Select this option if you want database validations on remote sites to attempt to directly connect to the referenced databases. This option is useful if you are replicating databases at remote sites, or if you want to allow ODBC network access from remote sites into a central site database or any database that is not local.

If you select this option, all remote site workstations must have the necessary permissions for the database and/or ODBC source specified, as well as necessary network access for those connections.

Select this option if you want database validations on remote sites to connect to the referenced databases through the KCN Server. The KCN Service must have access to the referenced databases. This option is useful if you do not want to replicate databases locally, or you do not have direct access to the target database from the remote site.

If the database validations for your batch are repetitive (the same data is repeatedly retrieved from the database), you may find it advantageous to cache these results for each KCN Service. One or more KCN Services may be activated and used for this purpose. Each KCN service stores its cache independently. Once a remote site connects to an KCN service to perform a database validation, the system continues to use the same KCN service to perform all subsequent lookups unless the KCN service becomes unavailable. If that occurs, the system attempts to use another available KCN service.

Do not cache KCN Service lookup results

Select this option if you do not want to cache database validation results within an KCN service. If your database lookup results are highly variable, this may be the best option.

Each KCN Service caches lookup results

Select this option to enable KCN Service-based caching of database validation results. If your database lookup results are frequently the same, this may be the best option. When this option is selected, the data is stored in memory within an active KCN Service. If you also have the Each workstation caches lookup results option selected, the data is cached within the KCN Service and also within cache at the workstation.

Number of results to cache per KCN Service

This setting controls how many lookup result sets you want to keep in the KCN Service cache. You can select from 1 to 5000 results (the default is 100). If the specified number of result sets is exceeded, the oldest result set in the cache is discarded and the newest result set is added. Therefore, the cache always contains the most recently used result sets.

Discard cached results after period of time

Select this option if you want to clear the cache and start fresh from time to time. If the contents of the source database are relatively static, there may be no advantage to flushing the cache. However, if the database contents are highly dynamic, the workstation cache may drift out of synchronization with the database.

For example, suppose a customer database is updated nightly, and you want the cache to reflect the updated records at the beginning of the next day. In this case, you might set this option to discard the cache every 12 hours (720 minutes). By the time workers arrive the next day, results from the prior day are discarded from the cache.

You can specify a period of up to 1440 minutes (24 hours) in one minute increments. The default is 60 minutes.