The TopLine Dash preferences store the last dashboard that you opened so that it will automatically open the same one when you start ACT! the next time.  Sometimes you will want to reset these.  In order to do this perform the following steps.

1. Click on Start->Run

2. Type "%appdata%\TopLine Results\TopLine Dashboard" into the text box and press Enter.

3. Find the file that says TopLineDash.xml and delete it.

4. Restart ACT! and your preferences will be set back their default state.

For one reason or another, you may want to reset your TopLine Designer preferences.  This primarily means that any custom columns that you may have set will be set back to their defaults.

To do this:

1.  Click on the Tools menu in ACT!.

2.  Click on the TopLine Designer - Manager menu item.

3a.  If you are a Standard ACT! user or using a remote databaes then you will be taken straight to the About screen.

3b.  If you are an Admin user and not using a remote database then you will be taken to the Designer Manager screen.  You will need to click on the About button in the lower left corner.

4.  Click on the Erase Personal Settings option in the About screen.

5.  Restart ACT!.

After you restart ACT!, all of your columns will be reset to their default values.

If you are mixing versions of TopLine Designer and make schema modifications using an old version, it's possible to corrupt your metadata.  Newer versions of TopLine Designer prevent this from occuring but if you find yourself in this situation, follow these steps.

1.  Find a backup of your database and unzip the contents.

2.  Navigate through the folder structure until you find the Reports folder.

3.  Find the file called DoNotDelete-Designer.dna.xml.env in the Reports folder.

4.  Copy that file to your Desktop.

5.  Rename the file Metadata.dna.xml.

6.  Open ACT!

7.  Search for a contact called Designer - Do Not Delete

8.  Look through that contact's history for a history record where the regarding is Metadata.

9.  Delete all of the history entries for that contact where the regarding is Metadata.

10.  Close ACT!

11.  Copy the Metadata.dna.xml file from step 5 to your Database Files\Layouts folder.  You will be overwriting an existing file.

12.  Open ACT! and verify that everything is working again.

Following these steps will restore your tabs and screens.

An update is available for TopLine Designer Web.  This update only applies if you are using TopLine Designer Web and are experiencing issues getting it started. 

Please download the attached file.  Unzip and copy the files to your APFW folder.

NOTE: After unzipping, there will be three folders (bin, designer, plugins).  You need to copy these three folders to your APFW folder.  These three folders will already exist in your APFW folder so you will need to overwrite the existing folders and files.

After doing this, perform an IISRESET and everything should work great.

DesignerWeb - 5.6.0.3.zip (5.31 mb)

We have released an updated Setup MSI file for TopLine Designer 5.6.0.3.  This can be obtained from http://www.toplineresults.com/downloads.aspx.

There is a key new feature in this release.  We now perform a check during each login to make sure that you are running a version of TopLine Designer that is compatible with the version of metadata within the database.  In other words, if the Designer metadata is updated to a newer version and you are running an older version of Designer, you will be prompted to run the TopLine Update program automatically.  This will assist in preventing issues that arise from people using mixed versions of Designer.

If you are using ACT! 2012 and use custom tables, please be aware of a new bug that has been discovered.  The bug has to do with any field in your custom table where you have specified Generate History.  If you have fields in your custom table with Generate History turned on, you may be unable to create or update custom table records.  If you attempt to create or update custom table records and get an error, this is most likely the problem.  The workaround is to turn off Generate History for all custom table fields.  This issue has been raised with Sage (the creators of ACT!) but a fix has not been released yet.

The latest version of TopLine Designer does require all users to update to the latest version.  If you do not do so, there is a possibility that you could mess up your metadata which includes your screen definitions.  In order to resolve this, you have two options:

You can recreate all of the screens and relationships manually.

or you can attempt to recover the metadata from a backup.  If you want to do this, you must follow these steps:

1. In ACT!, perform a lookup and find the contact with a name that starts with Designer.

2. Look through the history and find the history where the regarding is Metadata.  Delete this history record.  If you find more than one, delete them all.

3. Close ACT!.

4. Find your ACT! backup and open the zip file.  Navigate the folder structure and open the Reports folder.

5. Find the file called DoNotDelete-Designer.dna.xml.env.  Copy this file to your Desktop.

6. Rename the file that is on your desktop to Metadata.dna.xml.

7. Copy the file to your [Databasename]-Database Files\Layouts folder.  It will overwrite an existing file.  DO NOT DELETE THE EXISTING METADATA FILE.  You simply want to overwrite it.

8. Open ACT! and everything should be working again.

TopLine Designer 5.6 has been updated.  The primary purpose of this update is to introduce support for the Solution Place (http://www.mysolutionplace.com).  All users must update to the latest version of TopLine Designer or the "non-updated" users will not have Designer functionality and will receive an error when logging into ACT!.  If, when logging into ACT!, you get an error message stating "There was an error loading the metadata.", then you should ensure that the user is running the latest version of TopLine Designer.

Get pre-made solution for Sage ACT! 2011 or 2012 from the Solution Place!  Visit http://www.mysolutionplace.com for more information!

We already have solutions for Event Management, Customer Service, Productivity (Getting things done), and Quoting.  Check back often to find out what else the ACT! community has come up with.

Sometimes when starting ACT! and you are using TopLine Designer, you will get a message similar to this.

There was an error loading the metadata.
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'xxx\Metadata.dna.xml' is denied.

This is caused by a Windows file security issue which means that you need to ensure that the user who is currently logged into Windows has access to the file that is given in the message.  You will need to navigate to the folder specified and right click on the Metadata.dna.xml file and choose Properties.  Then click on the Security tab and ensure that the current windows user has read permission to the file.  After you give the user permission to access the file, ACT! will start normally.  If you are unable to set the permissions, contact your network administrator as you may not have permission to modify the file attributes.