On rare occasions, very large properties may need to go on a diet. The Cartman Defense notwithstanding (“I’m not fat, I’m just big boned.”), the issue is that one or more of their historical databases is approaching 2 Gigabytes in size, an inherent limit for a FoxPro data structure. Though uncommon, it is not unheard of, so the purpose of this post is to let you know that there is a solution and it has been successfully deployed numerous times over the past couple of decades.
The historical databases that can encounter this challenge include those for owner transactions, reservations, guest transactions and POS transactions. In each case, SMS Support Services will intervene with a utility that extracts the oldest portions of the historical files and places them into a date-specific database referred to as “ancient history”. This reduces the size of the original historical database and is repeatable as it, subsequently, fills up again.
While the data within the ancient history file cannot be viewed directly from SMS|Host, it is easily accessible using a report writer. On the other hand, experience has shown that there is rarely a need to retrieve or report on the contents due to their age.
I should point out there is a more decisive alternative for those properties that may not see any value in maintaining collections of ancient history. There is a function on your System Maintenance menu to Clear History Files with three options: Folio Transactions, Owner Transactions or Reservation, City Ledger and Membership accounts and the folio transactions associated with them. I cannot actually recommend such a draconian approach given the ease with which ancient history can be preserved but it is your data so we encourage you to evaluate your options and choose what is best for your circumstances.
Next time, we will take a look at Report Groups and how to create custom report menus for departments, groups of employees or individuals.
