Back up problems...

peabodyumc · Post by **peabodyumc** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:16 pm

We have used PC v9 since 2005. I am the volunteer church treasurer and the church secretary takes care of inputting the donations. SHe does that on the church computer then makes a back up that I bring home and restore to my computer where I take care of the books -- then I backup my computer and we restore to the church computer. Its worked pretty well but I discovered early on that even though I perform a back up the data wasn't always "there" when I went to restore it to the other computer. So I always verify the data after performing a back up and have taught her to do it as well.

Last month we upgraded to v10 and have noticed a couple things. She needed a new contribution account so from my home computer I added it. After she had restored from my back up it wasn't there. THen tonight I went by the church and backed up (we back up to CD-RW) her computer, verified it and then restored it to my computer. In checking the deposits against the reports she has printed I discovered that the the last deposit in the system is from 4/4. I have printed reports of 4 other contribution deposits that were made since then but there is no record of them on my computer now that I have restored it.

I haven't driven back to the church to see if they are on her computer but I assume they are since I have the printed reports. Now that I think about it there have been some other strange occurrences before v10. She enters contributions but I post them after I receive the deposit form back from the bank. There have been times when I have posted contributions from my home, backed up and let her restore to her computer. A few weeks later I will discover that these deposits are still sitting in unposted and the checks that i entered at the same time are no longer there.

We ALWAYS back up everything but it appears it isn't always backing up everything. We have 2 CDs that we rotate and I discovered a long time ago that after so many back ups I get error messages. So after there are about 10 or so back ups on the disc I reformat it and start fresh.

Any ideas why I am not getting information back and forth between the computers? I have entered TOOOOO many checks to go back to the church and do another back up and try again. It is easier to enter all the contributions from the reports all over again but it concerns me that I have to do this.

Thanks for your help.

Laurie

Post by **Zorak** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:12 am

We have not heard of any problems, v9 or 10, with files not being backed up properly. Since the backup and restore process is dealing with the whole data file, there isn't a chance that certain transactions wouldn't make it into the backup.

Are all of your backups of the type "All Data Files" or sometimes do you backup only "Contributions" or "Accounting"? This would explain some things being overwritten on the church computer and other things not being overwritten.

peabodyumc · Post by **peabodyumc** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:29 pm

No - we have always done the default of all data files and pictures even though we don't have a single picture in the system!!! Last night I considered trying something different because in the process of re-entering contributions, I discovered that we had a few guests on Easter. I could enter their names and assign them the same envelope number because it was on the report but I didn't have any address information. I did tell the secretary to be sure she got that out of her computer before restoring my backup or it is gone.

So I guess, to prevent that from happening again we will have to begin doing two back ups - one of accounting and one of contributions. That SHOULD capture all the information including PR, AP and AR should it not? If so, that would be a fix for a situation like last night where I had to add contributions all over again. But I am hoping someone can help us figure out why we aren't getting complete backups in the first place.

I did two last night and told her to restore one, check that all contributions through Sunday have been posted and if not try restoring the second one.

Thanks.

Laurie

tborgal · Post by **tborgal** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:33 am

This may sound crazy, but when you upgraded to V10 did you leave the V9 icon on the desktop and one of you is using v9 by mistake??

Just a thought.

NeilZ · Post by **NeilZ** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:52 am

Great thought Tom !! That has happened before during these changeovers.

Laurie,

I would still do the COMPLETE backup and restores. However, the Secretary must realize that she cannot do any additions or updates to the system until you do the restore.

I also re-read your first posting here. From the lost of data, it sounds like someone is restoring the church computer from a previous backup once in a while. What needs to be done is that when the backup is restored to the church computer from CD, the Secretary (or whoever does the restore) should do an IMMEDIATE backup to the church network for restoration from that point if necessary.

I think I may have pointed this out before, but budgeting for something like GoToMyPC, which allows you to work on the church network from home, would eliminate this sort of data loss and overlay.

Post by **Zorak** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:35 am

Another recommendation, rather than doing CO only backup, is to use the Mailing List, Profiles, and Contributions backup type. This will help catch any new contributors that were added.

Of course, any existing information in those three modules will still be overwritten when the backup is restored.

peabodyumc · Post by **peabodyumc** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:31 am

Tom - No I removed the v9 shortcut to make sure that she didn't grab the wrong one. So that isn't an issue.

Neil - Only the secretary and I have ever restored or backed up the computers. No one else in the church knows anything about the program. Any time I do a back up on my computer, I always leave the CD with a note that she needs to restore before she does anything in PC. I always leave the note because sometimes I take the CD and then am unable to make any changes so I take it back to her letting her know that she doesn't need to do anything except back up her computer after she works. So I leave a note with instructions each time.

But that doesn't mean that one of us didn't accidentally pull the wrong backup. Maybe I'll try to delete all the backups on the CD except the latest one to see if that might have been our problem.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Laurie

NeilZ · Post by **NeilZ** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:08 am

peabodyumc wrote:Tom - No I removed the v9 shortcut to make sure that she didn't grab the wrong one. So that isn't an issue.

Neil - Only the secretary and I have ever restored or backed up the computers. No one else in the church knows anything about the program. Any time I do a back up on my computer, I always leave the CD with a note that she needs to restore before she does anything in PC. I always leave the note because sometimes I take the CD and then am unable to make any changes so I take it back to her letting her know that she doesn't need to do anything except back up her computer after she works. So I leave a note with instructions each time.

But that doesn't mean that one of us didn't accidentally pull the wrong backup. Maybe I'll try to delete all the backups on the CD except the latest one to see if that might have been our problem.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Laurie

If you're relying on only one CD to do the backups on, then I would definitely think about using more than one, but at least four, IMHO.

#1. To do the transfers back and forth ... thi s would NOT become the official backup CD, and would not be kept at church, you would carry this one back and forth.

#2. The On-Site backup rewriteable CD. This CD will contain the weekly backup that is created when you restore the church machine with your updates. This remains at church for emergency restores. This backup CD should be used for any Daily backups made between the weekly backups.

#3 A Historical Backup CD. This CD will contain a weekly backup made of the church machine when you restore your updates. This is kept separate for historical records.

#4 An Off-Site backup CD, this is basically #3 that contains the weekly backups for historical, as well as emergency restoration. If something happens at church you will have this safely off-site so that you can reconstruct all church records if ever necessary.