Offline Usage

Working offline with Digital-Clay clients is used in the following scenarios:

• A temporary solution while ClayCentral or the network/internet is down.
• Remote locations where access to ClayCentral is blocked. For example, at home or while travelling. Offline work is a fallback even when a VPN, e-mail connectivity and remote control are not available.
• Safely importing data with previews using ClayIntegrator.

Note that with ClayStation for Outlook, since Digital-Clay runs as an add-on, the client automatically runs offline until the user connects and logs-in.

ClayStudio is more suitable for administration, setting up a system, and for customization and therefore does not support working offline.

ClayIntegrator uses a single offline database for previews and safe imports. I.e. it makes a copy of the offline database before it imports data, which allows imports to be cancelled, or data to be changed, cleansed or fixed before it is actually imported to ClayCentral.

The ClayIntegrator offline database and synchronization cannot be switched off.

Both ClayStation and ClayStation for Outlook support working offline and maintain one database per Digital-Clay user. This is because every user logging in to ClayStation may have different permissions or settings, and therefore different data.

Synchronization for the ClayStations can be switched off in the Login/Configuration window for cases where working offline is not needed.

As a safeguard, each Digital-Clay database contains a unique DB identifier. This identifier is compared when a client wants to synchronize its offline database with ClayCentral's database. If the identifiers don't match, synchronization will not run. This is to avoid potentially very messy situations where data from one database overwrites or is merged with data from a completely different database.

The offline database is synchronized with ClayCentral, and works as follows:

• Every change to a record updates the modified date field.
• Every time a client connects to ClayCentral and working offline is enabled, it automatically runs the synchronization procedure on all tables.
• Synchronization is based on the last synchronization date (which is stored in the User table) and retrieves records changed since the last date.
• Synchronization takes into account conflicts (they are listed as validation errors that open with a conflict resolution form), merges, deletions, security permissions, validation rules (all validation errors are listed in one form), and automation actions just as if the user were working online.
• While online, new changes are synchronized instantly.
• Manual re-synchronization for specific tables and dates is available via the Tools/Synchronize feature.

In rare cases, synchronization may fail and the offline database may be different than the online (ClayCentral) database. See Synchronization Issues for more details.

The following limitations apply while working offline:

• With the exception of ClayIntegrator, Digital-Clay clients can only use mdb files for offline databases. This means that if ClayCentral is using SQL Server and many custom fields are configured which surpass the limitations of mdb databases, working offline will not be available. In this case, an error message will be displayed after logging in and offline use must be disabled in the Login window in order to connect to ClayCentral.

• All Automation events and actions only work at ClayCentral. This includes validation rules, auto-fill and item events. However, all of these actions (excluding auto-fill) run as soon as the items are synchronized. Items that do not pass validation rules are rejected and the user is prompted to correct the data.

• The purpose of Automation auto-fill events is to instantly fill values in data forms while the user is working. For auto-filling records when they are synchronized, normal automation item events should be used.

• Built-in calculated fields like Customer:LastActivity, Contact:LastContact are not updated while working offline. They are only updated when synchronizing with ClayCentral because they often need all available records in the database for calculating values.

• Attachments do not work while offline. This includes adding and reading attachments. This is because multiple files would take too much time to synchronize.

• The History feature per record is disabled while offline. Only changes that are synchronized are audited and added to record histories.

• In order for sequential numbers to work, they must be tracked by a single application (ClayCentral). For this reason, fields set as sequential IDs and document templates with sequential numbers will not advance the sequential number until they are saved/generated online.

• All administration tasks such as changing field properties, setting permissions, adding custom fields and tables, setting ClayCentral settings, and profile management, are not available while working offline.