Question

You want to know the best way to devise a robust backup scheme for your ACT! databases and support files.

Answer

As with all electronic data, it is advisable to make frequent backups of your ACT! database. If you do this, you will be able to recover from unexpected disasters. To simplify the process of backing up your data, ACT! comes with an integrated backup utility. The ACT! backup utility allows you to easily back up all of the data files associated with a database and to restore your backup if necessary. For more specific instructions on performing the actual backup or restore, refer to the following document:

Title: How to Backup and Restore Your ACT! Database
View This Document

It is also important to perform regular maintenance on your ACT! database to keep it running efficiently. If you do not perform maintenance on your database, your data can become corrupt. For more information about database maintenance, refer to the following document:

Title: How to Perform Database Maintenance on an ACT! Database
View This Document

Backup Planning
Backing up your data needs to be performed on a regular basis. You need to plan your backups based on the following considerations:

• Backup media (diskette, tape, etc.) is less reliable than your system hard drive.
• Your most recent backup (assuming daily backups) may have the same problem as your current database.
• Backups stored on-site are not safe from natural disasters.

The minimum backup plan is often called the grandfather, father, son method. This scheme uses three backup sets (a set might be a single Zip disk, or might be multiple floppies, depending on your backup media). Label these sets Backup A, Backup B and Backup C. Use them as follows:

1. Day 1 - use Backup A

2. Day 2 - use Backup B

3. Day 3 - use Backup C

4. Day 4 - use Backup A

5. Day 5 - use Backup B

6. Etc.

This method addresses both media reliability and a potentially corrupt backup. However, unless you carry the backups off-site daily, you are still vulnerable to a fire or other disaster destroying both your original and your backups at the same time.

A better scheme would employ five sets of backup disks, labeled Monday through Friday. Perform your daily backups using the appropriate set. Then on each Friday, perform a second backup to a separate set labeled for the week. Store the week backup in a safe location off-site. Once you have established your backup media rotation, always keep at least the two most recent weekly backups safely secured off-site.

These are two possible backup schemes. You may want to devise a custom scheme that is better suited to your needs.

Backing up an ACT! 6.0, 5.0 (2000), or 4.0 database
The following are the requirements for backing up an ACT! database:

• The database to be backed up is the currently opened database.
• If it is a multi-user database, all other users must be logged out of the database.
• You must have Administrator security rights to the database (you automatically have Administrator rights to a single user database).

Note: If you receive a message advising that the database cannot be locked, refer to the following document:

Title: Error Messages that Refer to Locking the Database
View This Document

When you perform backup, ACT! copies and compresses the currently open database files into a single backup file with a .zip file extension. This backup file is then written to the location you specified when you setup the backup operation. In addition to the database itself, other supporting ACT! data such as layouts, reports, etc. are included by default in the backup file. (as illustrated below)

Note: ACT! 4.0 limited the support files to envelopes, labels, reports and layouts. ACT! 6.0 and 5.0 (2000) added templates, documents, attached e-mail and SideACT! data.

Restoring a Database
At some point, you may need to restore a backup copy of a database. There are a variety of reasons why you may need to restore your database:

• You need to move a database from one system to another. For example, from a desktop to a laptop computer.
• You may have inadvertently purged records that you need to refer to.
• A hardware or software problem may have corrupted your data.
• You want to test the validity of your backup.

Restoring the backup is as simple as opening the backup copy and saving it to the original database location.

Note: If you backed up your ACT! database to multiple disks, make sure you have all of the disks available before you begin the restoration process. ACT! will ask you to insert each disk during the backup process. The restoration will go quicker if you insert the last disk first.

Tip: If you are performing a restore to test the validity of your backup, create a Restore Test folder to receive the restored database before starting the restoration process. This lets you validate the restore without affecting your working database.

1. Open ACT!. You do not need to have a database open to restore one.

2. Click the File menu, then click Restore. The Restore dialog appears.

3. If your backup is on removable media (such as a floppy or Iomega disk), insert the last disk in the appropriate drive. The last disk in a multi-disk backup set contains the table of contents for each of the disks in the set.

4. Enter the filename of the backup file you wish to restore:

·   If you created the backup on this computer, the file name and path to the backup file may be available to click in the File to restore drop-down list. The four most recent backups are available in the list.

·   Otherwise, click the Browse button. Navigate to the location where your backup file is stored, click on the backup file, then click Open.

5. Specify the location in which to restore the backup with the To folder field:

·   If you have previously restored a backup, ACT! displays the name of the last location it restored to. The four most recent restoration folders are available in the To folder drop-down list.

·   Otherwise, click Browse and navigate to the folder where you would like to restore the backup, then click OK.

Tip: If you are restoring to test the validity of your backup, be sure to select the Restore Test folder you created previously.

6. When the File to restore and To folder fields are populated correctly, click Start. The following ACT! dialog appears:

7. Click Yes to close the current database and begin the restoration process and open the restored database


.

8. A progress indicator appears while ACT! restores your backup. You may receive confirmation dialogs about overwriting existing files (as illustrated above). This occurs because you are restoring either your database or supporting files such as layouts, envelopes, reports, and other optional items to locations where those files already exist (this could be because your working copy of the database is damaged and you are reverting to a backup). Answer the overwrite questions as appropriate (this will be determined by whether you intend to overwrite the working database, and if you have customized the support files since creating your last backup).

Note: If you included support files in an ACT! 4.0 backup, the support files will be restored to the same folder as the database. ACT! 6.0 and 5.0 (2000) restore the support files to the default locations specified for a particular type of file. You can verify those locations by clicking the Edit menu, then clicking Preferences. Under the General tab, examine the Default locations for each File type.

Tip: If you only wish to restore the database, you must click No on each overwrite confirmation dialog.

9. When the restoration is complete, ACT! opens the restored database.