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Linux Business Software

Workgroup Messaging? 60

Posted by Cliff from the improving-communication dept.
Displaying my ignorance asks: "We have a small workgroup running on Windows XP Professional; we do not have a domain server. We use Peachtree accounting software which is supposedly multi-user. Unfortunately, multi-user does not translate into allowing two people to be in the same module (i.e., accounts receivable) at the same time. Because the users are in different buildings they often crash Peachtree because they don't know that someone else is already in that module. These crashes result in the loss of data since the last backup. I am therefore trying to locate software, compatible with Windows XP, which would allow a user to create pop-up messages for display on the remote screens. It needs to be a pop-up, not just a flag in the system tray; ideally it would be a flashing neon sign which fills most of the screen [grin]. Because we do not have SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) Messenger appears not to be a solution. Any suggestions?"
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Workgroup Messaging? More

Workgroup Messaging?

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  • net send computername "I am working on blah blah blah...."
  • Am I missing something here? Seems like a simple IM Client is all that's called for here. They'd be some company policy issues to work out on who the employees are allowed to talk to but it seems to me MSN or AOL IM clients are the only things required.

  • CVS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by perljon ( 530156 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:34PM (#6609798) Homepage
    You could use cvs to check the file in and out.
    • CVS is really crap when it comes to binary files, how you gonna resolve a conflict in a binary-fileformat you don't even know the structure for ?
  • Although not big and flash, the command prompt that is built into windows nt / 2000 / xp should do the trick. There are applications out there that provide front ends to it, otherwise you could just write your own little script.
    • Dang it, tried to use tags when I shouldn't have. There should have been a reference to "net send" in the last post. Just go to the command prompt and type "net send" to get the syntax.

  • Jabber (Score:4, Informative)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:34PM (#6609807) Homepage
    You could easily run a jabber client, there are free (as in beer) versions and the main server is running inside your network, so no unfortunate export of precious information.

  • VMware + VNC (Score:4, Informative)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:37PM (#6609835) Homepage Journal
    Create a virtual machine for each module, e.g.

    (1) AR.mygroup.mydomain.com

    (2) AP.mygroup.mydomain.com

    (3) GL.mygroup.mydomain.com

    Install the appropriate modules and instruct users to click on the icon that will launch to that virtual machine. Watch for a few seconds, and if somebody's entering a transaction, try back later.

    This should work, but it is relatively speaking a cheapskate solution.

    You probably could do something with Windows Terminal Services and license management that would work more slickly, but I haven't worked much with it so I can't tell you how well they'd work. Probably better than the above solution.
    • This is the first real usable solution to your problem. All the rest (and your question too) are treating the symptoms. While that is the norm currently accapted in the medical art, we in computer science tend to doctor the cause. So to solve your problem you should create semaphores that would would without human interaction and allow only one person to access the module at one time.

      CVS would work too, but it has no usable end-user (lama) interface. It is where this above soultion shines, easy on the eyes
      • CVS is hard id the fileformat is binary and/or unknown. If somebody got around to creating a conflict your probably shit-outta-luck as resolving a binary conflict is pretty hard...
        • I was actually thinking about more along the lines of rcs, where you check out the file, and it gets locked for all other users. When you unlock it, then some else can get hold of it. One at a time, is what he wanted to do, but using messaging.
          • I've seen it at a few sites, it seems to work pretty well. You click on the application's icon, and it checks against a central repository of applications to see if a copy is available. If one is, the application launches normally, otherwise it tells you to try later. I was impressed. It looks like it works pretty well, although a priori I'd have my doubts about such a system.

            CVS will definitely not work because it doesn't lock anything. Plus, it would be cool to check in a virus infected applicati
    • He could even disable Screen-Sharing with VNC. That way, only a single person can be connected to each screen. But the worst problem would be VMware only allowing a few sessions at once.

  • dare i say (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:38PM (#6609852)
    messenger service/net send?

    This may leave you open to spammage on this service (but chances are this is already enabled on all of your win2k/xp workstations anyway).

  • Try Jabber (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 ) <rrw@hell.pl> on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:39PM (#6609857) Journal
    I mean it. It's free, it's interoperable and it even allows you to access your buddies on different IM networks (like aim, msn, icq etc).

    Go to Jabber Software Foundation [jabber.org] and look for server that will work on your system. There are free servers for POSIX systems and I'm sure that there are at least several servers for Windows. As for clients, there are dozens clients for every major OS, and most of them have the feature to automatically popup messages on the screen. I'd suggest Psi and Miranda.

    Robert

  • Aren't there well-documented blatant security holes that allow instant popups to be displayed on a Windows desktop?

    Or, how about finding accounting software that doesn't suck?
  • You _did_ get the lobotomy, didn't you?

  • Seek a Cure (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Michael.Forman ( 169981 ) * on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:47PM (#6609921) Homepage Journal

    You're treating the symptom not the disease. What you need is to replace your accounting software (and maybe even your OS) with something that meets your business's requirements.

    Worried about the cost of new software are you? How much money is your company hemorraging because your using a single-user accounting program that deletes all of your data? How much more will it lose when you try to patch it up with an IM program?

    Michael. [michael-forman.com]

  • When you can afford it, get better software (Score:4, Interesting)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @05:52PM (#6609961) Homepage Journal
    We use Peachtree accounting software which is supposedly multi-user. Unfortunately, multi-user does not translate into allowing two people to be in the same module (i.e., accounts receivable) at the same time. Because the users are in different buildings they often crash Peachtree because they don't know that someone else is already in that module. These crashes result in the loss of data since the last backup.

    It seems that you are trying an ad-hoc solution instead of looking at the root cause of problem which seems to be the buggy Peachtree accounting software (or maybe their sales folk claimed it to be multi-user while developers didn't get to finish multi-user module properly). When you get your messaging thing working, you might want to call the Peachtree accounting software and bug them until they take care of your problem or if your organization can afford it, get a better package that meets the needs of your organization.

    You can either hire a tow truck to pull your car with broken engine (you still sit in the car) for your commute or you can get a car that works !!

  • hm... (Score:2, Informative)

    by kevin lyda ( 4803 ) *
    step 1: hire a real network admin
    step 2: have them assess your network and software
    step 3: let them get the software you need and configure it correctly.

    note, none of these steps is "come up with stupid kludges that don't scale, work or really solve the problem."

    btw, this question is one proof for the rathe simple equation "muppet != technical person."
  • If it can't even do multiuser correctly.. get rid of it. Quickbooks Pro does multiuser perfectly without a central server.

    -- Home on the strange
  • Net Send and Winchat...look them up. They'll do exactly what you need to do. Net Send can be scripted too, from batch files or command line.
  • You could do what you want easily with Batch files and the DOS Net Send command, or some coding to kick off that command line, and more advanced features.
  • How about LanTalk XP: http://www.lantalk.net/lantalk_xp.php ? That should meet your needs unless I've misunderstood the question.

  • IM is not the way (Score:3, Informative)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Monday August 04, 2003 @07:12PM (#6610614) Journal
    Your problem is that Peachtree does not work with multiple users using a module at the same time. As many of us know here, it doesnt matter what you ask / tell / demand users to do, they will screw things up.

    Can you not host the module(s) in question on different network shares and set the shares to only permit one concurrent user? Coupled with an auto-disconnection timeout that would ensure that only one user could use the module at the same time.

    Alternatively perhaps use the Terminal Services functions of one of the XP machines for that module and make people use the terminal server - as XP only supports one TS user, it would ensure that only one user was in the module at any one time.
    • I've supported Peachtree before, and don't recall this problem cropping up. You need to do a little research on the problem. My first guess would be a case of network congestion or the peer-to-peer server is bogged down. Replacing a hub with a switch and hard setting machines to 100Mb/FD may solve your problems.

      If that doesn't fix it, you can check Peachtree's Knowledge Base [peachtree.com], and the Peachtree Users Forum [peachtreeusers.com] for other tips.

  • WTF? (Score:2)

    by Feztaa ( 633745 )
    I don't know much about Peachtree, but if there can't be more than one person logged into any given module at any given time, it seems like a pretty useless piece of software, unless your company has 1 or less employees.
  • Try dotNETSender; it's a GUI front end for the NET SEND command, it's simple (works pretty much like the old winpopup of 9X), and takes just a little configuring. It's perfect if you have a small network without any Exchange-based messaging servers. From my expierience, expecting non-power users to adapt to using the command line (net send in particular) is a futile hope. This makes it glaringly easy for quick workgroup messaging, and it pops right up in their screen; no way to miss it.

    All you need is the
  • Advertisers aren't the only people who can use the "net send" command to send messages. You can just as easily write a quick front-end to execute this program and pop-up messages to people across the network.
  • The syntax of this command is:

    NET SEND {name | * | /DOMAIN[:name] | /USERS} message

    It will pop a fully modal dialog box that will annoy the hell out of the user interupting whatever they may be doing at the moment, stealing keyboard focus and making an annoying DING sound.

    This is being abused by SPAMMERS so most people just disable the messenger service in NT/Win2k/XP but this is what you are looking for and it comes with Windows already.

    It's designed to send msg's from servers when they are being shutd

  • Peachtree multiuser (Score:2, Informative)

    by toga98 ( 109028 )
    I did this once for a company. It's funny that the manual at the time didn't mention data loss. It was fun finding that out the hard way :) If I remember right I setup Realpopup on their machines for this very purpose. Cheap and it worked.
  • LAN only ....

    http://www.kinberlink.com/

    (you make need to run windows update, I think it needs IE6 installed)

  • And to think, just last week I was complaining about some weird issues with reading the AccPac database with ODBC...I guess my problems don't seem to big anymore. =)

    Losing ACCOUNTING data when multiple people are in the same module! That's awful... I'm assuming you've checked what other PeachTree users are doing for this? You can't be the only one with this problem...

    I'm not entirely sure that a popup is going to be that effective. What happens when you close the popup and forget 20 minutes later?

  • you take the closed source approach
    -> you call the manufacturer
    -> "fix my problem or we ditch you"
    -> you listen to their empty promise once
    -> twice
    -> you ditch them

    you should NOT create a program to fix the problem for them or it might never be fixed by them (what problem ? didn't you have a solution ?)
  • Out of all the postings I read, only one even came close to another suggestion.......look at the database. More specifically, Peachtree used to come with different database formats, like Btrieve or Access.

    I used to support Btrieve and can tell you that it is one solid database. It was always the software apps built around it that were shite if there were problems. If you are having crashes, you need to check which database is being used. If it is Btrieve, then you may want to look at your code (Peachtree).
  • The company I previously worked at used Peachtree for their accounting package. It had a really bad time networking. Either use Quickbooks or get up to a MAS 90-level program.

    -m
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