FastClose can work with multiple ERP connections out of the box, allowing users to switch effortlessly between one connection and another, and if your licence allows, even merging the results into a single report.

However this powerful "data merge" behaviour can become a banana skin when working with connections to test instances of your ERP if a user is unaware that they have more than one connection configured. This can lead to double counting of data - once from the Live connection and then once as a duplicate from the Test copy.

Even for users who don't have the "data merge" feature, who instead get an error message instructing them to select a connection, it can be annoying having to select one every time a new template is opened.

So how to avoid this?

The connections filter within a FastClose report is used to select the ERP instance to be reported against:

The behaviour of this, is that if you have a single specific connection selected, FastClose will retrieve data from that connection only.

If several connections are selected, FastClose will retrieve data from all connections simultaneously and merge the results - however, as the user has explicitly selected these connections, this is the desired outcome.

However where the filter is blank (as shown above), this means that all connections are selected - from version 3.1.0, a warning triangle will be displayed if the data merge feature is enabled, or an error message displayed if not.

Best Practice

After creating the connection in the FastClose Administration interface:

lock it down so that it is only visible to a select group of your users. To do this, click on "Repository Explorer" on the left hand side:

and then click on "Connections" in the middle:

Click on the "Permissions" button to select the users or groups of users that you wish to grant access to the Test connection, for example:

Then contact those users to ensure they are aware of this behaviour and know to explicitly select a connection in the connections filter.