Datasafe functionality and suggested backup regime

This support note applies to:

• AE Practice Manager (AU)

• Timecost (AU)

• Profiles (AU)

• AE Tax Series 6 & 8 (AU)

This article is an overview of the suggested backup strategy for sites using the MYOB Accountants Enterprise Datasafe module to backup Profiles, Timecost, and AETax data.

The article details the suggested backup strategy that MYOB recommend.

An overview of how Datasafe works

When you click the Backup Now button in Datasafe, you have 2 options for backing up: 

• Regular: If you backup in a cycle.  The oldest backup in the cycle will be eventually overwritten by the latest Datasafe backup.

• Special:  If a special backup is selected, this backup will never be overwritten.

Backups done through the MYOB Accountants Enterprise Datasafe module are checked for integrity as part of the back up process.  The Datasafe backups actually utilise the Check Now utility in the process of the backup, and a backup will not be successfully complete if there are problems found with the data.

 If a backup does not successfully complete, you will receive a message 'Backup has been cancelled due to errors", and the system will prompt you to view the log file.  This file will contain relevant details on the problem that has been found.

• • See Error: "Backup has been cancelled due to errors" for more details. 

  • Also see Fbackup error in Datasafe

Other Datasafe items that can be set up from the 'Options' area

You can also set up the following in Datasafe from the Options Button:

• You can set Datasafe to run an automatic backup upon starting up Contacts after a set amount of days if a datasafe backup has not been done in that time frame.

• You can set up the number of backups in your regular backup cycle before the oldest backup will be over written.

• Email notifications from the Notifications tab in the Options area. See KB28555: "How do I setup email notification for backup failure?"
  

Suggested Backup Regime when using Datasafe

MYOB recommends that you should run a backup regime at least every working day or night at minimum.  MYOB also recommends that you manually check every day or night that the Datasafe backup has run by accessing Datasafe and checking the Current Online backups window

Datasafe backup:

• This is an 'Online' Backup, which means that the data is stored on the server HDD in the main data directory under the folder Backup\Group0. 
  

To locate the root data directory, access Contacts (or Client Compliance) > Help > About MYOB Contacts (or Client Compliance) > Application Details, and note the Data Location.

• The backup will be an 8 character name which can be both numeric and alpha characters, and the date modified will be the date the backup was completed.

• Apart from the checking of the data, the other main advantage of the Datasafe backup is that you can restore data if need be, by clicking the Restore button in the Datasafe main screen and selecting the restore option. This will then be done automatically. If it has to be done manually it is a much bigger task, as each site has different data configurations based on their licensed products.

• You can utilise Scheduling tools in Microsoft operating systems to create scheduled backups for Datasafe.  For details see Scheduling DataSafe to back up one or more databases.

Offline or Tape backup:

• Offline backups are specifically for Disaster recovery.  i.e. if a server HDD fails or there is a natural disaster (Flood, Fire etc) or a Server crash etc.

• This backup is not supported or managed by MYOB, and we would refer you to your system administrator or 3rd party IT support for setting this up and maintaining it.

MYOB strongly recommendeds that you use both of these options together for maximum data integrity.