Share Customer Data across multiple PCs using Contact Management Software / CRM Invoicing Software

As your business grows you may need to access customer data from more than one PC. With Amphis Customer CRM Software you can easily Share Customer Data and documents across multiple PCs. The customer details are stored in a centralized customer database.

To Share Customer Data across multiple PCs, first install Amphis Customer CRM Software on all the PCs you need to access the database from.

You need to decide where you are going to store the database and other files that are going to be shared eg the document templates and the Customer Documents. This needs to be on a central server that all the PCs can access and you need to share a folder on the server so that the client PCs can access it. In the example below the server is called myServer and the folder that has been created is called public. The public folder has been shared so that it can be accessed from the client PCs as \\myServer\public

You just need to choose a PC to act as the main server and then copy the database and documents to that server. Then each client PC connects to the main server to access the database and documents.

Tip: Use a single name for the folder share eg Public not Public Data. Some users have reported problems attempting to use a share with a space in the name.

You can set up Amphis Customer to run in the above client-server configuration as part of the free 30 day trial and try it out for yourself. Amphis Customer also supports using Microsoft SQL Server as the database instead of Microsoft Access, which we would recommend for 10 or more users.

To Share a Folder on the server, right-click on it and select Sharing and Security... Click the Share this folder option and click Maximum allowed. Click the Permissions button to check the access permissions. By default users probably only have Read access which is not sufficient so you need to give users Change (Update) access.

You will need to check that the client PCs can update files in the public folder. You could create a simple text file test.txt in the public folder and check that all the client PCs can edit the file in notepad and save the changes in the public folder on the server.

Copy the database customer.mdb from one of the PCs where you installed Amphis - Customer to the public share eg \\myServer\public

On each PC you need to update the Amphis Customer.exe.config file (in c:\program files\amphis software\amphis customer v3.0) so that the connection string points to the database on that central server eg

Data Source=\\myServer\public\customer.mdb

You will also need to copy the templates, documents, exports, and reports folders to the central server from one of the PCs, and update the Amphis Customer.exe.config file on each PC so that the entries point to that central server eg

key="templatesFolder" value="\\myServer\public\templates"

key="documentsFolder" value="\\myServer\public\documents"

key="reportsFolder" value="\\myServer\public\reports"

key="exportsFolder" value="\\myServer\public\exports"

Here is an example .config file set to use the database and folders on the \\myServer\public share 

Check that if you browse to the public folder eg \\myServer\public from each of the PCs, that you can see the database and folders like this.

You will need to purchase a separate license for each PC that you use to connect to the central database. You can purchase three licenses for 50% more than the price of one.

You can set up all the client PCs you need as part of the 30 day evaluation.

Note that for more than 10 client PCs connecting to the same database, we recommend using the free version of SQL Server 2005 (called SQL Server 2005 Express Edition) for the database, which you can install from here (we recommend installing the SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (36.5Mb) and the SQL Server Management Studio Express (43.1Mb) )

Also if you have less than 10 client PCs but you experience any performance or network problems then we recommend that you upgrade to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.

By default, Amphis Customer CRM Software uses a Microsoft Access database (customer.mdb) but the Microsoft Access database technology is not recommended for more than about 12 users, and it is recommended that a SQL Server database is used instead.

You would need to install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on the server eg myServer.

Using Access 2007, you can use the Access Upgrade Wizard to upgrade the customer.mdb database file to a SQL Server 2005 database and just change the .config files on the client PCs to point to the SQL Server database instead of the customer.mdb database file (see the next FAQ entry on how to do this)

The Amphis Customer license fee includes using SQL Server for the database instead of the default Microsoft Access database.

Please contact customer support if you need help using Amphis Customer with multiple PCs.

Step By Step
For a step by step guide to configuring Amphis Customer to Share Customer Details across multiple PCs, click below.
Configure Shared Customer Data in Easy Steps.

Once your Customer Details are in the Amphis Customer database, you can create Quotes and Invoices in seconds, set up Reminders to help you get organized eg Quotes and Invoices we need to create. You can manage your email and run reports against the database eg Monthly Sales Totals or Overdue Invoices. You can Mail Merge to send letters to all customers in a group eg for marketing.