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Background
DataTeam Systems, Inc., has always been proud of its ability to support both Macintosh and PC platforms. In 1998 DataTeam embarked on a major upgrade of its popular fund accounting software – Fund Accounting2. During development DataTeam discovered that to be able to use the latest development tools it would be necessary to discontinue Macintosh development in 2002. This decision forced Grayslake and many other Mac shops to make a decision – use virtual PC (suitable only for smaller, single user schools), change vendors or introduce a PC server into their Mac network.
One school that was immediately impacted by this decision was Grayslake Community Consolidated School District 46 in Grayslake, Illinois. Grayslake was established in 1895, and has recently gone through a growth spurt, in part because of its strategic location – 40 miles north of the Chicago business "Loop" and 14 miles west of Lake Michigan.
Grayslake serves more than 3700 students attending five elementary schools and a middle school. They have been using the Macintosh version of DataTeam’s Fund Accounting since 1996.
When the district received the news that DataTeam was discontinuing development for Macintosh, administrators were concerned about the future of their fund accounting.
Post-Installation Interview
The following is an excerpt of a post-installation interview with Grayslake staff members involved in operation, installation and maintenance of the software. These people included the following:
Barbara Dalton-Finance Coordinator, Ray Bagdasarian-Network Technician, Mary Lou Wilbois-Business Assistant, Helen Parkinson-Software Technician and Dan Lee-Hardware Technician.
Evaluating the Alternatives
DataTeam: “What were your thoughts when you received the notification that DataTeam intended to stop developing on the Macintosh and eventually halt support of that platform as well?”
Ray : “We started looking down the road at both software and vendor alternatives.”
Barb: “Since we had to change anyhow, it made sense to look and see what else was out there. We looked at some alternatives that were pretty nice, but nothing that had all of the features we wanted at a price we were willing to spend.”
Mary Lou: “In addition to not finding any affordable software we wanted, we really liked DataTeam’s support and did not want to change vendors if we could avoid it. It looked like that if we stayed with DataTeam we would have to switch our Macs to PCs. Then we got a letter from DataTeam that introduced a product called Hoblink (JWT from Hobsoft. Hobsoft says Hoblink provides platform-independent, Java-based Access to MS Windows Terminal Servers. (http://www.hobsoft.com/ ). This of course meant that we could buy a PC server and keep our Macs.”
Ray : “We tried Hoblink JWT, but eventually migrated to Remote Desktop Connecting Client by Microsoft. It has the advantage of working better, having more features and being native to OS 10; and the product is free.”
The Microsoft® Remote Desktop Client® has other benefits as well. It does not require a large amount of bandwidth, a user can be configured with as little as 56K and it supports 128KB encryption. This allows Mary Lou to work from home on her laptop, and even though she has DSL she could use a dial up if she had to.
Setting up the PC server is very simple and can be accomplished by almost any computer technician. There are some things to watch out for, mostly related to Microsoft’s licensing rules. We got a very helpful PowerPoint presentation from our CDW representative.
Finally, I agree with Mary Lou’s comments about DataTeam’s support. I deal with numerous vendors and the response and the expertise of DataTeam is the best I have encountered.”
Helen: “My job entails looking at technology from the user’s viewpoint, and the remote desktop connection works very well and the speed is phenomenal. The only complaint I had originally was that my 17-inch monitor was not fully utilized by the software. We later found out how to configure it and that issue [was] resolved.”
Barb: “Putting in the PC server helped us in Special Ed. The software that they needed to produce state reports only runs on PCs. Our experience with Hoblink and Remote Desktop Client gave us the expertise to get them going quickly.”
Ray : “When the Special Ed trainers came out they were really impressed with the way our server was working and will likely use this solution at other Mac schools in the future.”
Dan: “The best advice I can give any potential users is ‘Beware of the administrative user.’ If a user with administrator privileges signs on, they can make changes that affect everyone using Remote Desktop Client. Figuring that out was one of the only problems we had during this project.”
Ray : “We spent quite a bit of time on Microsoft’s web site looking for information, but we got the most help from CDW.”
Helen: “Go to Mactopia.com. This link takes you directly to the Mac pages. (Mactopia.com is a Microsoft site specifically for Mac users.)”
DataTeam: “It is apparent the switch to a PC server worked well, but what about the new fund accounting software, FA2 , how is it working?”
Mary Lou: “We love it, it is phenomenally fast. It used to take me 45 minutes to an hour to calculate payroll, now it takes 45 seconds. The new IMRF report works great. I used to spend an hour and a half, now it is just a click. I am thrilled to death!”
Barb: “I spend a lot of time looking at reports and budgets. I now get them almost instantaneously. I can’t tell that I am running my software on a PC server instead of the Mac.”
Ray: “The differences between this alternative and virtual PC are night and day.”
DataTeam: “What’s next?”
Helen: “The next application that we plan to implement is HR, which we hope to do in a couple of days.”
Barb: “We plan on giving secretaries in the other buildings access to create purchase orders.”
DataTeam: “Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences with us.” Microsoft and Microsoft Remote Desktop Client are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. | 
