[Karim]

We're new to FE with a 7 user network license. To train on the sample database with more than one person simultaneously, it seems we have to be using the standalone version. But we can't seem to install the standalone and the network version on the same machine simultaneously. I cannot believe that each time users want to switch between normal usage vs. joint training on the sample database, it will force a re-install cycle for those users. Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Karim

[Kate Schandler]

Karim,

Welcome to the wide world of User Licenses. Your 7-user license live database comes with a 1 user license sample database- so to train simultaneously, yes, each of the users must be on a stand-alone computer. And yes, you cannot install a stand-alone copy of the program on the same machine that has the networked copy already on it.

The way around this is to set up one computer (allowable under your agreement as a non-production database) with a stand-alone copy of the database and use that one computer for training. I understand that this takes away the simultaneous part of training, but if you were going to do this on each desktop, training would not have been simultaneous anyway because people would still be at their desks and not together.

You could set up a computer lab with stand-alone copies of the database, and train there, but I am not sure how that impacts the user agreement. You could set up a power point presentation, present it, and then send your users back to their desks for guided practice on the live data while you stay in the vincinity of their desks for questions when they arise. (This is how I train groups of users here.)

Let me know if you have any more questions.
-Kate

[Karim]

Thanks Kate - that answers my questions.

I remain baffled by the sample database policy. Our staff mostly have wireless laptops so they can do adhoc joint trainings. And others could join on their desktops via gotomeeting. I wish BB would allow us the flexibility of rapidly switching between sample data and our own build-out.

[RatedArrrrrr]

When the sample database is used for training, it is meant to be used in the standalone environment.

The main reason for this is if someone from Blackbaud is doing the training for you on the sample database, they use a lot of the same records. If you have multiple users trying to write to the same record, only one will be successful (the person who is the quickest to submit the data to the database).

Blackbaud products are designed to only look at one database server (either itself as the standalone, or to a different machine). The way it is designed does not allow it to look to databases on multiple machines currently. Also the software can not be installed with multiple instances on the machine because of the way it reads from the computer's registry and ODBC settings(Open Database Connectivity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

If you have access to software that runs virtual machines, you may want to consider that though I can't guarantee to what point Blackbaud would support helping with that.