How to back up/restore the Acctivate Database.

Acctivate makes the process of backing up your database quick, simple and painless. Below, we'll show you how easy it is to backup your company database using our demo company "Southwestern Industries"

Need to restore the database? Click here to automatically scroll down to the restore section.

Backing up your Database:

1. In Acctivate, click on "File" on the top menu, and then click "Backup Company"
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2. The "Backup Company Data" window will appear. This window contains the following fields:
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      1. Backup File- The name of your backup file. Usually this will be Acctivate$Company.bkf but can be renamed. Renaming the file will create a new "set" of backups. The old file will be renamed allowing your new .bkf file to retain the same name as the last one.

1. 1. 1. "View Sets" button- Clicking this will populate the box below with all sets in that .bkf file. A "set" is a backup restore point within the backup file.

1. 1. 1. Overwrite Existing Sets- Starting in version 13.0, this box will be checked by default. When checked, Acctivate will overwrite the backup file and any sets within it. When unchecked, a backup "set" or restore point, will be appended to the backup file. This increases the backup file size. Rather than create a backup file with multiple sets, you may want to consider changing the Backup File name, e.g., append it with the date, so that a new backup file is created. 
      2. Backup Description- The name of the set you're creating. For example, if you're about to import in data, you can name the set "Pre-Import" to know that that set was created before import so you can go back to it if needed.
      3. Sets- The blank box in the image is populated with the various sets of the .bkf file. The .bkf file can contain as many sets as desired so that you can rollback to whichever set is needed. We recommend no more than 10 sets to keep your backups running quick and smooth. 
      4. Backup Path- This is the path that your .bkf file is saved at. If you ever need to locate the file, you can do so by navigating to this path. This path is fixed and can only be changed with the use of Microsoft SQL Management Studio or via the use of the registry. Please refer here for more instructions.

1. Once you click "Start Backup" you'll receive a prompt informing you that "Company [name] will be backed up to the standard backup location. Any existing backup for this company will be appended to." Click Yes to proceed.
   1. Please Note: If you have checked "Overwrite existing sets" then the prompt will say "Any existing backup for this company will be deleted"
2. Once you approve the backup, the database will begin to backup. A green progress bar will appear letting you know the progress. Larger company databases will take longer, as will company's with more than 10 backup sets.
3. Once the backup is completed, you'll receive a message informing you that the backup is complete as well as the path the file can be found at.

After that, you're done! Acctivate will be successfully backed up. It is highly recommended that you take that file and copy it to a safe location offsite, rather that be on OneDrive, Google Drive, or a USB drive. This will ensure that even in the event of hardware failure, or ransomware, you'll still have your backup.

Restoring your database

If you ever find yourself in the case that you must restore from a backup, rather it be from a failed import, ransomware, hardware failure, etc. Restoring your database is as easy as backing it up. Below we'll demonstrate how easy that is with our demo company Southwestern Industries. In this scenario a data import went terrible wrong and now all product ID's have been renamed.

1. Open the "Acctivate Database Maintenance" program. This program should be in the same folder as the "Acctivate" program. You can also search on the Windows Taskbar for "Database."
2. From the Database maintenance program, click on "Database" on the top menu bar and then click "Backup / Restore." You can also hit "Ctrl+B" on your keyboard to open this.
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3. Select your company from the "Company" drop down menu. 
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4. Click the "Restore" radio button to tell Acctivate that you're restoring, not backing up.
5. If the "Backup File" is not as expected, click the magnifying glass icon to pull up file explorer so you can search for the correct .bkf file.
6. Highlight the desired set (in our case, we're choosing "Pre-Import.)" You'll also be able to see the date and database.
7. When ready, click on "Start Restore"
8. You'll receive a prompt informing you "The backup file "[FILE_NAME] in the specified location will be restored to the database for Company '[NAME].' All current data will be replaced and will not be recoverable. Do you wish to proceed?
   1. Here you should verify that the file name is the correct file and the company name is the correct company.
9. A green progress bar will appear informing you of the progress of the restore. Larger databases will take longer to restore, and the program may hang and become unresponsive. This is to be expected. Do NOT force close the app while a restore happens.

You're finished! You've successfully restored your database to a backup. You can log into your company and resume work from that previous backup now as if nothing ever happened.