Communication

Communication is the exchange of data between different Aurea CRMstations (main office, branch offices).

Communicating ensures that the necessary data is present on each station and is up to date.

The station number is central to the communication process. Each station has a unique station number used to identify the station when communicating. The station number is also used to form records' primary keys (e.g. station number + serial number for independent info areas), indicating which station the record is added on, see Defining Stations.

A data stock download is used to initialize an empty Aurea CRM database with data. The data stock download must be created on the main office and imported on the branch office, see Configuring Communication.

All changes to data made on a station (adding, editing, deleting records) since the last communication session are tracked by the system and must be communicated to all other stations that work with the affected data. To communicate, a communication file is output by the source station and input on the target station, see Communication Steps.

Communication files can be transferred from the source station to the target station using telecommunications networks (LAN, FTP, e-mail (MAPI) etc.) or using external media.

Data in the communication file is compared to and merged with the data in the target database, see Match-up.

Communication formats and distributed logic define which data is output and input by each station. For example, you can determine that the main office only outputs companies assigned to a notebook owner when communicating with notebooks, see Communication Format and Distribution Logic . The synchronization process ensures that data required by a station (based on the communication format and distributed logic) is present on branch offices, see Synchronization.

Communication can be started automatically (from the command line) or manually (from the Station and Communication info areas), see Starting Communication.