How can I make my imports and export upload faster?

 

Importing and Exporting is a very important part of using RMS and QCS. Without doing exports, data that you enter will not be visible to other QCS sites or to RMS. Conversely without doing imports, data entered at other QCS sites or at RMS will not be visible to you. So the process is rather simple, just do regular exports and as long as others are doing regular imports they will be able to see your data. Likewise doing regular imports and as long as others are doing regular exports you will be able to see the data that they have entered.

Basically each type of site needs to do the following:

However at times doing an import or export may take a long time or perhaps you have noticed that your imports and exports have been taking longer to complete then what it used to be a month or two ago. If your imports and export are taking longer you may want to inquire about:

1.The type of internet connection you have. Has your internet connection changed? If using a satellite connection or air card has your location changed? Perhaps there is a problem with your location.

2.The type of attachments you are adding to QCS or RMS. If you are now adding more attachments such as PDF files or pictures your imports and exports will take longer as one PDF file or picture represents hundreds of activities, schedule dates, and daily reports.

However in our experience the majority of times we have dealt with this issue the problem is that one of the remote QCS sites is not importing or exporting regularly. The reason for this is the way QCS keeps track of what data needs to be exported. When you perform an export QCS will first determine all of the QCS sites that have been added by the master QCS site for this contract and the date that they last exported. Now your QCS knows about all of the other QCS sites associated with this contract and also knows how "old" their data is. Your QCS will then take the QCS site with the oldest date, that is the site with the oldest export, and scan all of the data associated with the contract. Any data that is "newer" than that "oldest" date will be included in the export.

For example say you have a master site and two remote sites, sites Alpha and Bravo, and you are site Alpha. Furthermore lets say that the last export file from the master site was on 10/1/2010, the last export from Bravo was 10/5/2010, and todays date is 10/7/2010. So when you perform an export from Alpha any data that is newer than 10/1/2010 will be included in the export. Thus the export will include all of the data that was add, edited, or deleted for the past week. So you will have an export that contains one week worth of data. The fact that Bravo last exported data from 10/5/2010 is ignored. The Alpha QCS is trying to get the master site up to date and can only do that if the export includes all of the data that has been modified since 10/1/2010.

Lets change the facts here and say that Bravo is a new remote site and has never exported. The master site's last export was still on 10/1/2010 and today's date is 10/7/2010. Here the Alpha site will see that Bravo has never exported and give Bravo a date of zero. Then all of the data in Alpha will look newer because every date is greater than a date of zero. So what happens when Alpha exports the entire contact will be exported and if the contract has been on going for a few months your export file can be quite large.

To solve this problem you will need to have the master QCS site open their Site Management window and review all of the QCS remote sites that are registered with the contract. If a remote QCS site is no longer importing and exporting that site needs to be deleted or be told that they need to perform regular imports and exports. Once all of the remote sites are performing regular imports and exports the amount of data being exported will decrease because all of the sites will have "newer" data.