We will first of all look at the settings within Premvet 5 that affect cross-updating. The cross updating menu option is:

It contains the following options:

• Integrate Log File

  If work is received from the remote site(s) and Background Integration is not being used then this option can be used to process any work.

  Note: If there is no work to process then this menu option will not appear.

• Bounce work

  You may have the situation where one of the record cards at one site is correct, same client branch 2 is missing a payment, and same client branch 3 has a correction. If there are a lot (over 20) records needing bouncing this would suggest a fairly major failure at some point. We recommend you identify and correct the reason and then transfer the full database via xmenu. See the FAQ Keeping sites up to date for more details.

  This option allow you to send the FULL management and clinical records to all sites. This will overwrite the corresponding client details on all remote machines.

  You will be asked to specify the client number to send and it will be added to the log file and will be sent the next time x_send runs.

  Notes:

  Vatbook: No check is made on the remote machines to see if existing work on the card about to be overwritten is in the current Vatbook. If so, then it will not be processed.

  The work that has been bounced will not go through the Vatbook.

  File Size: On the remote surgeries, the existing clinical work will be marked as free before the new records are added. This can lead to, over a period of time, a fair number of records on the clinical free list. You should, periodically, run the validation option ' Re-organise files'. This will compact the clinical files, re-using all the free records.

• Generate database

  This option will run through the current database, extract a specific surgeries work and create a new copy of the vet system with just this work.

  You will be asked:

  Surgery to extract	Which surgeries clinical records to use
  New Database location	Enter the path to the new database.

• Extract work

  This option is similar the bounce work above. However, rather than transfer specific animals, the extract option will check all animals and look for work between specific dates.

  The use of this option is for the rare cases where a complete log file is lost/corrupt - You can 're-build' the logfile so no work is lost.

  You will be asked:

  Client to Start at	Where to start looking
  Client to End at	Where to end looking
  Surgery to extract	Which surgery number, or press RETURN for all
  Start Date	What is the start date
  Start Time	What is the start time
  End Date/Time	As the start options except it relates to the end date.

  The system will search for and add the work to the logfile, the next time x_send runs it will be sent to the remote sites.

  Unlike the bounce option, extract will add to the records on the remote sites. You should ensure you have the dates and times correct otherwise you will end up with duplication.

• Allocate clients

  The system uses the animal number to keep track of the records, as such the animal number must be unique across all sites. Records are allocated from the main sites (this option only appears on the menu at the main site), these are sent out to the branches (in chunks of 200 at a time). The remote sites then use these records when a new animal is added. Users do NOT need to do anything differently at the branch - the system handles that automatically.

  As the administrator, you should as part of your routine check that there are enough records available. All you need to do is look at the number of 'XUD2' (for branch 2), 'XUD3' (for branch 3) etc. cards. Make sure there are enough - if not, just run is option to allocate some more.

  The other way to check for the number of cards is enter a '?' at the main menu - at the bottom right of the screen you will see XUD/DELE followed by two numbers, the 1st number is the number of XUD cards and the 2nd is the number of deleted cards. If used on a remote machine this is the number of cards FOR THIS SITE - on the main machine it is total number of XUD cards.

  You can get the system to automatically allocate records if required. This is done by setting option 7 'Number of XUD sites' (see Parameters Menu in the next chapter) to the number of sites. Whenever x_send runs on the main server the system will check option 8 (Trip/Send if less than) - if there are less than this number of XUD cards the system will automatically create and send the appropriate number of XUD? cards.

• Parameters

  This option deals with the parameters that need to be set and is covered in the next chapter.