License
Bob Siegel
Hi,
We are planning to use Moneydance for our living group of Autistic children and want to have 3 people be able to access one financial data file from the group. The file will be on google drive. How many licenses do we need? Thanks.
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1 Posted by derekkent23 on Jul 15, 2021 @ 01:45 PM
I am not support staff, just a user.
Hi Bob
You MUST NOT move your dataset to any cloud server including Google Drive, This can cause data set corruption. You can and should use a cloud server as a Moneydance automatic backup location in case your hard drive etc fails.
Provided you do not want to sync your data to a mobile device, phone etc, you can use the Moneydance internal sync engine, use the sync method Shared Folder and use Google Drive as the Shared Folder location to sync between computers. If, however you want to sync to mobile devices you must at least use a free Dropbox account.
See https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb/syncing-and-sharing-data
As for how many licences see https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb/purchasing-and-upgrading/lice...
Hope this helps
2 Posted by Bob on Jul 15, 2021 @ 03:55 PM
Hi Derek,
Thanks for the tips. Now I understand the sharing option, but have another question. We will be working with one Moneydance file, but here comes the difficulty. One person will be doing the real work, but two will need access to check the data. We don’t want the other two to be able to change the data. We could use one file for the real data and then copy that and share it so any changes made accidentally won’t change the master. The. We share the copy. But every so often we would want to share an updated version of the original. How does the licensing policy work in this situation? With three licenses it would certainly work, but I don’t understand the policy that only one license is necessary for one file. If we keep changing the file, is this a problem?
3 Posted by derekkent23 on Jul 15, 2021 @ 09:35 PM
I am not support staff, just a user.
Hi Bob
There is no limit to the number of Data sets (files) you can create on a computer.
You could periodically use Moneydance EXPORT BACKUP on the master computer then RESTORE FROM BACKUP the backup you have just created. Then you would need to step up syncing again with the other users using the restored data set. You will end up with an ever increasing number of data sets and need to delete old data sets. Could difficult to control. Maybe another user can see a more elegant solution.
Hope this helps.
4 Posted by dtd on Jul 15, 2021 @ 10:07 PM
Sounds to me like you've stated your solution, as you really don't want syncing (i.e. the other two users might change the master accidentally)
"We could use one file for the real data and then copy that and share it so any changes made accidentally won’t change the master."
Keep the master on the primary user's local drive. Share a copy to the other two users.
Periodically update the copy when needed.
I'm "just a user", but given this is for personal use and sharing, I'd think you only need one license (while installing the app on three computers) but someone from IK can verify or deny that assertion.
5 Posted by dtd on Jul 15, 2021 @ 10:11 PM
The previous message assumes three computers. Mobile devices (phones/pads/etc.) change the whole issue as they receive their info from syncing, not from "a copy of the database file".
6 Posted by dwg on Jul 15, 2021 @ 10:54 PM
There is no way of having syncing but having read only access to some users, your in the world of Access control in your requirement which is far and beyond what a personal finance package like Moneydance is intended to be able to do.
The simplest approach is probably just to provide a copy of the data set manually to the other s that need to check it.
To have a single system with such deliniation of access I think would require a client/server type application, which would be more complex than Moneydance but also far more capability, you would be in the world of business level software.
Support Staff 7 Posted by Ethan on Jul 18, 2021 @ 11:26 PM
Hello,
Sorry for the delay in an official reply from support staff. I don't really have anything to add on the read only issue. I think the users above laid out what are likely the only feasible options. I agree that you probably don't actually want syncing enabled, and perhaps want to manually copy the data file over to the 'read only' systems, to ensure the master one is never altered. But you would have to forgo the mobile option entirely for this scenario, since there's no way to share that without also enabling syncing, thereby linking the mobile app with the main data file.
The more complicated option Derek outlined in post 3 could work, although you'd need to be really on top of your backups and restoring files. Honestly I probably wouldn't recommend trying that, it seems like a lot of work, and easy to make a mistake.
Given your situation and what your organization is trying to do, I think just purchasing one license key will be fine for this situation. It is extending the limits of the definition of 'household' a bit, but what you're describing sounds similar to some things other parents try with their children in 'traditional' settings, so I think the same should apply here. Let us know if for some reason the licensing issue doesn't work for you.
Ethan
Infinite Kind Support
Maddy closed this discussion on Oct 07, 2021 @ 12:39 PM.