Performance tuning your Sage X3 system: Users

4 minute read time.

Updated: 03 August 2023

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Please note this document and all other documents it links to are living documents so will evolve over time as new things are discovered, new functionality is provided, best practises adjusted and/or when I get time to add content; so please make sure you come back and visit this source document often.

Contents

Performance tuning your Sage X3 system: Users

Tune your users!

Review client PC/Laptop

General blogs, KB articles, etc.

Collecting data from client PCs

 

Tune your users!

It may seem odd to talk about tuning users when considering a computer system, however user behaviour can certainly have a big impact on system performance, depending on what they are allowed to do and how skilled they are in doing it.  

Some questions to consider relating to user behaviour, which could impact performance:

  • Are Operating System updates scheduled on the PCs? If so, how often and what time of day
  • When are Virus checker updates or scans scheduled?
  • Are up to date Browser version(s) being used?
  • Do users have direct access to the database for any reason. For example, using tools such as SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), TOAD, Excel, etc.    If so, why do they need it and what are they doing with it?
  • How many users have access to development tools such as Eclipse? What are the tools used for?  How often would these tools be used?
  • Check the license file to confirm maximum users/badges. Has the system been sized for the correct number of user sessions? (see note below)
  • How many users are typically on the system normally, and how many at peak times?
  • What are the peak times? (Certain times of the day, week and/or Month, for example)
  • What type of work do most users normally do? g., data entry, launch batch processes, run regular reports, imports, etc.
  • What are typical data volumes per month?
  • Do users create their own requesters?
  • What Requesters are used and how often are they run?
  • What reports could users launch on ad-hoc basis, and how often would they be run?
  • Is Export to Excel often used? If so, what data volumes are typically exported?
  • What add-ins (Office or Outlook) are going to be used? To what extent are they likely going to be used?  Will the users have sufficient knowledge to understand potential system impact if extracting huge amounts of data?

To start with, its useful to get picture of the user activity and likely times load will be generated.  This may allow you to smooth the workload out, for example by scheduling long running tasks or intensive reporting out of hours. 

It is also important to understand if there are any challenging data volumes, for example such as huge number of lines in some Sales Orders, as this can impact memory usage in both Syracuse processes and classic processes.

Requesters, especially SQL requesters, could be poorly designed and/or be run too often and/or be run without sufficient selection criteria – any of which could affect overall system performance. 

Export to Excel.  Exporting large volumes of data via a screen enquiry and then using Export to Excel is not how the system is designed to work and is likely to take a long time to complete.  It may also affect overall system performance due to overloading SQL Server with huge data requests (high CPU usage on both Apps server and Database server) If you need to get large quantities of data out of Sage X3 into Excel, either one off or regularly, you may be better to consider using other options which would likely be much more efficient, such as Requesters.

 Other user behaviour which could impact performance for you to consider:

  • How many browsers/browser tabs will users have open.

Every classic function open by one user counts as a “session” and takes system resources.  Understanding this behaviour will help you to correctly size the system.

  • Will users exit functions correctly once finished with them and will they logout at the end of the day.

Related to above, in that if users are in the habit of clicking “X” on the tab to close the function, rather then exiting correctly, this will still leave the session running.  User awareness training should cover this topic.

  • Record locking/blocking

If users modify records but don’t then save the transaction, this can cause record locked errors for other users or procedures, which may present as slow performance in some cases.  

Similarly, if they are not selective enough when launching A/P-A/R accounting, Open items, Open Items (MODECHE) this could also cause record locking issues for the duration of their activity.

It’s also worth noting that if you enable the "Debug" flag in a workflow rule, you will see this will cause a database lock whilst the user has the Workflow debug log file open.

Review client PC/Laptop

Apart from the users, it is important to consider the PC/Laptop specifications, especially for “Power users”.   It is easy to assume that users with a modern Laptop and latest browser version would be fine to run a Sage X3 session, which in most cases will likely be true, but if the user runs multiple browsers with multiple tabs, as well as add-ins and other client-based software, client resources can easily get chewed up.   Another consideration would be the network speed and reliability, particularly these days for home users who may have bandwidth issues and additional layers of networking introduced such as VPNs.

General blogs, KB articles, etc.

Collecting data from client PCs

The Sage Support “Investigation Scripts” provide some rudimentary scripts which could potentially be used to gather data and monitor client performance (..\InvestigationScripts\PowerShell\ClientPC)  

Windows PerfMon can also be used on Client PCs to gather detailed information.

Review “Using browser tools” to get some help on gathering HTTP traces from the client PCs, if needed.

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  • Hello Heather, thanks for the questions.

    There are a couple of places to check your license information, one of which is Administration, Usage, Sessions Management, License Usage Information which also gives current usage as well.

    The "(see note below)" is meant for you to understand that "Every classic function open by one user counts as a “session” and takes system resources" There are also a couple of places to check your number of users/sessions, but I like using Administration, Usage, Sessions Management, Session Information as this give you "X3 sessions" for each user logged in.  Having said that, if I need to gather session data over time I mostly use one of the SQL scripts in my "Investigation Scripts".

    Hope this helps,

    Mike

  • Hi, thank  you for the content. Can you help me to locate:  Check the license file to confirm maximum users/badges. Has the system been sized for the correct number of user sessions? Or is the comment see notes below mean the follow on checks?