1. 1 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 DA1241 Archive Companies

2. 2 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Overview Overview of Archive Companies With your system set up to use Archive Companies functionality is provided that automatically archives the files necessary to enable particular reports / enquiries to be produced in later years – the ability to allow auditors access to key financial data for previous years is critical to a successful audit This functionality meets the German requirement that every finance transaction should be kept in the system for 10 years with on-line read-only access provided to auditors upon request – we expect other EU countries to introduce similar laws A new archiving mechanism has been introduced and, specifically, the audit trail records that are currently deleted at period end are included in the archive Note that this functionality is provided as module re and can ONLY be enabled on DATABASE platforms Overview of Archive Companies With your system set up to use Archive Companies functionality is provided that automatically archives the files necessary to enable particular reports / enquiries to be produced in later years – the ability to allow auditors access to key financial data for previous years is critical to a successful audit This functionality meets the German requirement that every finance transaction should be kept in the system for 10 years with on-line read-only access provided to auditors upon request – we expect other EU countries to introduce similar laws A new archiving mechanism has been introduced and, specifically, the audit trail records that are currently deleted at period end are included in the archive Note that this functionality is provided as module re and can ONLY be enabled on DATABASE platforms

3. 3 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Data Archived

4. 4 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Data Archived The Archive Companies module enables the creation and maintenance of a yearly Archive company A fully built Archive Company provides read-only access to selected data tables via the standard Sage reports and enquiries to enable historical analysis of data – however, some sub-ledger reports and enquiries can be run before this point, providing the relevant data has already been archived Only a pre-defined subset of tables, defined by the system, can be archived from the Live Company to the Archive Company These tables are grouped by module, e.g. General Ledger (gl), and by application option, e.g. NL Year End, and are used by the user controlled (manual or automatic) and system archiving activities Two different table types are archived: Static Data Tables Transaction Data Tables

5. 5 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Data Archived – Static Data Tables Static Data Tables store data that is always open, i.e. the data contained within these tables is always valid and can be copied at any point into the Archive Company as part of the user controlled (manual or automatic) archiving As static data is a snapshot at any one point in time, the time the data was copied is very important to the validity of the data To ensure integrity of the completed Archiving Company, all static data is updated at the end of the tables financial year (as defined by that tables module) in order to keep the Archive static data consistent with the transactional data – this is controlled by the system archiving functionality

6. 6 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Data Archived – Transaction Data Tables Transaction Data Tables store application transactions, i.e. the data has a lifecycle from initial entry to closure – transactional data is only archived when it is complete Transaction Data Tables are usually copied on an incremental basis Due to technical reasons, certain tables on the database cannot be handled as would be expected and cannot be archived during the financial year – system archiving, however, ensures that these tables are copied as a whole as part of the relevant year-end

7. 7 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archiving Process – Diagrammatic View

8. 8 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Companies

9. 9 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Directory Groups Before you can set up your Archive Company you must first create a directory group for the archive files – this option allows you to create the archive directory group You must add the Directory Group Name archive to the list of directory groups available

10. 10 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Working Directories Having created the directory group you must now assign the working directory – this option allows you to create the working directory You must assign the working directory for each archive company required to the Directory Group archive – you need to create an archive company for each financial year Note that the working directory is a company directory

11. 11 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Working Directories Having assigned the new working directories you must now: License the new Archive Company(s) Manually copy the system key table (sk_sysdir, sysdirm) from the Live Company to the Archive Company Set the system keys in the Archive Company as follows: set the XXFILESDD system keys to the Archive Company directory set the XXYEAR system keys to the Archive Company year set the XXPERIOD system keys to the first period of the Archive Company year and update subsequently as required In the Live Company: copy the archive security group (via the option Security Group Maintenance) to the new Archive Company set up users (via the option User Profiles) with read only access to an Archive Company – assign the archive security group to them and ensure they have a start menu of main_2

12. 12 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Companies This option allows you to link the live company to an archive company for a specific financial year This example shows Company 3 being linked to the Archive Company for the year 2004 The archive process, whether user-controlled or system initiated, uses the xxYEAR system key value (where xx is the module) to determine which Archive company the data will be copied to

13. 13 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 User Controlled Archiving

14. 14 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Companies consists of two major activities: 1. User controlled (manual or automatic) archiving 2. System archiving User controlled manual archiving can take place at any time User controlled automatic archiving: occurs when an Archive schedule is set-up and initiated runs continually and enables a trickle feed of data of completed transactions, and if required static data changes, to the Archive Company System archiving is the automatic archiving of certain tables at the relevant period and year-ends, a sub-set of which are ONLY archived at these times to ensure the data integrity of the Archive Company Note that the archiving process does NOT archive system keys Overview

15. 15 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Manual Archive by Option This option allows you to archive the data tables affected by a particular option into the Archive Company To view the tables that will be archived for a particular option, highlight the option then select F4-Expand

16. 16 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Manual Archive by Option Note that data will be removed from the transaction data tables as a result of running the option on the Live Company For this example, these tables will be copied – both transaction data and static data tables are listed Select Esc-Cancel to return to the previous form then select Enter-Archive to archive the data tables

17. 17 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Manual Archive by Module This option allows you to archive the data tables relating to a particular module into the Archive Company To view the tables that will be archived for a particular module, highlight the module then select F4-Expand

18. 18 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Manual Archive by Module Note that tables relating to other modules might be listed, e.g. general configuration tables – this is to ensure the integrity of the data copied in the module is maintained For this example, these tables will be copied – both transaction data and static data tables are listed Select Esc-Cancel to return to the previous form then select Enter-Archive to archive the data tables

19. 19 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 There are 2 elements to automatic archiving: what is to be archived when it has to be archived User Controlled Automatic Archiving

20. 20 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Schedule Maintenance This option allows you to define when an archiving process runs, on which days and for how long To run a continuous archive, i.e. for 24 hours per day, every day, you must set the end time to 24 and the start time the following day to 0 Alternatively, you can define up to three sets of times for each day of the week 123

21. 21 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Parameter Maintenance This option allows you to define an automatic archive process linking the data to be archived to a specific schedule This optional field allows you to define a separate archiving process for an individual module – you might use it if transaction volumes for the module are particularly high, for example You can also elect to archive only the static data tables for the module, the transaction tables for the module or both sets of tables You can create any number of automatic archive processes and start and stop them when you like – you must take care however, that if you start too many processes at the same time this could impact on the system performance – to start the archive process for the selected archive schedule, select F4-Archive

22. 22 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Parameter Maintenance When you have confirmed your decision (by selecting CR when prompted), the following message is displayed Note that the archive process runs in the foreground on the PC that starts it until the process is stopped, i.e. there is no escape action available to return to the menu – you are therefore recommended to run archive processes on a server console or a dedicated archiving PC

23. 23 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Archive Parameter Maintenance Then select F8-Stop – if the archive is actively running it completes the current record before stopping; if the archive is 'sleeping' it will not stop until the next schedule status check, the interval of which is controlled by the system key REINTCHECK To stop an archive process (from a different PC) for a specific archive schedule, check the Running field is set to Y, the Status is blank unless the process has already been stopped, in which case it will be set to STOP and the Process id, which will display the process number – the Process id is a sequential archive process run number, it is not a server process id number

24. 24 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Recommendations & Performance Implications

25. 25 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Recommendations You are recommended to run archive processes on a server console or a dedicated archiving PC To improve the quality of data on Archive Company after the Year End is complete you are recommended to run an automatic archive process for a module for Static tables only just before running the Year End for that module – this ensures that the nice to have Static data tables are available in an up to date form at the end of the year-end It is recommended that NO Cleardown or Archiving options be run on the Live Company until after the G/L Year-end is complete, i.e. the Archive Company is complete for the previous Financial Year – in addition, any cut-off date should ONLY relate to a previous financial year

26. 26 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Recommendations To facilitate reporting on the Archive Company you are recommended to licence Enhanced Transaction Tracking (DA1245) on the Archive Companies – this project introduces additional range selections, including period ranges, on a variety of reports, for example the module Audit Reports When you are ready to run the last period end in the year for a module which does not have a year end option (e.g. there is only a Period End option in Accounts Receivable and in Accounts Payable) do NOT run the option xx_period_end – you must instead run the option xx_year_end to ensure the data is archived

27. 27 of 27 DA1241 Archive Companies Last updated: March-2004 Performance Implications The time taken to archive a table is dependent on its total size and not just the number of records to be copied – if the data tables are large you are recommended NOT to repeat the archive process (manual or automatic) too frequently Certain tables, including the General Ledger transaction table can ONLY be archived as part of running the actual year end process – this has an obvious impact on the length of time taken to complete the Year-Ends affected The REARCH_SQL system key allows the archiving process to use an additional "not exists" SQL clause to identify those rows that do not exist in the archive table, therefore potentially reducing the time taken when archiving – this additional SQL clause is applied only if REARCH_SQL is set to "DBFilter2 – however, it should be noted that, in some circumstances, the use of the additional "not exists" SQL clause might actually cause performance to degrade