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Millions of Customers!

Hello,

How big is your customer database? We would like to load a finder file of

2.2 million customers. All customers at each of our nine stores would have the database of 2.2 million synced down to them. The purpose of the finder file is to allow the store to automatically populate data for a new customer when she first arrives. Has any one attempted a project of this sort?

1) If we could populate all of the databases successfully, is this number of records managable for RMS?

2) We have imported a group of 200,000 to a local test database successfully. However, the sync back up to headquarters failed. So we are thinking of using DTS to import all the records everwhere to avoid the syncs. And if that doesn't work, we'll look at bcp. Of course, these two methods require vigilance with assigning IDs to avoid duplication/corruption.

Thanks-

Reply to
Shirley
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Shirley,

1) Why don't you use something that goes to the Internet and finds the customer instead of creating a bunch of useless records? For example;
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for their People Pop. There are others. 2) Of course it will fail the first time, it will fail everytime! You are attempting to update 200,000 customer records from a store that is maybe designed to update a thousand or so a day. In addition, the records should already in HQ as part of the initial load and would be sent down to the store on the store's creation.

Look at how to create a HQ database and then create a Store database from it. HQ Admin | Help | Contents | Getting Started | Bring a store online.

Reply to
Jeff

I agree with Jeff. We have linked RMS with Quick Address System

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They have a system that is kept updated of postal address. So when you get a new customer you can serach for their address by their POSTAL CODE, Phone Number Etc... and the system returns the full Street address and automatically fills the RMS Customer record. That is more efficiant than trying to keep 2million records.

Afshin Alikhani - [ snipped-for-privacy@retailrealm.co.uk] CEO - Retail Realm

- URL

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"Shirley" wrote:

Reply to
Afshin Alikhani

I went to their website qas.com. They have a produt that verifies International addresses also? Is this web-based? How does it link into RMS? Does it verify the address AND name when you enter the order? Or just make sure the address is legitimate?

We do a lot of shipping Internationally and domestic and it would be nice to have a secondary check....BEFORE we try to export it to Dazzle-Endicia.

Thanks!

"Afsh> I agree with Jeff. We have linked RMS with Quick Address System

Reply to
Mickie

We have written our interface to QAS using their programs that is updated locally every quarter via a CD. I am not too familiar with their web object. If you call them and get a copy of their QAS Pro or Rapid version then contact me for the link. I can give you an evaluation version to test this with RMS or 3 months.

Afshin Alikhani - [ snipped-for-privacy@retailrealm.co.uk] CEO - Retail Realm

Reply to
Afshin Alikhani

I just talked to a QAS rep. $1,400 per license (register). I said it's not going to happen with the 3 to 10 million/yr retailers I service. He said he understands and that they're really targeting the large chains etc right now.

He did say they've been in the UK for much longer and pricing there is probably different.

Rick Brown DataBasics

Reply to
Rick Brown

Sounds like a bad idea to me. Why load all those unnecessary records into the DB and risk timing out connections to HQ? Managing that customer list would be impossible in any app if you ask me.

Reply to
Jason

If the million plus global records are already in the store database by virtue of an import, would the sync still fail?

After the initial load, fewer than a thousand would change throughout the system. Would the update requests skip anything that hadn't changed by comparing the Customer.DBTimeStamp with the previous worksheetHistory.HistoryDate?

Thanks.

Reply to
Shirley

It seems like the first 2 401s run for a new store will end up 'touching' every customer and item, whether they have changed since the import or not. I usually connect the newly exported stores to HQ on the local network a couple of times to get the Sync out of the way before sending the database out to the store location.

Reply to
Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt]

The store databases exist already. We are just pumping a bunch of global customer records into them. Does that effect the first sync's?

I agree that running the sync locally is a good way to speed things up.

Best, Shirley

"Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt]" wrote:

Reply to
Shirley

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