Financial Edge response time we are experiencing is significantly degraded compared to AFN. Has Blackbaud communicated any comparative information on what users should expect? Any insights on this will be appreciated as this has become a volatile issue!!

I can't compare FE to AFN, as we're a new FE customer (as of June 2006). But I can say that FE's response time is the worst of any of the applications we have here. Compared to the bloated property management system we have, written in Visual Basic, FE looks pretty bad. Compared to any of the Microsoft Office 2003 applications, FE looks horrendous. The more time I spend [i]working[/i] with FE, the more time I spend [i]waiting[/i] for FE.

I concur with you - it is hard to get a handle on it but it definitely is much slower, especially querying accounts Have talked to Blackbaud, we are up to speed on all hardware issues and then some I am beginning to forget how much faster AFN was as the months go by, but it definitely was Also I am wondering whether my chart of accounts configuration plays a role in this - I used the standard chart of accounts we had for AFN, fund accounting and I realize now I should have re-designed the chart of accounts for Financial Edge and maybe that would help [Email Removed]

We implemented a new Chart of Accounts (new from what we used in AFN). I don't believe we got any advice from BB on ways to organize the CoA for performance optimization. The structure was based on business needs and direction. Has anyone gotten any performance information from BB on what type of response to expect? I understand (ancecdotally) that they concur users should expect slower performance.

We implemented a new Chart of Accounts (new from what we used in AFN). I don't believe we got any advice from BB on ways to organize the CoA for performance optimization. The structure was based on business needs and direction. Has anyone gotten any performance information from BB on what type of response to expect? I understand (ancecdotally) that they concur users should expect slower performance. [i]--- Edited at 10/12/2006 2:56:59 PM by Jim Wilk[/i]

I'm also looking for suggestions on how to speed up FE. Since converting from AFN to FE and upgrading to all new hardware last month, my productivity has decreased substantially (due primarily to the slowness of FE). I used to be able to navigate quickly between clients & records. Now, each mouse click in FE returns a 10-20 second delayed response. This is unacceptable! I've worked with a BB consultant, who only confirmed what I'd already figured out, and offered little help on the speed issue (but charged us handsomely). HELP.

I spent several months working through speed issues of FE (Student Billing being the most noticeable) with a Technical Support Engineer at BB. We ended up throwing a whole lot of hardware at the problem to little avail. Eventually, Blackbaud closed the case with this notice: "Advising Scott that opening records (with activity tab) and posting to GL speeds are considered normal functionality in FE." So there you have it. We added (on BB's recommendation) a second 3.0 GHz processor to our dedicated Blackbaud server, moved the ram up from 3 GB to 7 Gb, moved the workstation ram from 512 MB to 1.5 GB, and it barely effected the speed. It would appear that since Blackbaud can't rise to meet the bar, they simply lower the bar and claim it "normal". [i]--- Edited at 2/15/2007 10:14:02 AM by Scott Pavao[/i]

We have now completed the conversion of 5 entities from AFN to FE. Performance continues to be an issue, due in part to our original plan to implement using CITRIX with FE at a co-sourced location being accessed via VPN-tunnel. We too retained a Blackbaud consultant (at considerable expense) who reconfirmed what our technical people advised. The conclusion: "performance we are getting is as good as it gets." I wonder if anyone from Blackbaud reads these forums. A proactive response from BB would be nice.

Although we limit postings from the forum administrator, we wanted to respond to the request for a response on issues with performance in The Financial Edge. We are aware that some clients are experiencing performance issues within The Financial Edge and are working to address them. If you are experiencing performance issues, please create a case through Case Central to notify Customer Support of your issue. Please include details about the specific issue you are experiencing, and a Customer Support analyst will follow up to assist you. We will review the information provided to try to determine any changes we can incorporate to improve speed and performance.

While here helping us with our conversion a consultant from BB said that four of the machine that we notice FE ran really slow on only met the lowest end of the requirements. We have order four new machines, these just came in we will be configuring them and rolling them out in the near future. I will let you know if I see a great change on those machines.

We never had any of this issue. We converted to FE almost two years ago. The hardware specs I did was dual processor at 3.06 Ghz. 4 GB memory a sleek HP Rack server. We have 7 users and 0 response time problems. The cost of the Hardware at that time was around $3,000.00. We have purchased another server as a backup server with similar specs. Rao/..

Rao, I find your response interesting. We have nearly identical setups, but the response times are way too slow. We have 7 FE users & 11 EE users on a dual 3.0 GHz Xeon server with 7GB of ram running Windows 2003 Enterprise R2, MS SQL Server 2000 Enterprise, running a RAID 5 disk setup. The database is slightly over 2 GB in size. The network is fiber optic fast ethernet. The only other thing on the server is Raisers' Edge (7 users) and FE is noticeably slower than AFN. While with most modules its acceptable, Student Billing's speed is unacceptable Workstations all have 2.8 GHz with 1 GB ram, WindowsXP SP2. We use GL, AP, Misc Cash Receipts & Student Billing Could you describe in more detail what modules you're using, workstation setup, etc? You seem to be one of the few people not having speed issues. From what I hear from my peers in the NY independent school area, nearly all have issues, especially with Student Billing.

We do not have Raiser's Edge or Student Billing. We have all three modules of FE A/P, GL and Mis.Cash Receipts. I certainly believe the load is coming from SAR (Student Accounts Receivables). I do not know much about SAR or Raiser's Edge. In addition, we use MSDN not full MSSQL server. Therefore, we cannot compare Apples to Oranges. Rao/..

Has anyone tried turning off your server's virus scan software? I saw the recommendation on another forum, and asked our tech folks to temporarily turn ours off (it previously ran in the backgroung). This made a noticiable improvement to FE response times; I've convinced them to run it only at night. While I'm still dissappointed in FE performance, it is better than before. Shanna

Ah, that makes perfect sense. Student Billing is the module thats the worst for us. The other modules may run slower than AFN, but certainly acceptable speed. For example a 10-page posting from AP will validate & post in 20-25 seconds. A 10-page Student Billing posting, on the other hand, will take well over 4 minutes. Everything about Student Billing is far, far slower than AFN: entering data, viewing activity, printing statements. I suppose if we pulled SB out of the mix, FE may seem comparable to AFN.