SalesLogix Technical Support Knowledge Base

Addressing Performance

Overview

SalesLogix is a Client/Server application. It is not a file sharing system. Therefore, the performance of SalesLogix can be affected by a number of items. Some of the main influences on performance are your database platform, the hardware used, and network architecture.

The database platform can affect performance since some platforms are better equipped to handle larger numbers of users and records. MS SQL Server for instance, handles bigger pieces of data and more users better than InterBase. If using MS SQL Server or Oracle, there are also parameters within the database platform that can be tuned to improve performance. These should however, only be changed by a knowledgeable Database Administrator. Obviously, the processor speed and physical RAM available on your database server can also have a large impact on performance. Additional drives and extra RAM on the database server can also be used in successfully tuning your database platform. Network architecture can have an impact on performance as well. This would involve the path that a workstation must take over the network in order to connect to the database server. Multiple hubs and routers should be avoided to improve performance.

Network Protocols

Network Protocols may also play a factor when addressing performance. SalesLogix uses the native drivers of the Borland Database Engine (BDE) Configuration Utility to connect to the database platform rather than a slower ODBC connection. As a result, NetBEUI and TCP/IP are the only supported network protocols. If IPX/SPX is present on a network and the database platform is InterBase, extremely poor performance will be seen unless the BDE is forced to utilize TCP/IP. This is done by setting up the Server Name parameter of the BDE alias using TCP/IP conventions rather than the UNC conventions which cause IPX/SPX to emulate NetBEUI extremely inefficiently. See the section on the BDE regarding Aliases and Pathing for InterBase for details on setting this parameter.

Settings within the SalesLogix Client

In addition to external parameters that affect performance such as those mentioned above, there are some settings that may be changed within the Client application as well which help improve performance. These settings help when working with a large number of records and may be found within the Main View tab of the Options dialog. To open this dialog, select Options from the Tools menu of the SalesLogix Client. As seen below, this tab contains several different sections which include Lookups, Default Group, Default Owner/Team and Optimization.

Lookups

If searching for a particular contact or account appears to take too long, some of the options in this section may be selected or de-selected to improve this function.

Auto Query on Open

Checking this option means that the lookup window must load the entire list of items prior to even beginning a search. Obviously, this can be time consuming if the database contains a lot of records. Therefore, you would normally want this option de-selected for better performance.

Case Sensitive Lookups

Enabling this option means that lookups will be case sensitive by default. This option can be changed on a per lookup basis via the different Lookup Windows as well. The end result of performing a case sensitive lookup is that the information being searched for must be entered using the correct case. For example, John Smith lives in Scottsdale and exists in the database. A search of Contacts by City is performed. If this option is checked and the search parameter is entered as "scottsdale", no entries will be found.
The speed of a lookup is generally enhanced by enabling this option. However, no difference in performance will be observed when searching on Last Names or Account Names. Because these are frequently searched on items, they have already been optimized for searches from a database standpoint and are therefore unaffected by this option.

Within Current Group

Enabling this setting means that the lookup will be conducted within the current group by default. This option can be changed on a per lookup basis via the different Lookup Windows as well. The end result of enabling this option is that the search will be conducted within the group of accounts, contacts or opportunities shown in the upper right hand corner of the SalesLogix Client on the title bar (see figure below).

Having this option enabled means that the results of a lookup will definitely be returned faster if anything but the All Account, Contact or Opportunity groups are used. However, be aware that this could sometimes cause no matching records to be found. For example, John Smith may NOT be a member of the Recent Contact group. Therefore, if a search by last name is done for "Smith" when this option is selected and the current group is Recent Contacts, John Smith will not be found as a possible match even though John Smith exists in the database.

Check for at least one record

If this option is selected, a message will appear within the Lookup window itself alerting you to the fact that no matching records were found instead of creating a group with no records after the lookup is complete. However, this check can be time consuming when dealing with a large database and therefore should not be selected when attempting to enhance the performance of lookups in a large database.

Default Group

This section can be used to reduce the time required to initially switch between Contacts, Account, or Opportunities. The default settings are the All Contacts, All Accounts and All Opportunities groups. These groups can be quite large as the number of records within the database increase. Therefore, SalesLogix recommends that a smaller group such as Recent Contacts, Recent Accounts and Recent Opportunities be used as the default groups to enhance performance. This minimizes the amount of information that the application must cache across the network or on a local machine on entering the Contact, Account or Opportunity screens, thereby improving performance.

Default Owner/Team

This section allows you to set a default Owner and Team for Accounts that are added. This saves time in that the separate Users/Teams dialog does not have to be entered when adding a new Account. Care should be taken as always that this default owner or team is not set to one that the user does not have access to. If this is done, they will not be able to see the record that they just added even though it was successfully added and exists in the database.

Optimization

Settings in this section manage the way that data is handled after jumping between accounts and contacts or looking something up.

Hyperlink

This settings deals with the group that is created after using any of the possible jumps from the tabs on a detail view. For example, double-clicking the name John Smith on the Contacts tab of the Account Detail View to jump to that contact, John Smith in the Contact Detail View. There are three possible settings for this option: Creates Lookup, Uses All Group, and Uses Current Group. These deal with the group that you would end up in after the jump. Using the Creates Lookup option offers the most enhanced performance. This is due to the fact that only information pertaining to the jump destination would need to be accessed from the database in this case. Both other choices would require that more information be cached down, causing more of a delay. Using the previous example, a temporary group of John Smith would be created on using the jump from account to contact.

Quick Find

This setting deals with the group that is created after searching for something using the Contact last name, Account name or Opportunity name Quick Find windows on the title bar as shown below.

There are three possible settings for this option: Creates Lookup, Uses All Group, and Uses Current Group. Using the Creates Lookup option offers the most enhanced performance. This is due to the fact that only information pertaining to the search results would need to be accessed from the database in this case. Both other choices would require that more information be cached down, causing more of a delay.

Automatically Calculate Group Size

This setting deals with the count of items within a particular group that displays in the upper right hand corner of the title bar. Selecting this option means that the number of items is automatically calculated each time a new group is entered. This counting process can be slow when dealing with large groups and large databases. Therefore, this option should not be checked when looking to improve performance. In this case, the word Count will display whenever a new group is entered. Click the button with the word Count to display the actual number of items in the group as shown below.

Create Temporary Group on Insert

This section deals with the group that is created when a new Account, Contact or Opportunity is inserted into the database. To enhance performance, you would want to select this option. A temporary group would then be created when a new record is inserted.