HELP: how to setup Alesis MIDI controller in SONAR

I have not seen templates/instructions for this controller. But I can try to help.
 
1. Wheels should work as keys by default. If they do not, check Sonar Preferences / MIDI / Playback and Recording / Record section. "Controller" and "Pitch Wheel" should be "checked.
If still no luck (and you have not assigned Modulation wheel in Control Surface plug-in...), open Alesis editor and check what the wheel is sending. That is configurable. "ModWheel" is CC#01, default setting. Also check which MIDI channel is used for keys and wheels, it should be the same (I guess default is "1" for all).
 
2. To make things a bit simpler, do not use "Instrument track" in Sonar, make separate SoftSynth track and 16 MIDI tracks (all routed to one SampleTank), one per channel. On each track, in the track inspector, set the channel (combo-box with "C"). That way, whatever comes to this track or recorded, at the output is converted to specific MIDI channel. So, to change th "channel" you just need to select corresponding MIDI track (see later).
 
3. For the DAW (any, in this case Sonar), you configure the transport and track selection. The rest (individual instruments volume/pan, etc) is better to do inside SampleTank (till you in addition to 16 MIDI tracks create 16 output tracks). You can do this:
* using "ACT MIDI" Control Surface plug-in, assigning  to the transport and "Next/Previous" track. See corresponding documentation in Sonar Reference guide (2000+ pages PDF, not short version), a bit tricky even with the guide, but manageable to understand how to proceed (too cryptic without reading first...)
* using AZ Controller (see my signature). Way more tricky then previous suggestion, but with more possibilities (f.e. assign 16 buttons to select corresponding tracks directly).
 
4. (any) DAW has too little control over SoftSynth. So the rest should be assigned specifically for SampleTank.
There is one warning... CC messages can clash, so if you let say just "Learn" something but the same message is used for something else, one control will modify both settings.
So I suggest to configure Alesis using its editor to IK default settings. Check SampleTank documentation, "Settings" /"Remote" and "Control" dialogs inside the plug-in for required numbers. Note that MIDI channel is forced on track level (if you follow my proposal (2)). So you can leave knobs/buttons on channel 1 in Alesis.
 
I hope that helps (if completely stuck, we can try to meet online with Skype/Teamviewer, will take ~30m to setup).