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Making Macola® run faster

Adapted from the Leahy Consulting handout "Making your Macola® SQL database run faster", from the "Supercharge your Macola® ERP software" workshop series, 2014 and 2018.

Macola® is fast, and it slows down over the years as you keep adding data. Think of a new filing cabinet. Over a few years it fills with paper records, and if you never throw any away, finding what you need takes longer and longer because the old records are in the way. The same thing happens to a Macola® database — with the advantage that cleaning it out is easier than cleaning out a filing cabinet.

Four options, roughly in order of effort:

Use the built-in purge programs

Macola® ships with purge programs, one per file. They work. They are also a slow, tedious exercise every month, and the data is gone afterwards.

Compress the GBKMUT file (Macola® ES and 10)

If you run ES or 10 you have heard of the GBKMUT file — pronounced "G-B-Kamut". It is typically as large as all your other Macola® files put together, because every transaction that affects the general ledger ends up in it.

Macola® developed a program that compresses the file by merging similar records. It is worth investigating. The file itself, and what is in it, is documented in The GBKMUT file and the other ES accounting tables.

Archive instead of purging

Archiving moves old data to a second Macola® database where it stays available, rather than deleting it. Nothing is purged, so the old data is still there when somebody asks for it — which, in our experience, they eventually do.

This is what Pulse Archive does: you set a retention policy in months for each critical file, and each month it moves anything older into the archive database.

Re-index

Re-indexing typically speeds up Macola® processing as much as purging or archiving does, and it costs nothing but a maintenance window. If your IT resource knows Microsoft SQL, they can create a job that re-indexes the Macola® data files overnight. Re-indexing is also built into the Pulse Archive software.

Where to start

Start by finding out where the volume actually is. The built-in Archive Report in Pulse Dashboard lists the number of records by file and by year. Export it to Excel and send it to our team for a no-cost analysis — based on many other Macola® installations, we will come back with recommendations on what is worth purging or archiving.

Tip

The other half of the job. Pulse SystemPRO tunes the database engine itself and cleans up bad data, while Pulse Archive keeps the active database small. The two together are what keeps an aging Macola® installation running like new. Call (513) 723-8091.

Support & contact

Our team is glad to help with anything from a quick question to a full implementation.