the deleted record and the other record will be synchronised to the other device, which does not have the record because it was deleted and so will ignore the association. To resolve this the person with the device that has the association must delete the association and then the delete synchronisation message will be processed and the record will be deleted. Again, it is important in these circumstances for the people to talk to determine why one person was trying to use the record and another person deleted the record.
If you only have two people using the program and they are working on different things all of the time then the chances of conflicts are significantly reduced.
Before you start using Bookkeeping4 I would highly recommend reading through the user guides which are built into the "Help" screen on the app and also is available on the website at: http://bookkeeping.warby.com/Docs/User_Guide/
The user guides are not huge and give a lot of very useful information about the program and some very important information about synchronisation. The user guides on Initial Set Up Tasks, and Synchronisation are especially important.
If you only have two people using the program and they are working on different things all of the time then the chances of conflicts are significantly reduced.
Before you start using Bookkeeping4 I would highly recommend reading through the user guides which are built into the "Help" screen on the app and also is available on the website at: http://bookkeeping.warby.com/Docs/User_Guide/
The user guides are not huge and give a lot of very useful information about the program and some very important information about synchronisation. The user guides on Initial Set Up Tasks, and Synchronisation are especially important.