HELP! Moving to RMS from DOS program...

Posted by Laura on August 5, 2005, 3:39 pm

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Hi all,

Here's the situation. I work at a small retail store. We are trying to
upgrade from our very old retail software that runs on DOS and dies
unexpectedly on occasion. However, we have a HUGE database of customers
and inventory that we need to transfer over, preferably intact.

I've found four files that contain all the important data, a customer
table with a linked table of notes and an inventory table with a linked
table of notes. It's crucial that we get the notes over, as our customer
rewards program is contained in the notes. The files are .DBT and .DBF
files. The DOS program is called "Smart Register".

I'm not techie enough to do the transfer myself and I'm not getting a
firm commitment from the vendor selling us RMS about getting the notes
over. They seem really unsure of it. What I really need to know is...
is this even possible? We don't really care if we have to hire an SQL
expert to do the transfer, we just want to be sure we aren't going to
lose half our data when we do.

In addition, I would ideally like to be able to transfer the database
once for training, and then once again when we go live. Would it be
possible for an SQL expert to create a program that would allow me to do
that?

Then, going a bit further, since I haven't run this thing live yet... I
want to know if I will be able to configure my own buttons on the bottom
of the POS screen. As a for instance, we don't do lawaways, can we get
rid of that button? And we use customer notes a lot, can I create a
button to pull those up? I haven't been able to figure out much from the
help files and the little playing around I've done. How configurable is
this program?

If we do pull this move off, I'm sure I'll have even more questions. But
those are the burning ones at the moment. I've read through the last
month and half of notes, so I'm sorry if I missed anything that would
have answered my questions already.

Thanks,

-Laura

Posted by Jeff on August 5, 2005, 4:58 pm

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Laura,

Yeah, your notes might be a problem.

Have you or your reseller looked at MS SQL Import by EMS? I can't tell if
it works with the .DBT file, which is your notes file.
http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/mssql/dataimport

You can download a trial version and see how it works.
--
*
Hi all,

Here's the situation. I work at a small retail store. We are trying to
upgrade from our very old retail software that runs on DOS and dies
unexpectedly on occasion. However, we have a HUGE database of customers
and inventory that we need to transfer over, preferably intact.

I've found four files that contain all the important data, a customer
table with a linked table of notes and an inventory table with a linked
table of notes. It's crucial that we get the notes over, as our customer
rewards program is contained in the notes. The files are .DBT and .DBF
files. The DOS program is called "Smart Register".

I'm not techie enough to do the transfer myself and I'm not getting a
firm commitment from the vendor selling us RMS about getting the notes
over. They seem really unsure of it. What I really need to know is...
is this even possible? We don't really care if we have to hire an SQL
expert to do the transfer, we just want to be sure we aren't going to
lose half our data when we do.

In addition, I would ideally like to be able to transfer the database
once for training, and then once again when we go live. Would it be
possible for an SQL expert to create a program that would allow me to do
that?

Then, going a bit further, since I haven't run this thing live yet... I
want to know if I will be able to configure my own buttons on the bottom
of the POS screen. As a for instance, we don't do lawaways, can we get
rid of that button? And we use customer notes a lot, can I create a
button to pull those up? I haven't been able to figure out much from the
help files and the little playing around I've done. How configurable is
this program?

If we do pull this move off, I'm sure I'll have even more questions. But
those are the burning ones at the moment. I've read through the last
month and half of notes, so I'm sorry if I missed anything that would
have answered my questions already.

Thanks,

-Laura

Posted by Laura on August 5, 2005, 8:41 pm

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> Laura,

> Yeah, your notes might be a problem.

> Have you or your reseller looked at MS SQL Import by EMS? I can't

> tell if it works with the .DBT file, which is your notes file.

> http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/mssql/dataimport

> You can download a trial version and see how it works.

Just playing with the trial version tonight, it seems to pull the notes
over properly. I'm going to have to find an item with longer notes and
make sure it grabs the full thing... but this seems to be the tool we
need. And I can do most of it by myself.

I was most worried about the note fields... my boss would be inclined to
stick with the horrible DOS program if she couldn't be promised that the
notes would come over as well. A little more testing, and I'll be able
to give a definitive answer.

Many, many thanks! You just made my life a lot easier.

-Laura

Posted by Laura on August 5, 2005, 9:21 pm

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>> Yeah, your notes might be a problem.

>> http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/mssql/dataimport

>> You can download a trial version and see how it works.

> Just playing with the trial version tonight, it seems to pull the notes

> over properly. I'm going to have to find an item with longer notes and

> make sure it grabs the full thing...

No joy. It only pulls over 5 lines of notes. Worse, it pulls over the
oldest five lines. I'm beginning to seriously wonder if this is even
possible.

-Laura

Posted by Laura on August 6, 2005, 8:52 am

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>>> Yeah, your notes might be a problem.

>>> http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/mssql/dataimport

>>> You can download a trial version and see how it works.

> No joy. It only pulls over 5 lines of notes. Worse, it pulls over the

> oldest five lines. I'm beginning to seriously wonder if this is even

> possible.

Did it! With some assistance via e-mail I found DBF Viewer 2000, which can
export the notes completely into a csv file. It was harder to map the csv
to the SQL database, but when I did get the file in, the notes were
complete.

Many thanks to the folks who helped me out. I'm sure I'll have lots of
questions in the future.

-Laura